[Footnote 2: Minutes of the Fourth Annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color, p. 27.]

[Footnote 3: Minutes of the Third Annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color, p. 34.]

[Footnote 4: The Abolitionist (November 1833), p. 191.]

[Footnote 5: The Liberator, October 22, 1831.]

Before these well-laid plans could mature, however, unexpected opposition developed in New Haven. Indignation meetings were held, protests against this project were filed, and the free people of color were notified that the institution was not desired in Connecticut.[1] It was said that these memorialists feared that a colored college so near to Yale might cause friction between the two student bodies, and that the school might attract an unusually large number of undesirable Negroes. At their meeting the citizens of New Haven resolved "That the founding of colleges for educating colored people is an unwarrantable and dangerous undertaking to the internal concerns of other states and ought to be discouraged, and that the mayor, aldermen, common council, and freemen will resist the movement by every lawful means."[2] In view of such drastic action the promoters had to abandon their plan. No such protests were made by the citizens of New Haven, however, when the colonizationists were planning to establish there a mission school to prepare Negroes to leave the country.

[Footnote 1: Monroe, Cyclopaedia of Education, vol. iv., p. 406.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., vol. iv., p. 406; and The Liberator, July 9, 1831.]

The movement, however, was not then stopped by this outburst of race prejudice in New Haven. Directing attention to another community, the New England Antislavery Society took up this scheme and collected funds to establish a manual labor school. When the officials had on hand about $1000 it was discovered that they could accomplish their aim by subsidizing the Noyes Academy of Canaan, New Hampshire, and making such changes as were necessary to subserve the purposes intended.[1] The plan was not to convert this into a colored school. The promoters hoped to maintain there a model academy for the co-education of the races "on the manual labor system." The treasurer of the Antislavery Society was to turn over certain moneys to this academy to provide for the needs of the colored students, who then numbered fourteen of the fifty-two enrolled. But although it had been reported that the people of the town were in accord with the principal's acceptance of this proposition, there were soon evidences to the contrary. Fearing imaginary evils, these modern Canaanites destroyed the academy, dragging the building to a swamp with a hundred yoke of oxen.[2] The better element of the town registered against this outrage only a slight protest. H.H. Garnett and Alexander Crummell were among the colored students who sought education at this academy.

[Footnote 1: The Liberator, July 4, 1835.]

[Footnote 2: Minutes and Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color, p. 34; and Monroe, Cyclopaedia of Education, vol. iv., p. 406.]

This work was more successful in the State of New York. There, too, the cause was championed by the abolitionists.[1] After the emancipation of all Negroes in that commonwealth by 1827 the New York Antislavery Society devoted more time to the elevation of the free people of color. The rapid rise of the laboring classes in this swiftly growing city made it evident to their benefactors that they had to be speedily equipped for competition with white mechanics or be doomed to follow menial employments. The only one of that section to offer Negroes anything like the opportunity for industrial training, however, was Gerrit Smith.[2] He was fortunate in having sufficient wealth to carry out the plan. In 1834 he established in Madison County, New York, an institution known as the Peterboro Manual Labor School. The working at trades was provided not altogether to teach the mechanic arts, but to enable the students to support themselves while attending school. As a compensation for instruction, books, room, fuel, light, and board furnished by the founder, the student was expected to labor four hours daily at some agricultural or mechanical employment "important to his education."[3] The faculty estimated the four hours of labor as worth on an average of about 12-1/2 cents for each student.

[Footnote 1: Minutes and Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color, p. 25.]

[Footnote 2: African Repository, vol. x., p. 312.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., vol. x., p. 312.]

Efforts were then being made for the establishment of another institution near Philadelphia. These endeavors culminated in the above-mentioned benefaction of Richard Humphreys, by the will of whom $10,000 was devised to establish a school for the purpose of instructing "descendants of the African race in school learning in the various branches of the mechanical arts and trades and agriculture."[1] In 1839 members of the Society of Friends organized an association to establish a school such as Humphreys had planned. The founders believed that "the most successful method of elevating the moral and intellectual character of the descendants of Africa, as well as of improving their social condition, is to extend to them the benefits of a good education, and to instruct them in the knowledge of some useful trade or business, whereby they may be enabled to obtain a comfortable livelihood by their own industry; and through these means to prepare them for fulfilling the various duties of domestic and social life with reputation and fidelity as good citizens and pious men."[2] Directing their attention first to things practical the association purchased in 1839 a piece of land in Bristol township, Philadelphia County, where they offered boys instruction in farming, shoemaking, and other useful trades. Their endeavors, so far as training in the mechanic arts was concerned, proved to be a failure. In 1846, therefore, the management decided to discontinue this literary, agricultural, and manual labor experiment. The trustees then sold the farm and stock, apprenticed the male students to mechanical occupations, and opened an evening school. Thinking mainly of classical education thereafter, the trustees of the fund finally established the Institute for Colored Youth of which we have spoken elsewhere.

[Footnote 1: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 379.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., 1871, p. 379.]

Some of the philanthropists who promoted the practical education of the colored people were found in the Negro settlements of the Northwest. Their first successful attempt in that section was the establishment of the Emlen Institute in Mercer County, Ohio. The founding of this institution was due manly to the efforts of Augustus Wattles who was instrumental in getting a number of emigrating freedmen to leave Cincinnati and settle in this county about 1835.[1] Wattles traveled in almost every colored neighborhood of the State and laid before them the benefits of permanent homes and the education for their children. On his first journey he organized, with the assistance of abolitionists, twenty-five schools for colored children. Interested thereafter in providing a head for this system he purchased for himself ninety acres of land in Mercer County to establish a manual labor institution. He sustained a school on it at his own expense, till the 11th of November, 1842. Wattles then visited Philadelphia where he became acquainted with the trustees of the late Samuel Emlen, a Friend of New Jersey. He had left by his will $20,000 "for the support and education in school learning and mechanic arts and agriculture of boys of African and Indian descent whose parents would give such youths to the Institute."[2] The means of the two philanthropists were united. The trustees purchased a farm and appointed Wattles as superintendent of the establishment, calling it Emlen Institute. Located in a section where the Negroes had sufficient interest in education to support a number of elementary schools, this institution once had considerable influence.[3] It was removed to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in 1858 and then to Warminster in the same county in 1873.

[Footnote 1: Howe, Ohio Historical Collections, p. 355.]

[Footnote 2: Howe, Ohio Historical Collections, p. 356.]

[Footnote 3: Wickersham, History of Education in Pa., p. 254.]

Another school of this type was founded in the Northwest. This was the Union Literary Institute of Spartanburg, Indiana. The institution owes its origin to a group of bold, antislavery men who "in the heat of the abolition excitement"[1] stood firm for the Negro. They soon had opposition from the proslavery leaders who impeded the progress of the institution. But thanks to the indefatigable Ebenezer Tucker, its first principal, the "Nigger School" weathered the storm. The Institute, however, was founded to educate both races. Its charter required that no distinction should be made on account of race, color, rank, or religion. Accordingly, although the student body was from the beginning of the school partly white, the board of trustees represented denominations of both races. Accessible statistics do not show that colored persons ever constituted more than one-third of the students.[2] It was one of the most durable of the manual labor schools, having continued after the Civil War, carrying out to some extent the original designs of its founders. As the plan to continue it as a private institution proved later to be impracticable the establishment was changed into a public school.[3]

[Footnote 1: Boone, The History of Education in Indiana, p. 77.]

[Footnote 2: According to the Report of the United States Commissioner of Education in 1893 the colored students then constituted about one-third of those then registered at this institution. See p. 1944 of this report.]

[Footnote 3: Records of the United States Bureau of Education.]

Scarcely less popular was the British and American Manual Labor Institute of the colored settlements in Upper Canada. This school was projected by Rev. Hiram Wilson and Josiah Henson as early as 1838, but its organization was not undertaken until 1842. The refugees were then called together to decide upon the expenditure of $1500 collected in England by James C. Fuller, a Quaker. They decided to establish at Dawn "a manual labor school, where children could be taught those elements of knowledge which are usually the occupations of a grammar school, and where boys could be taught in addition the practice of some mechanic art, and the girls could be instructed in those domestic arts which are the proper occupation and ornament of their sex."[1] A tract of three hundred acres of land was purchased, a few buildings were constructed, and pupils were soon admitted. The managers endeavored to make the school, "self-supporting by the employment of the students for certain portions of the time on the land."[2] The advantage of schooling of this kind attracted to Dresden and Dawn sufficient refugees to make these prosperous settlements. Rev. Hiram Wilson, the first principal of the institution, began with fourteen "boarding scholars" when there were no more than fifty colored persons in all the vicinity. In 1852 when the population of this community had increased to five hundred there were sixty students attending the school. Indian and white children were also admitted. Among the students there were also adults varying later in number from fifty-six to one hundred and sixteen.[3] This institution became very influential among the Negroes of Canada. Travelers mentioned the Institute in accounting for the prosperity and good morals of the refugees.[4] Unfortunately, however, after the year 1855 when the school reached its zenith, it began to decline on account of bad feeling probably resulting from a divided management.

