With few exceptions, I found that the crops were mortgaged in the counties where I went, and that the most of the coloured farmers were in debt.

The state had not been able to build schoolhouses in the country districts, and, as a rule, the schools were taught in churches or in log cabins.
More than once, while on my journeys, I found that there was no provision made in the house used for school purposes for heating the building during the winter, and consequently a fire had to be built in the yard, and teacher and pupils passed in and out of the house as they got cold or warm.

With few exceptions, I found the teachers in these country schools to be miserably poor in preparation for their work, and poor in moral character.

The schools were in session from three to five months.

There was practically no apparatus in the schoolhouses, except that occasionally there was a rough blackboard.