The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861: A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil WarWoodson, Carter Godwin
History
The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861: A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War
Woodson, Carter Godwin
African Americans -- Education
"Canada West has adopted a good system of public instruction, which
is well administered. The common schools, though inferior to those of
several of the States of the United States, are good. Colored children
are admitted to them in most places; and where a separate school is
open for them, it is as well provided by the government with teachers
and apparatus as the other schools are. Notwithstanding the growing
prejudice against blacks, the authorities evidently mean to deal
justly by them in regard to instruction; and even those who advocate
separate schools, promise that they shall be equal to white schools.
"The colored children in the mixed schools do not differ in their
general appearance and behavior from their white comrades. They are
usually clean and decently clad. They look quite as the whites; and
are perhaps a little more mirthful and roguish. The association
is manifestly beneficial to the colored children." See Howe, _The
Refugees_, etc., p. 77.]
[Footnote 2: Siebert, _The Underground Railroad_, p. 226.]
CHAPTER XI
HIGHER EDUCATION
The development of the schools and churches established for these
transplanted freedmen made more necessary than ever a higher education
to develop in them the power to work out their own salvation. It
was again the day of thorough training for the Negroes. Their
opportunities for better instruction were offered mainly by the
colonizationists and abolitionists.[1] Although these workers had
radically different views as to the manner of elevating the colored
people, they contributed much to their mental development. The more
liberal colonizationists endeavored to furnish free persons of
color the facilities for higher education with the hope that their
enlightenment would make them so discontented with this country
that they would emigrate to Liberia. Most southern colonizationists
accepted this plan but felt that those permanently attached to this
country should be kept in ignorance; for if they were enlightened,
they would either be freed or exterminated. During the period of
reaction, when the elevation of the race was discouraged in the North
and prohibited in most parts of the South, the colonizationists
continued to secure to Negroes, desiring to expatriate themselves,
opportunities for education which never would have been given those
expecting to remain in the United States.[2]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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