[Footnote 1: Henson, Life of Josiah Henson, pp. 73, 74.]

[Footnote 2: Henson, Life of Josiah Henson, p. 115.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 117.]

[Footnote 4: Drew, A North-Side View of Slavery, p. 309; and Coffin, Reminiscences, pp. 249, 250.]

Studying these facts concerning the manual labor system of education, the student of education sees that it was not generally successful. This may be accounted for in various ways. One might say that colored people were not desired in the higher pursuits of labor and that their preparation for such vocations never received the support of the rank and file of the Negroes of the North. They saw then, as they often do now, the seeming impracticability of preparing themselves for occupations which they apparently had no chance to follow. Moreover, bright freedmen were not at first attracted to mechanical occupations. Ambitious Negroes who triumphed over slavery and made their way to the North for educational advantages hoped to enter the higher walks of life. Only a few of the race had the foresight of the advocates of industrial training. The majority of the enlightened class desired that they be no longer considered as "persons occupying a menial position, but as capable of the highest development of man."[1] Furthermore, bitterly as some white men hated slavery, and deeply as they seemingly sympathized with the oppressed, they were loath to support a policy which they believed was fatal to their economic interests.[2]

[Footnote 1: Minutes and Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention, etc., p. 25.]

[Footnote 2: The Fifth Report of the American Antislavery Society, p. 115; Douglass, The Life and Times of, p. 248.]

The chief reason for the failure of the new educational policy was that the managers of the manual labor schools made the mistakes often committed by promoters of industrial education of our day. At first they proceeded on the presumption that one could obtain a classical education while learning a trade and at the same time earn sufficient to support himself at school. Some of the managers of industrial schools have not yet learned that students cannot produce articles for market. The best we can expect from an industrial school to-day is a good apprentice.

Another handicap was that at that time conditions were seldom sufficiently favorable to enable the employer to derive profit enough from students' work to compensate for the maintenance of the youth at a manual labor school. Besides, such a school could not be far-reaching in its results because it could not be so conducted as to accommodate a large number of students. With a slight change in its aims the manual labor schools might have been more successful in the large urban communities, but the aim of their advocates was to establish them in the country where sufficient land for agricultural training could be had, and where students would not be corrupted by the vices of the city.

It was equally unfortunate that the teachers who were chosen to carry out this educational policy lacked the preparation adequate to their task. They had any amount of spirit, but an evident lack of understanding as to the meaning of this new education. They failed to unite the qualifications for both the industrial and academic instruction. It was the fault that we find to-day in our industrial schools. Those who were responsible for the literary training knew little of and cared still less for the work in mechanic arts, and those who were employed to teach trades seldom had sufficient education to impart what they knew. The students, too, in their efforts to pursue these uncorrelated courses seldom succeeded in making much advance in either. We have no evidence that many Negroes were equipped for higher service in the manual labor schools. Statistics of 1850 and 1860 show that there was an increase in the number of colored mechanics, especially in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Columbus, the Western Reserve, and Canada.[1] But this was probably due to the decreasing prejudice of the local white mechanics toward the Negro artisans fleeing from the South rather than to formal industrial training.[2]

[Footnote 1: Clarke, Present Condition of the Free People of Color of the United States, 1859, pp. 9, 10, 11, 13, and 29.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., pp. 9, 10, and 23.]

Schools of this kind tended gradually to abandon the idea of combining labor and learning, leaving such provisions mainly as catalogue fictions. Many of the western colleges were founded as manual labor schools, but the remains of these beginnings are few and insignificant. Oberlin, which was once operated on this basis, still retains the seal of "Learning and Labor," with a college building in the foreground and a field of grain in the distance. A number of our institutions have recitations now in the forenoon that students may devote the afternoon to labor. In some schools Monday instead of Saturday is the open day of the week because this was wash-day for the manual labor colleges. Even after the Civil War some schools had their long vacation in the winter instead of the summer because the latter was the time for manual labor. The people of our day know little about this unsuccessful system.

It is evident, therefore, that the leaders who had up to that time dictated the policy of the social betterment of the colored people had failed to find the key to the situation. This task fell to the lot of Frederick Douglass, who, wiser in his generation than most of his contemporaries, advocated actual vocational training as the greatest leverage for the elevation of the colored people. Douglass was given an opportunity to bring his ideas before the public on the occasion of a visit to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. She was then preparing to go to England in response to an invitation from her admirers, who were anxious to see this famous author of Uncle Tom's Cabin and to give her a testimonial. Thinking that she would receive large sums of money in England she desired to get Mr. Douglass's views as to how it could be most profitably spent for the advancement of the free people of color. She was especially interested in those who had become free by their own exertions. Mrs. Stowe informed her guest that several had suggested the establishment of an educational institution pure and simple, but that she had not been able to concur with them, thinking that it would be better to open an industrial school. Douglass was opposed both to the establishment of such a college as was suggested, and to that of an ordinary industrial school where pupils should merely "earn the means of obtaining an education in books." He desired what we now call the vocational school, "a series of workshops where colored men could learn some of the handicrafts, learn to work in iron, wood, and leather, while incidentally acquiring a plain English education."[1]

[Footnote 1: Douglass, The Life and Times of, p. 248.]

Under Douglass's leadership the movement had a new goal. The learning of trades was no longer to be subsidiary to conventional education. Just the reverse was true. Moreover, it was not to be entrusted to individuals operating on a small scale; it was to be a public effort of larger scope. The aim was to make the education of Negroes so articulate with their needs as to improve their economic condition. Seeing that despite the successful endeavors of many freedmen to acquire higher education that the race was still kept in penury, Douglass believed that by reconstructing their educational policy the friends of the race could teach the colored people to help themselves. Pecuniary embarrassment, he thought, was the cause of all evil to the blacks, "for poverty kept them ignorant and their lack of enlightenment kept them degraded." The deliverance from these evils, he contended, could be effected not by such a fancied or artificial elevation as the mere diffusion of information by institutions beyond the immediate needs of the poor. The awful plight of the Negroes, as he saw it, resulted directly from not having the opportunity to learn trades, and from "narrowing their limits to earn a livelihood." Douglass deplored the fact that even menial employments were rapidly passing away from the colored people. Under the caption of "Learn Trades or Starve," he tried to drive home the truth that if the free people of color did not soon heed his advice, foreigners then immigrating in large numbers would elbow them from all lucrative positions. In his own words, "every day begins with the lesson and ends with the lesson that colored men must find new employments, new modes of usefulness to society, or that they must decay under the pressing wants to which their condition is bringing them."[1]

[Footnote 1: Douglass, The Life and Times of, p. 248.]

Douglass believed in higher education and looked forward to that stage in the development of the Negroes when high schools and colleges could contribute to their progress. He knew, however, that it was foolish to think that persons accustomed to the rougher and harder modes of living could in a single leap from their low condition reach that of professional men. The attainment of such positions, he thought, was contingent upon laying a foundation in things material by passing "through the intermediate gradations of agriculture and the mechanic arts."[1] He was sure that the higher institutions then open to the colored people would be adequate to the task of providing for them all the professional men they then needed, and that the facilities for higher education so far as the schools and colleges in the free States were concerned would increase quite in proportion to the future needs of the race.

[Footnote 1: Ibid., p. 249.]

Douglass deplored the fact that education and emigration had gone together. As soon as a colored man of genius like Russworm, Garnett, Ward, or Crummell appeared, the so-called friends of the race reached the conclusion that he could better serve his race elsewhere. Seeing themselves pitted against odds, such bright men had had to seek more congenial countries. The training of Negroes merely to aid the colonization scheme would have little bearing on the situation at home unless its promoters could transplant the majority of the free people of color. The aim then should be not to transplant the race but to adopt a policy such as he had proposed to elevate it in the United States.[1]

[Footnote 1: Douglass, The Life and Times, p. 250.]

Vocational education, Douglass thought, would disprove the so-called mental inferiority of the Negroes. He believed that the blacks should show by action that they were equal to the whites rather than depend on the defense of friends who based their arguments not on facts but on certain admitted principles. Believing in the mechanical genius of the Negroes he hoped that in the establishment of this institution they would have an opportunity for development. In it he saw a benefit not only to the free colored people of the North, but also to the slaves. The strongest argument used by the slaveholder in defense of his precious institution was the low condition of the free people of color of the North. Remove this excuse by elevating them and you will hasten the liberation of the slaves. The best refutation of the proslavery argument is the "presentation of an industrious, enterprising, thrifty, and intelligent free black population."[1] An element of this kind, he believed, would rise under the fostering care of vocational teachers.

[Footnote 1: Douglass, The Life and Times of, p. 251.]

