The error of the Court was repaired by the Legislature of Massachusetts, which in 1855 enacted as follows:-- "In determining the qualifications of scholars to be admitted into any Public School or any District School in this Commonwealth, no distinction shall be made on account of the race, color, or religious opinions of the applicant or scholar."[12] [11] Roberts _v._ City of Boston, 5 Cushing R., 206. [12] General Laws of Massachusetts, 1855, Ch. 256, sec. 1. By other sections, the child excluded on such account was entitled to "damages therefor in an action of tort," with a bill of discovery to obtain evidence. Then came this supplementary protection:-- "Every person belonging to the School Committee under whose rules or directions any child shall be excluded from such school, and every teacher of any such school, shall, on application by the parent or guardian of any such child, state in writing the grounds and reasons of such exclusion." Since this legislation, Equal Rights have prevailed in the Common Schools of Massachusetts, and nobody would go back to the earlier system. Associated with Mr. Sumner in this case was Robert Morris, Esq., a colored lawyer. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HONORS:-- Can any discrimination on account of race or color be made among children entitled to the benefit of our Common Schools under the Constitution and Laws of Massachusetts? This is the question which the Court is now to hear, to consider, and to decide. Or, stating the question with more detail, and with more particular application to the facts of the present case, are the Committee having superintendence of the Common Schools of Boston intrusted with _power_, under the Constitution and Laws of Massachusetts, to exclude colored children from the schools, and compel them to find education at separate schools, set apart for colored children only, at distances from their homes less convenient than schools open to white children? This important question arises in an action by a colored child only five years old, who, _by her next friend_, sues the city of Boston for damages on account of a refusal to receive her into one of the Common Schools.