Slavery in the Colonies
Out of all the demographic differences between the North and the South, the most prominent difference of all was without a doubt slave population. The South clearly had a greater amount of slavery due to its agricultural economy. They needed slave labor to work the fields, and depended on that labor to run their economy. The North however, with a more industrialized economy, did not have that need for large imports of slaves. So, labor force needs were main contributers to the difference in slave population.
Now, the reason why this connects to education is that in this period it was
unnacceptable to educate African-Americans. They were seen as the inferior race in society, regardless of the region; North or South. They were seen to be alien and ignorant, and unworthy of any formal education. Although some slaves were taught by their masters or other people, most of slaves and African-Americans did not recieve education. Therefore, since the majority of the population in the South was comprised of African-Americans unlike the North, the South had less educational institutions. Simply put, there were less people that were "qualified" to be educated in the South. This major demographic difference in population further exemplifies the difference between the importance and amount of eduation in the two regions. |