The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 Part 12

[Footnote 1: _Ibid._, p. 205.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 206.]

[Footnote 3: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, p. 206.]

At the same time there were other persons and organizations in the field. Prominent among the first of these workers was Daniel c.o.ker, known to fame as a colored Methodist missionary, who was sent to Liberia. Prior to 1812 he had in Baltimore an academy which certain students from Washington attended when they had no good schools of their own, and when white persons began to object to the co-education of the races. Because of these conditions two daughters of George Bell, the builder of the first colored schoolhouse in the District of Columbia, went to Baltimore to study under c.o.ker.[1] An adult Negro school in this city had 180 pupils in 1820. There were then in the Baltimore Sunday-schools about 600 Negroes. They had formed themselves into a Bible a.s.sociation which had been received into the connection of the Baltimore Bible Society.[2] In 1825 the Negroes there had a day and a night school, giving courses in Latin and French. Four years later there appeared an "African Free School" with an attendance of from 150 to 175 every Sunday.[3]

[Footnote 1: _Ibid._, p. 196.]

[Footnote 2: Adams, _Anti-slavery_, etc., p. 14.]

[Footnote 3: Adams, _Anti-Slavery_, etc., pp. 14 and 15.]

By 1830 the Negroes of Baltimore had several special schools of their own.[1] In 1835 there was behind the African Methodist Church in Sharp Street a school of seventy pupils in charge of William Watkins.[2] W.

Livingston, an ordained clergyman of the Episcopal Church, had then a colored school of eighty pupils in the African Church at the corner of Saratoga and Ninth Streets.[3] A third school of this kind was kept by John Fortie at the Methodist Bethel Church in Fish Street. Five or six other schools of some consequence were maintained by free women of color, who owed their education to the Convent of the Oblate Sisters of Providence.[4] Observing these conditions, an interested person thought that much more would have been accomplished in that community, if the friends of the colored people had been able to find workers acceptable to the masters and at the same time competent to teach the slaves.[5] Yet another observer felt that the Negroes of Baltimore had more opportunities than they embraced.[6]

[Footnote 1: Buckingham, _America, Historical_, etc., vol. i., p.

438.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 438; Andrews, _Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade_, pp. 54, 55, and 56; and Varle, _A Complete View of Baltimore_, p. 33.]

[Footnote 3: Varle, _A Complete View of Baltimore_, p. 33; and Andrews, _Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade_, pp. 85 and 92.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, p. 33.]

[Footnote 5: _Ibid._, p. 54.]

[Footnote 6: _Ibid._, p. 37.]

These conditions, however, were so favorable in 1835 that when Professor E.A. Andrews came to Baltimore to introduce the work of the American Union for the Relief and Improvement of the Colored People,[1] he was informed that the education of the Negroes of that city was fairly well provided for. Evidently the need was that the "systematic and sustained exertions" of the workers should spring from a more nearly perfect organization "to give efficiency to their philanthropic labors."[2] He was informed that as his society was of New England, it would on account of its origin in the wrong quarter, be productive of mischief.[3] The leading people of Baltimore thought that it would be better to accomplish this task through the Colonization Society, a southern organization carrying out the very policy which the American Union proposed to pursue.[4]

[Footnote 1: On January 14, 1835, a convention of more than one hundred gentlemen from ten different States a.s.sembled in Boston and organized the "American Union for the Relief and Improvement of the Colored Race." Among these workers were William Reed, Daniel Noyes, J.W. Chickering, J.W. Putnam, Baron Stow, B.B. Edwards, E.A. Andrews, Charles Scudder, Joseph Tracy, Samuel Worcester, and Charles Tappan.

The gentlemen were neither antagonistic to the antislavery nor to the colonization societies. They aimed to do that which had been neglected in giving the Negroes proper preparation for freedom. Knowing that the actual emanc.i.p.ation of an oppressed race cannot be effected by legislation, they hoped to provide religious and literary instruction for all colored children that they might "ameliorate their economic condition" and prepare themselves for higher usefulness. See the _Exposition of the Object and Plans of the American Union_, pp.

11-14.]

[Footnote 2: Andrews, _Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade_, p. 57.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid_., p. 188.]

[Footnote 4: Andrews, _Slavery_, etc., p. 56.]

The instruction of ambitious blacks in this city was not confined to mere rudimentary training. The opportunity for advanced study was offered colored girls in the Convent of the Oblate Sisters of Providence. These Negroes, however, early learned to help themselves.

In 1835 considerable a.s.sistance came from Nelson Wells, one of their own color. He left to properly appointed trustees the sum of $10,000, the income of which was to be appropriated to the education of free colored children.[1] With this benefaction the trustees concerned established in 1835 what they called the Wells School. It offered Negroes free instruction long after the Civil War.