With Douglass this proposition did not descend to the plane of mere suggestion. Audiences which he addressed from time to time were informed as to the necessity of providing for the colored people facilities of practical education.[1] The columns of his paper rendered the cause noble service. He entered upon the advocacy of it with all the zeal of an educational reformer, endeavoring to show how this policy would please all concerned. Anxious fathers whose minds had been exercised by the inquiry as to what to do with their sons would welcome the opportunity to have them taught trades. It would be in line with the "eminently practical philanthropy of the Negroes' trans-Atlantic friends." America would scarcely object to it as an attempt to agitate the mind on slavery or to destroy the Union. "It could not be tortured into a cause for hard words by the American people," but the noble and good of all classes would see in the effort "an excellent motive, a benevolent object, temperately, wisely, and practically manifested."[2] The leading free people of color heeded this message. Appealing to them through their delegates assembled in Rochester in 1853, Douglass secured a warm endorsement of his plan in eloquent speeches and resolutions passed by the convention.

[Footnote 1: African Repository, vol. xxix., p. 136.]

[Footnote 2: Douglass, Life and Times of, p. 252.]

This great enterprise, like all others, was soon to encounter opposition. Mrs. Stowe was attacked as soliciting money abroad for her own private use. So bitter were these proslavery diatribes that Henry Ward Beecher and Frederick Douglass had some difficulty in convincing the world that her maligners had no grounds for this vicious accusation. Furthermore, on taking up the matter with Mrs. Stowe after her return to the United States, Douglass was disappointed to learn that she had abandoned her plan to found a vocational institution. He was never able to see any force in the reasons for the change of policy; but believed that Mrs. Stowe acted conscientiously, although her action was decidedly embarrassing to him both at home and abroad.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ibid., p. 252.]



CHAPTER XIII

EDUCATION AT PUBLIC EXPENSE

The persistent struggle of the colored people to have their children educated at public expense shows how resolved they were to be enlightened. In the beginning Negroes had no aspiration to secure such assistance. Because the free public schools were first regarded as a system to educate the poor, the friends of the free blacks turned them away from these institutions lest men might reproach them with becoming a public charge. Moreover, philanthropists deemed it wise to provide separate schools for Negroes to bring them into contact with sympathetic persons, who knew their peculiar needs. In the course of time, however, when the stigma of charity was removed as a result of the development of the free schools at public expense, Negroes concluded that it was not dishonorable to share the benefits of institutions which they were taxed to support.[1] Unable then to cope with systems thus maintained for the education of the white youth, the directors of colored schools requested that something be appropriated for the education of Negroes. Complying with these petitions boards of education provided for colored schools which were to be partly or wholly supported at public expense. But it was not long before the abolitionists saw that they had made a mistake in carrying out this policy. The amount appropriated to the support of the special schools was generally inadequate to supply them with the necessary equipment and competent teachers, and in most communities the white people had begun to regard the co-education of the races as undesirable. Confronted then with this caste prejudice, one of the hardest struggles of the Negroes and their sympathizers was that for democratic education.

[Footnote 1: The Negroes of Baltimore were just prior to the Civil War paying $500 in taxes annually to support public schools which their children could not attend.]

The friends of the colored people in Pennsylvania were among the first to direct the attention of the State to the duty of enlightening the blacks as well as the whites. In 1802, 1804, and 1809, respectively, the State passed, in the interest of the poor, acts which although interpreted to exclude Negroes from the benefits therein provided, were construed, nevertheless, by friends of the race as authorizing their education at public expense. Convinced of the truth of this contention, officials in different parts of the State began to yield in the next decade. At Columbia, Pennsylvania, the names of such colored children as were entitled to the benefits of the law for the education of the poor were taken in 1818 to enable them to attend the free public schools. Following the same policy, the Abolition Society of Philadelphia, seeing that the city had established public schools for white children in 1818, applied two years later for the share of the fund to which the children of African descent were entitled by law. The request was granted. The Comptroller opened in Lombard Street in 1822 a school for children of color, maintained at the expense of the State. This furnished a precedent for other such schools which were established in 1833, and 1841.[1] Harrisburg had a colored school early in the century, but upon the establishment of the Lancastrian school in that city in the thirties, the colored as well as the white children were required to attend it or pay for their education themselves.[2]

[Footnote 1: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 379.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 379.]

In 1834 the legislature of Pennsylvania established a system of public schools, but the claims of the Negroes to public education were neither guaranteed nor denied.[1] The school law of 1854, however, seems to imply that the benefits of the system had always been understood to extend to colored children.[2] This measure provided that the comptrollers and directors of the several school districts of the State could establish within their respective districts separate schools for Negro and mulatto children wherever they could be so located as to accommodate twenty or more pupils. Another provision was that wherever such schools should "be established and kept open four months in the year" the directors and comptrollers should not be compelled to admit colored pupils to any other schools of that district. The law was interpreted to mean that wherever such accommodations were not provided the children of Negroes could attend the other schools. Such was the case in the rural districts where a few colored children often found it pleasant and profitable to attend school with their white friends.[3] The children of Robert B. Purvis, however, were turned away from the public schools of Philadelphia on the ground that special educational facilities for them had been provided.[4] It was not until 1881 that Pennsylvania finally swept away all the distinctions of caste from her public school system.

[Footnote 1: Purdon's Digest of the Laws of Pa., p. 291, sections 1-23.]

[Footnote 2: Stroud and Brightly, Purdon's Digest, p. 1064, section 23.]

[Footnote 3: Wickersham, History of Education in Pa., p. 253.]

[Footnote 4: Wigham, The Antislavery Cause in America, p. 103.]

As the colored population of New Jersey was never large, there was not sufficient concentration of such persons in that State to give rise to the problems which at times confronted the benevolent people of Pennsylvania. Great as had been the reaction, the Negroes of New Jersey never entirely lost the privilege of attending school with white students. The New Jersey Constitution of 1844 provided that the funds for the support of the public schools should be applied for the equal benefit of all the people of that State.[1] Considered then entitled to the benefits of this fund, colored pupils were early admitted into the public schools without any social distinction.[2] This does not mean that there were no colored schools in that commonwealth. Negroes in a few settlements like that of Springtown had their own schools.[3] Separate schools were declared illegal by an act of the General Assembly in 1881.

[Footnote 1: Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions, vol. v., p. 2604.]

[Footnote 2: Southern Workman, vol. xxxvii., p. 390.]

[Footnote 3: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 400.]

Certain communities of New York provided separate schools for colored pupils rather than admit them to those open to white children. On recommendation of the superintendent of schools in 1823 the State adopted the policy of organizing schools exclusively for colored people.[1] In places where they already existed, the State could aid the establishment as did the New York Common Council in 1824, when it appropriated a portion of its fund to the support of the African Free Schools.[2] In 1841 the New York legislature authorized any district, with the approbation of the school commissioners, to establish a separate school for the colored children in their locality. The superintendent's report for 1847 shows that schools for Negroes had been established in fifteen counties in the State, reporting an enrollment of 5000 pupils. For the maintenance of these schools the sum of $17,000 had been annually expended. Colored pupils were enumerated by the trustees in their annual reports, drew public money for the district in which they resided, and were equally entitled with white children to the benefit of the school fund. In the rural districts colored children were generally admitted to the common schools. Wherever race prejudice, however, was sufficiently violent to exclude them from the village school, the trustees were empowered to use the Negroes' share of the public money to provide for their education elsewhere. At the same time indigent Negroes were to be exempted from the payment of the "rate bill" which fell as a charge upon the other citizens of the district.[3]

[Footnote 1: Randall, Hist. of Common School System of New York, p. 24.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 48.]

[Footnote 3: Randall, Hist. of Common School System of New York, p. 248.]

Some trouble had arisen from making special appropriations for incorporated villages. Such appropriations, the superintendent had observed, excited prejudice and parsimony; for the trustees of some villages had learned to expend only the special appropriations for the education of the colored pupils, and to use the public money in establishing and maintaining schools for the white children. He believed that it was wrong to argue that Negroes were any more a burden to incorporated villages than to cities or rural districts, and that they were, therefore, entitled to every allowance of money to educate them.[1]

[Footnote 1: Randall, Hist. of Common School System of New York, p. 249.]

In New York City much had already been done to enlighten the Negroes through the schools of the Manumission Society. But as the increasing population of color necessitated additional facilities, the Manumission Society obtained from the fund of the Public School Society partial support of its system. The next step was to unite the African Free Schools with those of the Public School Society to reduce the number of organizations participating in the support of Negro education. Despite the argument of some that the two systems should be kept separate, the property and schools of the Manumission Society were transferred to the New York Public School Society in 1834.[2] Thereafter the schools did not do as well as they had done before. The administrative part of the work almost ceased, the schools lost in efficiency, and the former attendance of 1400 startlingly dropped. An investigation made in 1835 showed that many Negroes, intimidated by frequent race riots incident to the reactionary movement, had left the city, while others kept their children at home for safety. It seemed, too, that they looked upon the new system as an innovation, did not like the action of the Public School Society in reducing their schools of advanced grade to that of the primary, and bore it grievously that so many of the old teachers in whom they had confidence, had been dropped. To bring order out of chaos the investigating committee advised the assimilation of the separate schools to the white. Thereupon the society undertook to remake the colored schools, organizing them into a system which offered instruction in primary, intermediate, and grammar departments. The task of reconstruction, however, was not completed until 1853, when the property of the colored schools was transferred to the Board of Education of New York.[2]

[Footnote 1: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 366.]

