From the very beginning of construction of the canal, municipalities operated schools for the workers’ dependents. At first, five schools accommodated 140 white children and over 1,000 blacks in racially mixed schools with segregated classrooms. Most children rode the train to school. As part of an administrative centralization in 1906, the municipalities were extinguished and schools put under a white superintendent. By mid-1906 four schools had entirely white student bodies, while the other twenty-three were mixed but predominately black.
In order to improve morale among American Parents, the white schools were expanded to twenty-eight by 1908, so that few white children had to ride the trains. Black schools dropped to only nineteen, even though they had five times the white enrollment.The average class size in the colored schools were 115, but after the canal construction was completed in 1915 the class size was lowered to 65. Also, toward the end of construction, officials set up vocational studies for the balcks, so that they could move onto the lowest rungs of the employment ladder. The curriculum was tailored for social control. The evil administrators assumed that the Silvermen's children were intellectually deficient,
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Few people at the time realized that the WIs and not americans, paid the taxes that sustained all of the Zone schools. In other words, the nonwhites paid for the whites’ quality education while their own children got inferior schooling. In other words, the whites’ instrument of social control was apid for by the controlled.
As you know, however, when the Silvermen's children came of age they would prove the evildoers wrong as they took control control of the colored school system/curriculum on behalf of their children.
Averag Daily Attendance in Canal Zone Schools, 1905 - 1975
# of Students | 10,000 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1,000 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 100 | | | | | | | | | | 1905 | 1915 | 1925 | 1935 | 1945 | 1955 | 1965 | 1975 |
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Key: ______ White Schools ______ Colored Schools
Sources: Canal Record, 3 March 1920, p.240; A. Webster papers, table 7, 9, 12, and Governor, Annual Reports, various years.
To put the numbers of the above chart in perspective, it is necessary to note that between 1904 and 1909 most recruits to build the canal signed contract that were notorized by colonial officials The contracts (See table below.) stipulated minimum wages and benefits and included free repariation. Until 1909 recruiters paid the fare to Colón. Afterwardm sufficient numbers migrated voluntarily to discontinue recruiting in the West Indies, and contracts altoghether. Canal management would hire men on the docks in Colón, and two or three independents showed up for every contract man. Canal official would take advantage of this labor surplus to lower the minimum wage 25%, eliminate overtime, and deduct passage over from wages. Officially, canal authorities brought over 31,000 WI men and a few women. But in fact, it is reported that between 150,000 and 200,00 men and women must have migrated during the construction era, for in most years some 20,000 WIs were on the canal payroll and turn over was high. Contemporaries estimated that only about a third of the WI community worked for the canal at any moment. The rest were dependents or had jobs and businesses in Panama's terminal cities.
Sample Contracts for WI laborers, 1904 - 1908
| | 1904 | 1906 | 1907 | 1907 | 1907 | 1908 |
| Where issued | Barbados | Barbados | Barbados | Trinidad | Barbados | Barbados |
| Lenth of service | 500 days | 500 days | 4,500 hrs. | 4,500 hrs. | 500 days | 500 days |
| Minimum wage | $.75/day | $.80/day | $.10/hr. | $.10/hr. | $1.00/day | $.75/day |
| Work week | 6x10 | 6x8 | 6x10 | 6x10 | 6x10 | 6x10 |
| Overtime | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 |
| Medical care | free | free | free | free | free | free |
| Unfurnished apartment | free | free | free | free | free | free |
| Trip over | deducted from wages | free | free | free | free | deducted from wages |
| Return trip | free | free | free | free | free | free |
Source: varies
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