"SECTION 1. If any person shall hereafter teach any slave to read or write, or shall aid or assist in teaching any slave to read or write, or cause or procure any slave to be taught to read or write, such person, if a free white person, upon conviction thereof shall, for each and every offense against, this act, be fined not exceeding $100 and imprisonment not more than six months; or, if a free person of color, shall be whipped not exceeding fifty lashes, and fined not exceeding $50, at the discretion of the court of magistrates and freeholders before which such free person of color is tried; and if a slave, to be whipped, at the discretion of the court, not exceeding fifty lashes, the informer to be entitled to one-half the fine and to be a competent witness. And if any free person of color or slave shall keep any school or other place of instruction for teaching any slave or free person of color to read or write, such free person of color or slave shall be liable to the same fine, imprisonment, and corporal punishment as by this act are imposed and inflicted on free persons of color and slaves for teaching slaves to write." The second section forbids, under pain of severe penalties, the employment of any Colored persons as "clerks or salesmen in or about any shop, store, or house used for trading." TENNESSEE passed a law in 1838 establishing a system of common schools by which the scholars were designated as "white children over the age of six years and under sixteen." In 1840 an act was passed in which no discrimination against color appeared. It simply provided that "all children between the ages of six and twenty-one years shall have the privilege of attending the public schools." And while there was never afterward any law prohibiting the education of Colored children, the schools were used exclusively by the whites. TEXAS never put any legislation on her statute-books withholding the blessings of the schools from the Negro, for the reason, doubtless, that she banished all free persons of color, and worked her slaves so hard that they had no hunger for books when night came. VIRGINIA, under Sir William Berkeley, was not a strong patron of education for the masses. For the slave there was little opportunity to learn, as he was only allowed part of Saturday to rest, and kept under the closest surveillance on the Sabbath day. The free persons of color were regarded with suspicion, and little chance was given them to cultivate their minds.