[Footnote 2: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 366.]

The second transfer marked an epoch in the development of Negro education in New York. The Board of Education proceeded immediately to perfect the system begun at the time of the first change. The new directors reclassified the lower grades, opened other grammar schools, and established a normal school according to the recommendation of the investigating committee of 1835. Supervision being more rigid thereafter, the schools made some progress, but failed to accomplish what was expected of them. They were carelessly intrusted for supervision to the care of ward officers, some of whom partly neglected this duty, while others gave the work no attention whatever. It was unfortunate, too, that some of these schools were situated in parts of the city where the people were not interested in the uplift of the despised race, and in a few cases in wards which were almost proslavery. Better results followed after the colored schools were brought under the direct supervision of the Board of Education.

Before the close of the Civil War the sentiment of the people of the State of New York had changed sufficiently to permit colored children to attend the regular public schools in several communities. This, however, was not general. It was, therefore, provided in the revised code of that State in 1864 that the board of education of any city or incorporated village might establish separate schools for children and youth of African descent provided such schools be supported in the same manner as those maintained for white children. The last vestige of caste in the public schools of New York was not exterminated until 1900, in the administration of Theodore Roosevelt as Governor of New York. The legislature then passed an act providing that no one should be denied admittance to any public school on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.[1]

[Footnote 1: Laws of New York, 1900, ch. 492.]

In Rhode Island, where the black population was proportionately larger than in some other New England States, special schools for persons of color continued. These efforts met with success at Newport. In the year 1828 a separate school for colored children was established at Providence and placed in charge of a teacher receiving a salary of $400 per annum.[1] A decade later another such school was opened on Pond Street in the same city. About this time the school law of Rhode Island was modified so as to make it a little more favorable to the people of color. The State temporarily adopted a rule by which the school fund was thereafter not distributed, as formerly, according to the number of inhabitants below the age of sixteen. It was to be apportioned, thereafter, according to the number of white persons under the age of ten years, "together with five-fourteenths of the said [colored] population between the ages of ten and twenty-four years." This law remained in force between the years 1832 and 1845. Under the new system these schools seemingly made progress. In 1841 they were no longer giving the mere essentials of reading and writing, but combined the instruction of both the grammar and the primary grades.[2]

[Footnote 1: Stockwell, Hist. of Education in R.I., p. 169.]

[Footnote 2: Stockwell, Hist. of Education in R.I., p. 51.]

Thereafter Rhode Island had to pass through the intense antislavery struggle which had for its ultimate aim both the freedom of the Negro and the democratization of the public schools. Petitions were sent to the legislature, and appeals were made to representatives asking for a repeal of those laws which permitted the segregation of the colored children in the public schools. But intense as this agitation became, and urgently as it was put before the public, it failed to gain sufficient momentum to break down the barriers prior to 1866 when the legislature of Rhode Island passed an act abolishing separate schools for Negroes.[1]

[Footnote 1: Public Laws of the State of Rhode Island, 1865-66, p. 49.]

Prior to the reactionary movement the schools of Connecticut were, like most others in New England at that time, open alike to black and white. It seems, too, that colored children were well received and instructed as thoroughly as their white friends. But in 1830, whether on account of the increasing race prejudice or the desire to do for themselves, the colored people of Hartford presented to the School Society of that city a petition that a separate school for persons of color be established with a part of the public school fund which might be apportioned to them according to their number. Finding this request reasonable, the School Society decided to take the necessary steps to comply with it. As such an agreement would have no standing at law the matter was recommended to the legislature of the State, which authorized the establishment in that commonwealth of several separate schools for persons of color.[1] This arrangement, however, soon proved unsatisfactory. Because of the small number of Negroes in Connecticut towns, they found their pro rata inadequate to the maintenance of separate schools. No buildings were provided for them, such schools as they had were not properly supervised, the teachers were poorly paid, and with the exception of a little help from a few philanthropists, the white citizens failed to aid the cause. In 1846, therefore, the pastor of the colored Congregational Church sent to the School Society of Hartford a memorial calling attention to the fact that for lack of means the colored schools had been unable to secure suitable quarters and competent teachers. Consequently the education of their children had been exceedingly irregular, deficient, and onerous. The School Society had done nothing for these institutions but to turn over to them every year their small share of the public fund. These gentlemen then decided to raise by taxation an amount adequate to the support of two better equipped schools and proceeded at once to provide for its collection and expenditure.[2]

[Footnote 1: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 334.]

[Footnote 2: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 334.]

The results gave general satisfaction for a while. But as it was a time when much was being done to develop the public schools of New England, the colored people of Hartford could not remain contented. They saw the white pupils housed in comfortable buildings and attending properly graded classes, while their own children continued to be crowded into small insanitary rooms and taught as unclassified students. The Negroes, therefore, petitioned for a more suitable building and a better organization of their schools. As this request came at the time when the abolitionists were working hard to exterminate caste from the schools of New England, the School Committee called a meeting of the memorialists to decide whether they desired to send their children to the white or separate schools.[1] They decided in favor of the latter, provided that the colored people should have a building adequate to their needs and instruction of the best kind.[2] Complying with this decision the School Society erected the much-needed building in 1852. To provide for the maintenance of the separate schools the property of the citizens was taxed at such a rate as to secure to the colored pupils of the city benefits similar to those enjoyed by the white pupils.[3]

[Footnote 1: Minority Report, etc., p. 21.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 22.]

[Footnote 3: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 334.]

Ardent antislavery men believed that this segregation in the schools was undemocratic. They asserted that the colored people would never have made such a request had the teachers of the public schools taken the proper interest in them. The Negroes, too, had long since been convinced that the white people would not maintain separate schools with the same equipment which they gave their own. This arrangement, however, continued until 1868. The legislature then passed an act declaring that the schools of the State should be open to all persons alike between the ages of four and sixteen, and that no person should be denied instruction in any public school in his school district on account of race or color.[1]

[Footnote 1: Public Acts of the General Assembly of Conn., 1868, p. 296.]

In the State of Massachusetts the contest was most ardent. Boston opened its first primary school for colored children in 1820. In other towns like Salem and Nantucket, New Bedford and Lowell, where the colored population was also considerable, the same policy was carried out.[1] Some years later, however, both the Negroes and their friends saw the error of their early advocacy of the establishment of special schools to escape the stigma of receiving charity. After the change in the attitude toward the public free schools and the further development of caste in American education, there arose in Massachusetts a struggle between leaders determined to restrict the Negroes' privileges to the use of poorly equipped separate schools and those contending for equality in education.

[Footnote 1: Minority Report, etc., p. 35.]

Basing their action on the equality of men before the law, the advocates of democratic education held meetings from which went frequent and urgent petitions to school committees until Negroes were accepted in the public schools in all towns in Massachusetts except Boston.[1] Children of African blood were successfully admitted to the New Bedford schools on equality with the white youth in 1838.[2] In 1846 the school committee of that town reported that the colored pupils were regular in their attendance, and as successful in their work as the whites. There were then ninety in all in that system; four in the high school, forty in grammar schools, and the remainder in the primary department, all being scattered in such a way as to have one to four in twenty-one to twenty-eight schools. At Lowell the children of a colored family were not only among the best in the schools but the greatest favorites in the system.[3]

[Footnote 1: Ibid., p. 20, and Niles Register, vol. lxvi., p. 320.]

[Footnote 2: Minority Report, etc., p. 23.]

[Footnote 3: Minority Report, etc., p. 25.]

The consolidation of the colored school of Salem with the others of that city led to no disturbance. Speaking of the democracy of these schools in 1846 Mr. Richard Fletcher said: "The principle of perfect equality is the vital principle of the system. Here all classes of the community mingle together. The rich and the poor meet on terms of equality and are prepared by the same instruction to discharge the duties of life. It is the principle of equality cherished in the free schools on which our government and free institutions rest. Destroy this principle in the schools and the people would soon cease to be free." At Nantucket, however, some trouble was experienced because of the admission of pupils of color in 1843. Certain patrons criticized the action adversely and withdrew fourteen of their children from the South Grammar School. The system, however, prospered thereafter rather than declined.[1] Many had no trouble in making the change.[2]

[Footnote 1: Ibid., p. 6.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 23.]

These victories having been won in other towns of the State by 1846, it soon became evident that Boston would have to yield. Not only were abolitionists pointing to the ease with which this gain had been made in other towns, but were directing attention to the fact that in these smaller communities Negroes were both learning the fundamentals and advancing through the lower grades into the high school. Boston, which had a larger black population than all other towns in Massachusetts combined, had never seen a colored pupil prepared for a secondary institution in one of its public schools. It was, therefore, evident to fair-minded persons that in cities of separate systems Negroes would derive practically no benefit from the school tax which they paid.

