Reviews Horace Mann Bond's doctoral dissertation and encourages contemporary readers to return to this original work. Briefly describes the personal and historiographical circumstances surrounding the book's publication. Concludes by comparing Bond's work to subsequent Reconstructionist history and the larger stream of work in Black History. (BR)

Examines the contradictory and often negative assessment of black teachers in the pre-World War II South by black leaders and civil rights advocates. Black leaders criticized teachers for being at best, poorly trained, and at worst, willing tools of socialized oppression. Asserts that the teachers performed well under difficult conditions. (MJP)