This official reported[88] in 1878 that the law in relation to the public schools for Negro children had been repeatedly evaded and violated during the two preceding years, and that a wicked and malicious advantage was being taken of the ignorance and the weakness of the Negro to shield the law-breaker who was using the money appropriated by the law for the education of the Negro youth. The method of evasion was fully described. In the first place, there was a failure to enumerate a sufficient number of Negroes of school age before the convening of the annual school meeting. After the meeting, when the directors were appealed to, they required the production of evidence that there was a sufficient number and then required time to look into the evidence which took a month or more. They would then inform the Negroes that it was too late to do anything that year, that they should have attended to the matter before the annual school meeting and that they must attend to it in time the following year. In many cases while the money due the Negroes was being used for other purposes, they were promised schools for the next year which the directors did not intend to give them. Sometimes the directors promised well and were then unable to find teachers or they disagreed with the Negroes concerning the site of the school. The year would thus elapse and a new board knowing nothing of the promises of the old board would be elected. The same course would then be followed sometimes with a little variation to suit the emergency. Finally the case would be brought to the State Superintendent and after an annoying and repeated correspondence to collect the facts in the case and to explain the law, the officers were induced to comply with the law by threats of its execution. In counties at a distance from the capital this threat was frequently of no avail because the Negroes were either induced to drop the matter by promises of future fulfillment, were unwilling to proceed to law, or lacked intelligent leadership. The next year the State Superintendent complained that the demand upon this functionary to establish Negro schools in districts which neglected to fulfill the law required an undue amount of his time. The legislature which met that year, therefore, removed from the State Superintendent the responsibility of enforcing this law. But it provided[89] that any school district which neglected to establish a Negro school or schools according to the law should be deprived of any portion of the State school funds for that year. This was a severe punishment in a State having as large a school fund as Missouri has.[90]