This agitation for the abolition of caste in the public schools assumed its most violent form in Boston during the forties. The abolitionists then organized a more strenuous opposition to the caste system. Why Sarah Redmond and the other children of a family paying tax to support the schools of Boston should be turned away from a public school simply because they were persons of color was a problem too difficult for a fair-minded man.[1] The war of words came, however, when in response to a petition of Edmund Jackson, H.J. Bowditch, and other citizens for the admission of colored people to the public schools in 1844, the majority of the school committee refused the request. Following the opinion of Chandler, their solicitor, they based their action of making distinction in the public schools on the natural distinction of the races, which "no legislature, no social customs, can efface," and which "renders a promiscuous intermingling in the public schools disadvantageous both to them and to the whites."[2] Questioned as to any positive law providing for such discrimination, Chandler gave his opinion that the School Committee of Boston, under the authority perhaps of the City Council, had a legal right to establish and maintain special primary schools for the blacks. He believed, too, that in the exercise of their lawful discretionary power they could exclude white pupils from certain schools and colored pupils from certain other schools when, in their judgment, the best interests of all would thereby be promoted.[3]

[Footnote 1: Wigham, The Antislavery Cause in America, p. 103.]

[Footnote 2: Minority Report, etc., p. 31.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 30.]

Encouraged by the fact that colored children were indiscriminately admitted to the schools of Salem, Nantucket, New Bedford, and Lowell, in fact, of every city in Massachusetts but Boston, the friends of the colored people fearlessly attacked the false legal theories of Solicitor Chandler. The minority of the School Committee argued that schools are the common property of all, and that each and all are legally entitled without "let or hindrance" to the equal benefits of all advantages they might confer.[1] Any action, therefore, which tended to restrict to any individual or class the advantages and benefits designed for all, was an illegal use of authority, and an arbitrary act used for pernicious purposes.[2] Their republican system, the minority believed, conferred civil equality and legal rights upon every citizen, knew neither privileged nor degraded classes, made no distinctions, and created no differences between rich and poor, learned and ignorant, or white and black, but extended to all alike its protection and benefits.[3] The minority considered it a merit of the school system that it produced the fusion of all classes, promoted the feeling of brotherhood, and the habits of equality. The power of the School Committee, therefore, was limited and constrained by the general spirit of the civil policy and by the letter and spirit of the laws which regulated the system.[4] It was further maintained that to debar the colored youth from these advantages, even if they were assured the same external results, would be a sore injustice and would serve as the surest means of perpetuating a prejudice which should be deprecated and discountenanced by all intelligent and Christian men.[5]

[Footnote 1: Ibid., p. 3.]

[Footnote 2: Minority Report, etc. pp. 4 and 5.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., pp. 3 et. seq.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid., p. 4.]

[Footnote 5: Ibid., p. 5.]

To the sophistry of Chandler, Wendell Phillips also made a logical reply. He asserted that as members of a legal body, the School Committee should have eyes only for such distinctions among their fellow-citizens as the law recognized and pointed out. Phillips believed that they had precedents for the difference of age and sex, for regulation of health, etc., but that when they opened their eyes to the varied complexion, to difference of race, to diversity of creed, to distinctions of caste, they would seek in vain through the laws and institutions of Massachusetts for any recognition of their prejudice. He deplored the fact that they had attempted to foist into the legal arrangements of the land a principle utterly repugnant to the State constitution, and that what the sovereignty of the constitution dared not attempt a school committee accomplished. To Phillips it seemed crassly inconsistent to say that races permitted to intermarry should be debarred by Mr. Chandler's "sapient committee" from educational contact.[1]

[Footnote 1: Minority Report, etc., p. 27.]

This agitation continued until 1855 when the opposition had grown too strong to be longer resisted. The legislature of Massachusetts then enacted a law providing that in determining the qualifications of a scholar to be admitted to any public school no distinction should be made on account of the race, color, or religious opinion of the applicant. It was further provided that a child excluded from school for any of these reasons might bring suit for damages against the offending town.[1]

[Footnote 1: Acts and Resolves of the General Court of Mass., 1855, ch. 256.]

In other towns of New England, where the black population was considerable, separate schools were established. There was one even in Portland, Maine.[1] Efforts in this direction were made in Vermont and New Hampshire, but because of the scarcity of the colored people these States did not have to resort to such segregation. The Constitution of Vermont was interpreted as extending to Negroes the benefits of the Bill of Rights, making all men free and equal. Persons of color, therefore, were regarded as men entitled to all the privileges of freemen, among which was that of education at the expense of the State.[2] The framers of the Constitution of New Hampshire were equally liberal in securing this right to the dark race.[3] But when the principal of an academy at Canaan admitted some Negroes to his private institution, a mob, as we have observed above, broke up the institution by moving the building to a swamp, while the officials of the town offered no resistance. Such a spirit as this accounts for the rise of separate schools in places where the free blacks had the right to attend any institution of learning supported by the State.

[Footnote 1: Adams, Anti-slavery, etc., p. 142.]

[Footnote 2: Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions, vol. vi., p. 3762.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., vol. iv., p. 2471.]

The problem of educating the Negroes at public expense was perplexing also to the minds of the people of the West. The question became more and more important in Ohio as the black population in that commonwealth increased. The law of 1825 provided that moneys raised from taxation of half a mill on the dollar should be appropriated to the support of common schools in the respective counties and that these schools should be "open to the youth of every class and grade without distinction."[1] Some interpreted this law to include Negroes. To overcome the objection to the partiality shown by school officials the State passed another law in 1829. It excluded colored people from the benefits of the new system, and returned them the amount accruing from the school tax on their property.[2] Thereafter benevolent societies and private associations maintained colored schools in Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, and the southern counties of Ohio.[3] But no help came from the cities and the State before 1849 when the legislature passed a law authorizing the establishment of schools for children of color at public expense.[4]

[Footnote 1: Laws of Ohio, vol. xxiii., pp. 37 et seq.]

[Footnote 2: Hickok, The Negro in Ohio, p. 85.]

[Footnote 3: Simmons, Men of Mark, p. 374.]

[Footnote 4: Laws of Ohio, vol. liii., pp. 117-118.]

The Negroes of Cincinnati soon discovered that they had not won a great victory. They proceeded at once to elect trustees, organized a system, and employed teachers, relying on the money allotted them by the law on the basis of a per capita division of the school fund received by the Board of Education of Cincinnati. So great was the prejudice that the school officials refused to turn over the required funds on the grounds that the colored trustees were not electors, and therefore could not be office holders qualified to receive and disburse public funds.[1] Under the leadership of John I. Gaines the trustees called indignation meetings, and raised sufficient money to employ Flamen Ball, an attorney, to secure a writ of mandamus. The case was contested by the city officials even in the Supreme Court of the State which decided against the officious whites.[2]

[Footnote 1: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, pp. 371, 372.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., 1871, p. 372.]

Unfortunately it turned out that this decision did not mean very much to the Negroes. There were not many of them in certain settlements and the per capita division of the fund did not secure to them sufficient means to support schools. Even if the funds had been adequate to pay teachers, they had no schoolhouses. Lawyers of that day contended that the Act of 1849 had nothing to do with the construction of buildings. After a short period of accomplishing practically nothing material, the law was amended so as to transfer the control of such colored schools to the managers of the white system.[1] This was taken as a reflection on the standing of the blacks of the city and tended to make them refuse to cooeperate with the white board. On account of the failure of this body to act effectively prior to 1856, the people of color were again given power to elect their own trustees.[2]

[Footnote 1: Laws of the State of Ohio, vol. liii., p. 118.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 118.]

During the contest for the control of the colored schools certain Negroes of Cincinnati were endeavoring to make good their claim that their children had a right to attend any school maintained by the city. Acting upon this contention a colored patron sent his son to a public school, which on account of his presence became the center of unusual excitement.[1] Miss Isabella Newhall, the teacher to whom he went, immediately complained to the Board of Education, requesting that he be expelled on account of his race. After "due deliberation" the Board of Education decided by a vote of fifteen to ten that he would have to withdraw from that school. Thereupon two members of that body, residing in the district of the timorous teacher, resigned.[2]

[Footnote 1: New York Tribune, Feb. 19, 1855.]

[Footnote 2: New York Tribune, Feb. 19, 1855; and Carlier, L'Esclavage, etc., p. 339.]

Thereafter some progress in the development of separate schools in Cincinnati was noted. By 1855 the Board of Education of that city had established four public schools for the instruction of Negro youths. The colored pupils were showing their appreciation by regular attendance, manly deportment, and rapid progress in the acquisition of knowledge. Speaking of these Negroes in 1855, John P. Foote said that they shared with the white citizens that respect for education, and the diffusion of knowledge, which has ever been one of their "characteristics," and that they had, therefore, been more generally intelligent than free persons of color not only in other States but in all other parts of the world.[1] It was in appreciation of the worth of this class of progressive Negroes that in 1858 Nicholas Longworth built a comfortable school-house for them in Cincinnati, leasing it with the privilege of purchasing it in fourteen years.[2] They met these requirements within the stipulated time, and in 1859 secured through other agencies the construction of another building in the western portion of the city.[3]

[Footnote 1: Foote, The Schools of Cincinnati, p. 92.]

