Page size: 16 x 11 inches.
Caption:
"There is a
negro school at Meherrin Station, on the Richmond and Danville
Railroad, where the teachers receive scholars of all ages and both
sexes. Mr. Arvine, of Lunenberg, had an old cook, 71 years of
age, who took it into her head to learn to speak and write the English
language correctly; so she entered the school, and bringing her ten
cents per day and regularly paying it over to the teachers, she got
along very well until, perhaps, at the end of the second week, she
missed her lesson, and was kept in in play time. The idea!
an old negro seventy-odd years of age kept in in play time"
-- Danville (Va.) Times.
Notes: The basis of the joke in this cartoon is the
incongruity of an elderly person as an elementary
school student and, even more, one kept inside at
recess. Underneath the humor, though, is the
disheartening fact that an entire segment of the
American population—slaves—were prevented from
acquiring even a rudimentary education - pointing to the great
yearning for formal knowledge that pervaded all
age groups among the freed people, and to the hope
they invested in education.