[Footnote 2: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed_., 1871, p. 353.]

In seeking to show how these good results were obtained by the Negroes' cooperative power and ability to supply their own needs, we are not unmindful of the a.s.sistance which they received. To say that the colored people of Baltimore, themselves, provided all these facilities of education would do injustice to the benevolent element of that city. Among its white people were found so much toleration of opinion on slavery and so much sympathy with the efforts for its removal, that they not only permitted the establishment of Negro churches, but opened successful colored schools in which white men and women a.s.sisted personally in teaching. Great praise is due philanthropists of the type of John Breckenridge and Daniel Raymond, who contributed their time and means to the cause and enlisted the efforts of others. Still greater credit should be given to William Crane, who for forty years was known as an "ardent, liberal, and wise friend of the black man." At the cost of $20,000 he erected in the central part of the city an edifice exclusively for the benefit of the colored people. In this building was an auditorium, several large schoolrooms, and a hall for entertainments and lectures. The inst.i.tution employed a pastor and two teachers[1] and it was often mentioned as a high school.

[Footnote 1: A contributor to the _Christian Chronicle_ found in this inst.i.tution a pastor, a princ.i.p.al of the school, and an a.s.sistant, all of superior qualifications. The cla.s.ses which this reporter heard recite grammar and geography convinced him of the thoroughness of the work and the unusual readiness of the colored people to learn. See _The African Repository_, vol. x.x.xii., p. 91.]

In northern cities like Philadelphia and New York, where benevolent organizations provided an adequate number of colored schools, the free blacks did not develop so much of the power to educate themselves. The Negroes of these cities, however, cannot be considered exceptions to the rule. Many of those of Philadelphia were of the most ambitious kind, men who had purchased their freedom or had developed sufficient intelligence to delude their would-be captors and conquer the inst.i.tution of slavery. Settled in this community, the thrifty cla.s.s acc.u.mulated wealth which they often used, not only to defray the expenses of educating their own children, but to provide educational facilities for the poor children of color.

Gradually developing the power to help themselves, the free people of color organized a society which in 1804 opened a school with John Trumbull as teacher.[1] About the same time the African Episcopalians founded a colored school at their church.[2] A colored man gave three hundred pounds of the required funds to build the first colored schoolhouse in Philadelphia.[3] In 1830 one fourth of the twelve hundred colored children in the schools of that city paid for their instruction, whereas only two hundred and fifty were attending the public schools in 1825.[4] The fact that some of the Negroes were able and willing to share the responsibility of enlightening their people caused a larger number of philanthropists to come to the rescue of those who had to depend on charity. Furthermore, of the many achievements claimed for the colored schools of Philadelphia none were considered more significant than that they produced teachers qualified to carry on this work. Eleven of the sixteen colored schools in Philadelphia in 1822 were taught by teachers of African descent. In 1830 the system was practically in the hands of Negroes.[5]

[Footnote 1: Turner, _The Negro in Pennsylvania_, p. 129.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 130.]

[Footnote 3: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 377.]

[Footnote 4: _Proceedings of the American Convention_, etc., 1825, p.

13.]

[Footnote 5: _Proceedings of the Am. Convention_, etc., 1830, p.8; and Wickersham, _History of Education in Pennsylvania_, p. 253.]

The statistics of later years show how successful these early efforts had been. By 1849 the colored schools of Philadelphia had developed to the extent that they seemed like a system. According to the _Statistical Inquiry into the Condition of Colored People in and about Philadelphia_, published that year, there were 1643 children of color attending well-regulated schools. The larger inst.i.tutions were mainly supported by State and charitable organizations of which the Society of Friends and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society were the most important. Besides supporting these inst.i.tutions, however, the intelligent colored men of Philadelphia had maintained smaller schools and organized a system of lyceums and debating clubs, one of which had a library of 1400 volumes. Moreover, there were then teaching in the colored families and industrial schools of Philadelphia many men and women of both races.[1] Although these instructors restricted their work to the teaching of the rudiments of education, they did much to help the more advanced schools to enlighten the Negroes who came to that city in large numbers when conditions became intolerable for the free people of color in the slave States. The statistics of the following decade show unusual progress. In the year 1859 there were in the colored public schools of Philadelphia, 1031 pupils; in the charity schools, 748; in the benevolent schools, 211; in private schools, 331; in all, 2321, whereas in 1849 there were only 1643.[2]

[Footnote 1: About the middle of the nineteenth century colored schools of various kinds arose in Philadelphia. With a view to giving Negroes industrial training their friends opened "The School for the Dest.i.tute" at the House of Industry in 1848. Three years later Sarah Luciana was teaching a school of seventy youths at this House of Industry, and the Sheppard School, another industrial inst.i.tution, was in operation in 1850 in a building bearing the same name. In 1849 arose the "Corn Street Uncla.s.sified School" of forty-seven children in charge of Sarah L. Peltz. "The Holmesburg Uncla.s.sified School" was organized in 1854. Other inst.i.tutions of various purposes were "The House of Refuge," "The Orphans' Shelter," and "The Home for Colored Children." See Bacon, _Statistics of the Colored People of Philadelphia_, 1859.