[Footnote 2: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 372.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 372.]

The agitation for the admission of colored children to the public schools was not confined to Cincinnati alone, but came up throughout the section north of the Ohio River.[1] Where the black population was large enough to form a social center of its own, Negroes and their friends could more easily provide for the education of colored children. In settlements, however, in which just a few of them were found, some liberal-minded man usually asked the question why persons taxed to support a system of free schools should not share its benefits. To strengthen their position these benevolent men referred to the rapid progress of the belated people, many of whom within less than a generation from their emergence from slavery had become intelligent, virtuous, and respectable persons, and in not a few cases had accumulated considerable wealth.[2] Those who insisted that children of African blood should be debarred from the regular public schools had for their defense the so-called inequality of the races. Some went so far as to concede the claims made for the progressive blacks, and even to praise those of their respective communities.[3] But great as their progress had been, the advocates of the restriction of their educational privileges considered it wrong to claim for them equality with the Caucasian race. They believed that society would suffer from an intermingling of the children of the two races.

[Footnote 1: Hickok, The Negro in Ohio, ch. iii.; and Boone, History of Education in Indiana, p. 237.]

[Footnote 2: Foote, The Schools of Cincinnati, p. 93.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 92.]

In Indiana the problem of educating Negroes was more difficult. R.G. Boone says that, "nominally for the first few years of the educational experience of the State, black and white children had equal privileges in the few schools that existed."[1] But this could not continue long. Abolitionists were moving the country, and freedmen soon found enemies as well as friends in the Ohio valley. Indiana, which was in 1824 so very "solicitous for a system of education which would guard against caste distinction," provided in 1837 that the white inhabitants alone of each congressional township should constitute the local school corporation.[2] In 1841 a petition was sent to the legislature requesting that a reasonable share of the school fund be appropriated to the education of Negroes, but the committee to which it was referred reported that legislation on that subject was inexpedient.[3] With the exception of prohibiting the immigration of such persons into that State not much account of them was taken until 1853. Then the legislature amended the law authorizing the establishment of schools in townships so as to provide that in all enumerations the children of color should not be taken, that the property of the blacks and mulattoes should not be taxed for school purposes, and that their children should not derive any benefit from the common schools of that State.[4] This provision had really been incorporated into the former law, but was omitted by oversight on the part of the engrossing clerk.[5]

[Footnote 1: Boone, History of Ed. in Indiana, p. 237.]

[Footnote 2: Laws of a General Nature of the State of Indiana, 1837, p. 15.]

[Footnote 3: Boone, History of Education in Indiana, p. 237.]

[Footnote 4: Laws of a General Nature of the State of Indiana, 1855, p. 161.]

[Footnote 5: Boone, History of Education in Indiana, p. 237.]

A resolution of the House instructing the educational committee to report a bill for the establishment of schools for the education of the colored children of the State was overwhelmingly defeated in 1853. Explaining their position the opponents said that it was held "to be better for the weaker party that no privilege be extended to them," as the tendency to such "might be to induce the vain belief that the prejudice of the dominant race could ever be so mollified as to break down the rugged barriers that must forever exist between their social relations." The friends of the blacks believed that by elevating them the sense of their degradation would be keener, and so the greater would be their anxiety to seek another country, where with the spirit of men they "might breathe fresh air of social as well as political liberty."[1] This argument, however, availed little. Before the Civil War the Negroes of Indiana received help in acquiring knowledge from no source but private and mission schools.

[Footnote 1: Boone, History of Education in Indiana, p. 237.]

In Illinois the situation was better than in Indiana, but far from encouraging. The constitution of 1847 restricted the benefits of the school law to white children, stipulating the word white throughout the act so as to make clear the intention of the legislators.[1] It seemed to some that, in excluding the colored children from the public schools, the law contemplated the establishment of separate schools in that it provided that the amount of school taxes collected from Negroes should be returned. Exactly what should be done with such money, however, was not stated in the act. But even if that were the object in view, the provision was of little help to the people of color for the reason that the clause providing for the return of school taxes was seldom executed. In the few cases in which it was carried out the fund thus raised was not adequate to the support of a special school, and generally there were not sufficient colored children in a community to justify such an outlay. In districts having control of their local affairs, however, the children of Negroes were often given a chance to attend school.

[Footnote 1: The Constitution of Illinois, in the Journal of the Constitution of the State of Illinois, 1847, p. 344.]

As this scant consideration given Negroes of Illinois left one-half of the six thousand of their children out of the pale of education, earnest appeals were made that the restrictive word white be stricken from the school law. The friends of the colored people sought to show how inconsistent this system was with the spirit of the constitution of the State, which, interpreted as they saw it, guaranteed all persons equality.[1] They held meetings from which came renewed petitions to their representatives, entreating them to repeal or amend the old school law. It was not so much a question as to whether or not there should be separate schools as it was whether or not the people of color should be educated. The dispersed condition of their children made it impossible for the State to provide for them in special schools the same educational facilities as those furnished the youth of Caucasian blood. Chicago tried the experiment in 1864, but failing to get the desired result, incorporated the colored children into the white schools the following year.[2] The State Legislature had sufficient moral courage to do away with these caste distinctions in 1874.[3]

[Footnote 1: Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions, Const. of Illinois.]

[Footnote 2: Special Report of U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 343.]

[Footnote 3: Starr and Curtis, Annotated Statutes of Illinois, ch. 105, p. 2261.]

In other States of the West and the North where few colored people were found, the solution of the problem was easier. After 1848 Negroes were legal voters in the school meetings of Michigan. Colored children were enumerated with others to determine the basis for the apportionment of the school funds, and were allowed to attend the public schools. Wisconsin granted Negroes equal school privileges.[1] After the adoption of a free constitution in 1857, Iowa "determined no man's rights by the color of his skin." Wherever the word white had served to restrict the privileges of persons of color it was stricken out to make it possible for them not only to bear arms and to vote but to attend public schools.[2]

[Footnote 1: Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 400.]

[Footnote 2: Journal of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Iowa, 1857, p. 3 of the Constitution.]



APPENDIX

DOCUMENTS

The following resolutions on the subject treated in this part (the instruction of Negroes) are from the works of Dr. Cotton Mather.—Bishop William Meade.

1st. I would always remember, that my servants are in some sense my children, and by taking care that they want nothing which may be good for them, I would make them as my children; and so far as the methods of instituting piety into the mind which I use with my children, may be properly and prudently used with my servants, they shall be partakers in them—Nor will I leave them ignorant of anything, wherein I may instruct them to be useful to their generation.

2d. I will see that my servants be furnished with bibles and be able and careful to read the lively oracles. I will put bibles and other good and proper books into their hands; will allow them time to read and assure myself that they do not misspend this time—If I can discern any wicked books in their hands, I will take away those pestilential instruments of wickedness.

3d. I will have my servants present at the religious exercises of my family; and will drop, either in the exhortations, in the prayers or daily sacrifices of the family such pages as may have a tendency to quicken a sense of religion in them.

4th. The article of catechising, as far as the age or state of the servants will permit it to be done with decency, shall extend to them also,—And they shall be concerned in the conferences in which I may be engaged with my family, in the repetition of the public sermons. If any of them when they come to me shall not have learned the catechism, I will take care that they do it, and will give them a reward when they have accomplished it.

5th. I will be very inquisitive and solicitous about the company chosen by my servants; and with all possible earnestness will rescue them from the snares of evil company, and forbid their being the companions of fools.

6th. Such of my servants as may be capable of the task, I will employ to teach lessons of piety to my children, and will recompense them for so doing. But I would, by a particular artifice, contrive them to be such lessons, as may be for their own edification too.

7th. I will sometimes call my servants alone; talk to them about the state of their souls; tell them to close with their only servant, charge them to do well and "lay hold on eternal life," and show them very particularly how they may render all they do for me a service to the glorious Lord; how they may do all from a principle of obedience to him, and become entitled to the "reward of the heavenly inheritance."

To those resolutions did I add the following pages as an appendix:

Age is nearly sufficient, with some masters to obliterate every letter and action in the history of a meritorious life, and old services are generally buried under the ruins of an old carcase. It is a barbarous inhumanity in men towards their servants, to account their small failings as crimes, without allowing their past services to have been virtues; gracious God, keep thy servants from such base ingratitude!

But then O servants, if you would obtain "the reward of inheritance," each of you should set yourself to enquire "how shall I approve myself such a servant, that the Lord may bless the house of my master, the more for my being in it?" Certainly there are many ways by which servants may become blessings. Let your studies with your continual prayers for the welfare of the family to which you belong: and the example of your sober carriage render you such. If you will but remember four words and attempt all that is comprised in them, Obedience, Honesty, Industry, and Piety, you will be the blessings and Josephs of the families in which you live. Let these four words be distinctly and frequently recollected; and cheerfully perform all your business from this consideration—that it is obedience to heaven, and from thence will leave a recompense. It was the observation even of a pagan, "That a master may receive a benefit from a servant"; and "what is done with the affection of a friend, ceases to be the act of a mere servant." Even the maid-servants of a house may render a great service to it, by instructing the infants and instilling into their minds the lessons of goodness.—In the Appendix of Rev. Thomas Bacon's Sermons Addressed to Masters and Servants.

