The third incident referred to, though not a matter of legislation, did much to focus the attention of the country at large upon the question of the separation of the races in schools. The Twentieth Century Club of Boston met at luncheon on the 14th of February, 1907, to consider the situation of Berea College. Dr. Charles W. Eliot, then President of Harvard University, was one of the speakers. In the course of his remarks, he said: “If the numbers of whites and blacks were more nearly equal [in Boston] we might feel like segregating the one from the other in our own schools. It may be that as large and generous a work can be done for the Negro in this way as in mixed schools. So the separation of the races in the Berea schools is not really an abandonment of the principle, although it may be a departure from the original purpose. “Perhaps if there were as many Negroes here as there we might think it better for them to be in separate schools. At present Harvard has about five thousand white students and about thirty of the colored race. The latter are hidden in the great mass and are not noticeable. If they were equal in numbers or in a majority, we might deem a separation necessary.”[348] These conservative and guarded words of the head of the University which has, above all other American institutions of learning, preserved and encouraged the “open-door policy” toward students of all races, struck consternation to the radicals of both the white and colored races in the North and East, and gladdened the hearts of many of the South and West who are facing their own race problems. One side felt that it had lost an illustrious standard-bearer; the other, that it had won a strong ally. These three incidents show that the separation of the races in schools is a live question, worthy of an investigation. It is probable that there are many private and public schools outside of the South which do not, in fact, admit colored students. Probably there are schools which would close their doors to white applicants. It may be that there are actual discriminations against one or the other race in those schools which claim to make no distinction on account of race or color. But many such matters as these have not come under the eye of the law, and so have no place here. SEPARATION BEFORE 1865 Although one need not consider in detail the laws separating the races in schools before the Civil War, because the public school system then was poorly developed, as a rule, and the Negro had not attained the rights of a citizen in many States, still it is well to look into some of the antebellum statutes and decisions to find precedents for later statutes and rulings of the courts upon this subject.