Owing to the printers' strike the publication of Dr. C.G. Woodson's illustrated textbook, _The Negro in our History_, has been delayed. It is highly probable that the volume will appear before spring. THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY VOL. V--APRIL, 1920--NO. 2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEGRO PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM IN MISSOURI[1] THE PERIOD FROM 1865 TO 1875 On Tuesday, the eleventh day of January, 1865, the Negro of Missouri awoke a slave; that night he retired a free man.[2] His darkest hour had passed but before him loomed a great task, that of living up to the requirements of a man. His emancipators were confronted with the responsibility of preparing him for his new duties and for the proper use of suffrage which was to be granted him a few years later. Prior to 1865 the State had seen fit to prohibit the education[3] of the slave because, although the educated slave was the more efficient, yet he was the more dangerous; as his training might aid him to make a better revolt against his position. But the qualities which were objectionable in the slave were necessary to the freed man, if he was to prove other than a menace to the State. His emancipators faced the education of the Negro fairly, and the same convention which had passed the Emancipation Act of 1865, drew up a new State constitution which was ratified the same year. This constitution[4] provided for the establishment and the maintenance of free public schools for the instruction of all persons in the State who were between the ages of five and twenty-one. It further provided that all funds for the support of the public schools should be appropriated in proportion to the number of children without regard to color.