EDIT DU ROI

Concernant les Esclaves Negres des Colonies, qui seront amenes, ou envoyes en France. Donne a Paris au mois d'Octobre 1716.

I. Nous avons connu la necessite qu'il y a d'y soutenir l'execution de l'edit du mars 1685, qui en maintenant la discipline de l'Eglise Catholique, Apostolique et Romaine, pourvoit a ce qui concerne l'etat et la qualite des Esclaves Negres, qu'on entretient dans lesdites colonies pour la culture des terres; et comme nous avons ete informes que plusieurs habitans de nos Isles de l'Amerique desirent envoyer en France quelques-uns de leur Esclaves pour les confirmer dans les Instructions et dans les Exercices de notre Religion, et pour leur faire apprendre en meme tems quelque Art et Metier dont les colonies recevroient beaucoup d'utilite par le retour de ces Esclaves; mais que les habitans craignaient que les Esclaves ne pretendent etre libres en arrivant en France, ce qui pourroit causer auxdits habitans une perte considerable, et les detourner d'un objet aussi pieux et aussi utile.

* * * * *

II. Si quelques-uns des habitans de nos colonies, ou officiers employes sur l'Etat desdites colonies, veulent amener en France avec eux des Esclaves Negres, de l'un & de l'autre sexe, en qualite de domestique ou autrement pour les fortifier davantage dans notre Religion, tant par les instructions qu'ils recevront, que par l'exemple de nos autre sujets, et pour leur faire apprendre en meme tems quelque Art et Metier, dont les colonies puissent retirer de l'utilite, par le retour de ces Esclaves, lesdits proprietaires seront tenus d'en obtenir la permission des Gouverneurs Generaux, ou Commandans dans chaque Isle, laquelle permission contiendra le nom du proprietaire, celui des Esclaves, leur age & leur signalement.—Code Noir ou Recueil d'edits, declarations, et arrets concernant des Esclaves Negres Discipline el le commerce des Esclaves Negres des isles francaises de l'Amerique (in Recueil de reglemens, edits, declarations, et arrets concernant le commerce, l'administration de la justice et la police des colonies francaises de l'Amerique et les Engages avec le Code Noir et l'addition audit Code) (Jefferson's copy). A Paris chez les Libraires Associes, 1745.

A PROPOSITION FOR ENCOURAGING THE CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF INDIAN, NEGRO, AND MULATTO CHILDREN AT LAMBETH, VIRGINIA, 1724

"It being a duty of Christianity very much neglected by masters and mistresses of this country (America) to endeavor the good instruction and education of their heathen slaves in the Christian faith,—the said duty being likewise earnestly recommended by his Majesty's instructions,—for the facilitating thereof among the young slaves that are born among us; it is, therefore, humbly proposed that every Indian, Negro, or mulatto child that shall be baptized and afterward brought to church and publicly catechized by the minister in church, and shall, before the fourteenth year of his or her age, give a distinct account of the Creed, the Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments, and whose master or mistress shall receive a certificate from the minister that he or she hath so done, such Indian, Negro or mulatto child shall be exempted from paying all levies till the age of eighteen years."—Bishop William Meade's Old Churches, Ministers, and Families of Virginia, vol. i., p. 265.

PASTORAL LETTER OF BISHOP GIBSON OF LONDON

To the Masters and Mistresses of Families in the English Plantations abroad; exhorting them to encourage and promote the instruction of their Negroes in the Christian Faith. (About 1727.)

The care of the Plantations abroad being committed to the Bishop of London as to Religious Affairs; I have thought it my duty to make particular Inquiries into the State of Religion in those Parts, and to learn among other Things, what numbers of slaves are employed within the several Governments, and what Means are used for their Instruction in the Christian Faith: I find the Numbers are prodigiously great; and am not a little troubled to observe how small a Progress has been made in a Christian country, towards the delivering those poor Creatures from the Pagan Darkness and Superstition in which they were bred, and the making them Partakers in the Light of the Gospel, and the Blessings and Benefits belonging to it. And what is yet more to be lamented, I find there has not only been very little Progress made in the work but that all Attempts toward it have been by too many industriously discouraged and hindered; partly by magnifying the Difficulties of the Work beyond what they really are; and partly by mistaken Suggestions of the Change which Baptism would make in the Condition of the Negroes, to the Loss and Disadvantage of their Masters.

As to the Difficulties; it may be pleaded, That the Negroes are grown Persons when they come over, and that having been accustomed to the Pagan Rites and Idolatries of their own Country, they are prejudiced against all other Religions, and more particularly against the Christian, as forbidding all that Licentiousness which is usually practiced among the Heathens.... But a farther Difficulty is that they are utter Strangers to our Language, and we to theirs; and the Gift of Tongues being now ceased, there is no Means left of instructing them in the Doctrines of the Christian Religion. And this, I own is a real Difficulty, as long as it continues, and as far as it reaches. But, if I am rightly informed, many of the Negroes, who are grown Persons when they come over, do of themselves obtain so much of our Language, as enables them to understand, and to be understood, in Things which concern the ordinary Business of Life, and they who can go so far of their own Accord, might doubtless be carried much farther, if proper Methods and Endeavors were used to bring them to a competent Knowledge of our Language, with a pious view to instructing them in the Doctrines of our Religion. At least, some of them, who are more capable and more serious than the rest, might be easily instructed both in our Language and Religion, and then be made use of to convey Instruction to the rest in their own Language. And this, one would hope, may be done with great Ease, wherever there is a hearty and sincere Zeal of the Work.

But what Difficulties there may be in instructing those who are grown-up before they are brought over; there are not the like Difficulties in the Case of their Children, who are born and bred in our Plantations, who have never been accustomed to Pagan Rites and Superstitions, and who may easily be trained up, like all other Children, to any Language whatsoever, and particularly to our own; if the making them good Christians be sincerely the Desire and Intention of those, who have Property in them, and Government over them.—Dalcho's An Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina, pp. 104-106.

ANOTHER PASTORAL LETTER OF BISHOP GIBSON OF LONDON

To the Missionaries in the English Plantations (about 1727).

DEAR BROTHER,

Having understood by many Letters from the Plantations, and by the Accounts of Persons who have come from thence, that very little progress hath hitherto been made in the conversion of the Negroes to the Christian Faith; I have thought it proper for me to lay before Masters and Mistresses the Obligations they are under, and to promote and encourage that pious and necessary Work....

As to those Ministers who have Negroes of their own; I cannot but esteem it their indispensable Duty to use their best Endeavors to instruct them in the Christian Religion, in order to their being baptised; both because such Negroes are their proper and immediate Care, and because it is in vain to hope that other Masters and Mistresses will exert themselves in this Work, if they see it wholly neglected, or but coldly pursued, in the Families of the Clergy ...

I would also hope that the Schoolmasters in the several Parishes, part of whose Business it is to instruct Youth in the Principles of Christianity, might contribute somewhat towards the carrying on of this Work; by being ready to bestow upon it some of their Leisure Time, and especially on the Lord's Day, when both they and the Negroes are most at liberty and the Clergy are taken up with the public Duties of their Function.—Dalcho's An Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina, pages 112-114.

AN EXTRACT FROM A SERMON PREACHED BY BISHOP SECKER OF LONDON IN 1741

"The next Object of the Society's Concern, were the poor Negroes. These unhappy Wretches learn in their Native Country, the grossest Idolatry, and the most savage Dispositions: and then are sold to the best Purchaser: sometimes by their Enemies, who would else put them to Death; sometimes by the nearest Friends, who are either unable or unwilling to maintain them. Their Condition in our Colonies, though it cannot well be worse than it would have been at Home, is yet nearly as hard as possible: their Servitude most laborious, their Punishments most severe. And thus many thousands of them spend their whole Days, one Generation after another, undergoing with reluctant Minds continual Toil in this World, and comforted with no Hopes of Reward in a better. For it is not to be expected that Masters, too commonly negligent of Christianity themselves, will take much Pains to teach it their slaves; whom even the better Part of them are in a great Measure habituated to consider, as they do their Cattle, merely with a view to the Profit arising from them. Not a few, therefore, have openly opposed their Instruction, from an Imagination now indeed proved and acknowledged to be groundless, that Baptism would entitle them to Freedom. Others by obliging them to work on Sundays to provide themselves Necessaries, leave them neither Time to learn Religion, nor any Prospect of being able to subsist, if once the Duty of resting on that Day become Part of their Belief. And some, it may be feared, have been averse to their becoming Christians because after that, no Pretence will remain for not treating them like Men. When these Obstacles are added to the fondness they have for their old Heathenish Rites, and the strong Prejudices they must have against Teachers from among those, whom they serve so unwillingly; it cannot be wondered, if the Progress made in their Conversion prove slow. After some Experience of this kind, Catechists were appointed in two Places, by Way of Trial for Their Instruction alone: whose Success, where it was least, hath been considerable; and so great in the Plantation belonging to the Society that out of two hundred and thirty, at least seventy are now Believers in Christ. And there is lately an Improvement to this Scheme begun to be executed, by qualifying and employing young Negroes, prudently chosen, to teach their Countrymen: from which in the Opinion of the best Judges, we may reasonably promise ourselves, that this miserable People, the Generality of whom have hitherto sat in Darkness, will see great Light."—Seeker's A Sermon Preached before the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 1741.

