There is evidence to show that the State Superintendent used his power to establish Negro schools when the local authorities neglected this task. In 1873, he reported:[32] "I have established between 50 and 60 Negro schools in the State without resorting to the expedient of a tax as indicated and authorized by law." In 1875 he reported: "I have levied taxes for Negro schools in three instances. The medicine is good and effective and I trust it will be administered in every similar case in the State until the Negroes enjoy schools equally good in every way as the white schools." Thus we see that by the Law of 1868 the State Superintendent had the power to remedy conditions as far as the Negroes were concerned but there was no evidence to show that he used this power prior to 1872, although there are reports of violations of the law. In 1874 there was passed a law[33] which made a school official subject to a fine of not less than fifty or more than five hundred dollars, for the persistent neglect or refusal to perform any duty or duties pertaining to his office. In view of this and the offensiveness of the results threatened in the civil rights bill,[34] the State Superintendent[35] was astonished at the number of delinquencies and persistent evasions of the law. The Commissioner of Education was able to report in 1870: "This State has a larger proportion of schools[36] for Negro children than any former slave State. Opposition to the education of the Negroes is rapidly disappearing. Their rapid improvement and good conduct help to disarm prejudice." Among the methods of evading the law the following were reported; the failure to enumerate the Negro children, the complaints of a lack of funds, and the plea of an inability to secure teachers. In 1875 the State Superintendent reported[37] that the citizens of Calloway County, the most strongly southern county in the State during the Civil War, were evincing the greatest readiness to provide good schools for their large Negro population. This, he believed, augured well for the future of the Negro schools of the State, since it indicated a growing kindly disposition of the southern element of the State towards them. How great was the change in sentiment can be readily seen by contrasting this report with those of the county superintendent for 1866 and 1867. In 1866 the Superintendent of Calloway reported[38] much objection to public schools in that county on account of the impartial application to children of all races and colors. The only Negro school in the county had been established under very discouraging circumstances at Fulton. In many rural districts there were not enough children to permit the establishment of a school and in other districts the existing opposition to Negro schools made their establishment impossible. The next year it was reported[39] that the white schools were better fitted for pigs than for children and that there was no interest at