In the course of time these workers succeeded in various communities. The movement for the higher education of the Negroes of the District of Columbia centered largely around the academy established by Miss Myrtilla Miner, a worthy young woman of New York. After various discouragements in seeking a special preparation for life's work, she finally concluded that she should devote her time to the moral and intellectual improvement of Negroes.[1] She entered upon her career in Washington in 1851 assisted by Miss Anna Inman, a native of New York, and a member of the Society of Friends. After teaching the girls French one year Miss Inman returned to her home in Southfield, Rhode Island.[2] Finding it difficult to get a permanent location, Miss Miner had to move from place to place among colored people who were generally persecuted and threatened with conflagration for having a white woman working among them. Driven to the extremity of building a schoolhouse for her purpose, she purchased a lot with money raised largely by Quakers of New York, Philadelphia, and New England, and by Harriet Beecher Stowe.[3] Miss Miner had also the support of Mrs. Means, an aunt of the wife of President Franklin Pierce, and of United States Senator W.H. Seward.[4] Effective opposition, however, was not long in developing. Articles appeared in the newspapers protesting against this policy of affording Negroes "a degree of instruction so far above their social and political condition which must continue in this and every other slaveholding community."[5] Girls were insulted, teachers were abused along the streets, and for lack of police surveillance the house was set afire in 1860. It was sighted, however, in time to be saved.[6] [Footnote 1: O'Connor, _Myrtilla Miner_, pp. 11, 12.] [Footnote 2: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 207.] [Footnote 3: _Ibid._, 1871, p. 208.] [Footnote 4: _Ibid._, pp. 208, 209, and 210.] [Footnote 5: _The National Intelligencer._] [Footnote 6: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 209.]