EXTRACTS FROM THE SERMONS OF REV. THOMAS BACON ADDRESSED TO MASTERS AND SERVANTS ABOUT 1750

"Next to our children and brethren by blood, our servants, and especially our slaves, are certainly in the nearest relation to us. They are an immediate and necessary part of our households, by whose labors and assistance we are enabled to enjoy the gifts of Providence in ease and plenty; and surely we owe them a return of what is just and equal for the drudgery and hardships they go through in our service....

"It is objected, They are such stubborn creatures, there is no dealing with them.

"Answer. Supposing this to be true of most of them (which I believe will scarcely be insisted on:) may it not fairly be asked, whence doth this stubbornness proceed?—Is it from nature?—That cannot be:—for I think it is generally acknowledged that new Negroes, or those born in and imported from the coast of Guinea, prove the best and most tractable servants. Is it then from education?—for one or the other it must proceed from.—But pray who had the care of bringing up those that were born here?—Was it not ourselves?—And might not an early care, of instilling good principles into them when young, have prevented much of that stubbornness and untractableness you complain of in country-born negroes?—These, you cry out, are wickeder than the others:—and, pray, where did they learn that wickedness?—Was it not among ourselves?—for those who come immediately from their own country, you say, have more simplicity and honesty. A sad reproach to a Christian people indeed! that such poor ignorant heathens shall bring better morals and dispositions from home with them, that they can learn or actually do contract amongst us!

* * * * *

"It is objected,—they are so ignorant and unteachable, they cannot be brought to any knowledge in these matters.

"Answer. This objection seems to have little or no truth in it, with respect to the bulk of them.—Their ignorance, indeed, about matters of religion, is not to be disputed;—they are sunk in it to a sad and lamentable degree, which has been shown to be chiefly owing to the negligence of their owners.—But that they are so stupid and unteachable, as that they cannot be brought to any competent knowledge in these matters, is false, and contrary to fact and experience. In regard to their work, they learn it, and grow dexterous enough in a short time. Many of them have learned trades and manufactures, which they perform well, and with sufficient ingenuity:—whence it is plain they are not unteachable; do not want natural parts and capacities.—Most masters and mistresses will complain of their art and cunning in contriving to deceive them.—Is it reasonable to deny then they can learn what is good, when it is owned at the same time they can be so artful in what is bad?—Their ignorance, therefore, if born in the country, must absolutely be the fault of their owners:—and such as are brought here from Africa may, surely, be taught something of advantage to their own future state, as well as to work for their masters' present gain.—The difference plainly consists in this;—that a good deal of pains is taken to shew them how to labour, and they are punished if they neglect it.—This sort of instruction their owners take care to give them every day, and look well to it that it be duly followed.—But no such pains are taken in the other case.—They are generally left to themselves, whether they will serve God, or worship Devils—whether they become christians, or remain heathens as long as they live: as if either their souls were not worth the saving, or as if we were under no obligation of giving them any instruction:—which is the true reason why so many of them who are grown up, and lived many years among us, are as entirely ignorant of the principles of religion, as if they had never come into a christian country:—at least, as to any good or practical purposes.

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"I have dwelt the longer upon this head, because it is of the utmost importance, and seems to be but little considered among us.—For there is too much reason to fear, that the many vices and immoralities so common among white people;—the lewdness, drunkenness, quarrelling, abusiveness, swearing, lying, pride, backbiting, overreaching, idleness, and sabbath-breaking, everywhere to be seen among us, are a great encouragement to our Negroes to do the like, and help strongly to confirm them in the habits of wickedness and impiety.

"We ought not only to avoid giving them bad examples, and abstain from all appearance of evil, but also strive to set a daily good example before their eyes, that seeing us lead the way in our own person, they may more readily be persuaded to follow us in the wholesome paths of religion and virtue.

* * * * *

"We ought to make this reading and studying the holy scriptures, and the reading and explaining them to our children and slaves, and the catechizing or instructing them in the principles of the Christian religion, a stated duty.

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"We ought in a particular manner to take care of the children, and instil early principles of piety and religion into their minds.

"If the grown up slaves, from confirmed habits of vice, are hard to be reclaimed, the children surely are in our power, and may be trained up in the way they should go, with rational hopes that when they are old, they will not depart from it.—We ought, therefore, to take charge of their education principally upon ourselves, and not leave them entirely to the care of their wicked parents.—If the present generation be bad, we may hope by this means that the succeeding ones will be much better. One child well instructed, will take care when grown up to instruct his children; and they again will teach their posterity good things.—And I am fully of opinion, that the common notion of wickedness running in the blood, is not so general in fact as to be admitted for an axiom. And that the vices we see descending from parents to their children are chiefly owing to the malignant influence of bad example and conversation.—And though some persons may be, and undoubtedly are, born with stronger passions and appetites, or with a greater propensity to some particular gratifications or pursuits than others, yet we do not want convincing instances how effectually they may be restrained, or at least corrected and turned to proper and laudable ends, by the force of an early care, and a suitable education.

"To you of the female sex, (whom I have had occasion more than once to take notice of with honor in this congregation) I would address a few words on this head.—You, who by your stations are more confined at home, and have the care of the younger sort more particularly under your management, may do a great deal of good in this way.—I know not when I have been more affected, or my heart touched with stronger and more pleasing emotions, than at the sight and conversation of a little negro boy, not above seven years old, who read to me in the new testament, and perfectly repeated his catechism throughout, and all from the instruction of his careful, pious mistress, now I hope with God, enjoying the blessed fruits of her labours while on earth.—This example I would recommend to your serious imitation, and to enforce it shall only remark, that a shining part of the character of Solomon's excellent daughter is, that she looketh well to the ways of her household."—Rev. Thomas Bacon's Sermons Addressed to Masters and Servants, pp. 4, 48, 49, 51, 64, 65, 69, 70, 73, 74.

PORTIONS OF BENJAMIN FAWCETT's ADDRESS TO THE CHRISTIAN NEGROES IN VIRGINIA ABOUT 1755

"Rejoice and be exceeding glad, that you are delivered either from the Frauds of Mohamet, or Pagan Darkness, and Worship of Daemons; and are not now taught to place your Dependence upon those other dead Men, whom the Papists impiously worship, to the Neglect and Dishonor of Jesus Christ, the one only Mediator between God and Men. Christ, tho' he was dead, is alive again, and liveth forever-more. It is Christ, who is able also to save them to the uttermost, that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. Bless God, with all your Heart, that the Holy Scriptures are put into your Hands, which are able to make you wise unto Salvation, thro' Faith which is in Christ Jesus. Read and study the Bible for yourselves; and consider how Papists do all they can to hide it from their Followers, for Fear such divine Light should discover the gross Darkness of their false Doctrines and Worship. Be particularly thankful to the Ministers of Christ around you, who are faithfully labouring to teach you the Truth as it is in Jesus....

"Contrary to these evident Truths and precious Comforts of the Word of God, you may perhaps be tempted very unjustly to renounce your Fidelity and Obedience to your Old Masters, in Hope of finding new ones, with whom you may live more happily. At one time or other it will probably be suggested to you, that the French will make better Masters than the English. But I beseech you to consider, that your Happiness as Men and Christians exceedingly depends upon your doing all in your Power to support the British Government, and that kind of Christianity which is called the Protestant Religion; and likewise in opposing, with all your Might, the Power of the French, the Delusions of Popish Priests, and all the Rage and Malice of such Indians, as are in the French Interest. If the Power of France was to prevail in the Country where you now live, you have Nothing to expect but the most terrible Increase of your Sufferings. Your Slavery would then, not merely extend to Body, but also to the Soul; not merely run thro' your Days of Labour, but even thro' your Lord's Days. Your Bibles would then become like a sealed Book, and your Consciences would be fettered with worse than Iron-Chains. Therefore be patient, be submissive and obedient, be faithful and true, even when some of your Masters are most unkind. This is the only way for you to have Consciences void of Offense towards God and Man. This will really be taking the most effectual Measures, to secure for yourselves a Share in the invaluable Blessings and Privileges of the glorious Gospel of the Blessed God, which you have already received thro' the Channel of the British Government, and which no other Government upon the Face of the Earth is so calculated to support and preserve.