Among those then teaching in private schools of Philadelphia were Solomon Clarkson, Robert George, John Marshall, John Ross, Jonathan Tudas, and David Ware. Ann Bishop, Virginia Blake, Amelia Bogle, Anne E. Carey, Sarah Ann Dougla.s.s, Rebecca Hailstock, Emma Hall, Emmeline Higgins, Margaret Johnson, Martha Richards, Dinah Smith, Mary Still, and one Peterson were teaching in families. See _Statistical Inquiry_, etc., 1849, p. 19; and Bacon, _Statistics of the Colored People of Philadelphia_, 1859.]

[Footnote 2: _Statistical Inquiry into the Condition of the Colored People of Philadelphia_, in 1859.]

Situated like those of Philadelphia, the free blacks of New York City did not have to maintain their own schools. This was especially true after 1832 when the colored people had qualified themselves to take over the schools of the New York Manumission Society. They then got rid of all the white teachers, even Andrews, the princ.i.p.al, who had for years directed this system. Besides, the economic progress of certain Negroes there made possible the employment of the increasing number of colored teachers, who had availed themselves of the opportunities afforded by the benevolent schools. The stigma then attached to one receiving seeming charity through free schools stimulated thrifty Negroes to have their children instructed either in private inst.i.tutions kept by friendly white teachers or by teachers of their own color.[1] In 1812 a society of the free people of color was organized to raise a fund, the interest of which was to sustain a free school for orphan children.[2] This society succeeded later in establishing and maintaining two schools. At this time there were in New York City three other colored schools, the teachers of which received their compensation from those who patronized them.[3]

[Footnote 1: See the Address of the American Convention, 1819.]

[Footnote 2: _Proceedings of the Am. Convention_, etc., 1812, p. 7.

Certain colored women were then organized to procure and make for dest.i.tute persons of color. See Andrews, _History of the New York African Free Schools_, p. 58.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, p. 58.]

Whether from lack of interest in their welfare on the part of the public, or from the desire of the Negroes to share their own burdens, the colored people of Rhode Island were endeavoring to provide for the education of their children during the first decades of the last century. _The Newport Mercury_ of March 26, 1808, announced that the African Benevolent Society had opened there a school kept by Newport Gardner, who was to instruct all colored people "inclined to attend."

The records of the place show that this school was in operation eight years later.[1]

[Footnote 1: Stockwell, _History of Ed. in R.I._, p. 30.]

In Boston, where were found more Negroes than in most New England communities, the colored people themselves maintained a separate school after the revolutionary era. In the towns of Salem, Nantucket, New Bedford, and Lowell the colored schools failed to make much progress after the first quarter of the nineteenth century on account of the more liberal construction of the laws which provided for democratic education. This the free blacks were forced to advocate for the reason that the seeming onerous task of supporting a dual system often caused the neglect, and sometimes the extinction of the separate schools. Furthermore, either the Negroes of some of these towns were too scarce or the movement to furnish them special facilities of education started too late to escape the attacks of the abolitionists.

Seeing their mistake of first establishing separate schools, they began to attack caste in public education.

In the eastern cities where colored school systems thereafter continued, the work was not always successful. The influx of fugitives in the rough sometimes jeopardized their chances for education by menacing liberal communities with the trouble of caring for an undesirable cla.s.s. The friends of the Negroes, however, received more encouragement during the two decades immediately preceding the Civil War. There was a change in the att.i.tude of northern cities toward the uplift of the colored refugees. Catholics, Protestants, and abolitionists often united their means to make provision for the education of accessible Negroes, although these friends of the oppressed could not always agree on other important schemes. Even the colonizationists, the object of attack from the ardent antislavery element, considerably aided the cause. They educated for work in Liberia a number of youths, who, given the opportunity to attend good schools, demonstrated the capacity of the colored people. More important factors than the colonizationists were the free people of color. Brought into the rapidly growing urban communities, these Negroes began to acc.u.mulate sufficient wealth to provide permanent schools of their own. Many of these were later a.s.similated by the systems of northern cities when their separate schools were disestablished.

CHAPTER VII

THE REACTION