In Ohio, prior to 1848, no provision was made for the public education of colored children, and the property of colored persons was not taxed for school purposes. In fact, a law[349] of February 10, 1829, expressly excluded black and mulattoes from the public schools. In 1834, the child of a man three-quarters white and of a white woman was denied admission to a public school. In a case[350] arising out of it, the court held that a child with more than one-half white blood is entitled to the privilege of the whites, saying: “We think the term white as used in the law describes _blood_ and not _complexion_.... The plaintiff’s children, therefore, are white within the meaning of the law, though the defendants have had the shabby meanness to ask from him his contribution of tax, and exclude his children from the benefit of the school he helped to support.” In 1848, a law[351] of the same State provided for the levy of a tax upon the property of colored persons for the support of colored schools, if the objection was made to the admission of colored children into white schools. It prohibited the application of any part of the tax paid by white persons to the support of colored schools unless the whites assented thereto. A law having so many options was objectionable and was repealed within a year. The next year, 1849, a statute[352] was enacted with regard to the education of colored children, but this appropriated to the colored schools only the funds arising from taxes paid by colored persons. The year before the white patron of a school had brought an action against the directors because they erroneously admitted colored children to the school, thus contriving, he said, “to deprive him of the benefit” of sending his children to the school. The court[353] ruled that the directors were not liable because they did not act with corrupt motives, but had simply misjudged the law.