[Footnote 1: _Minutes and Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color_, p. 25.] [Footnote 2: _African Repository_, vol. x., p. 312.] [Footnote 3: _Ibid._, vol. x., p. 312.] Efforts were then being made for the establishment of another institution near Philadelphia. These endeavors culminated in the above-mentioned benefaction of Richard Humphreys, by the will of whom $10,000 was devised to establish a school for the purpose of instructing "descendants of the African race in school learning in the various branches of the mechanical arts and trades and agriculture."[1] In 1839 members of the Society of Friends organized an association to establish a school such as Humphreys had planned. The founders believed that "the most successful method of elevating the moral and intellectual character of the descendants of Africa, as well as of improving their social condition, is to extend to them the benefits of a good education, and to instruct them in the knowledge of some useful trade or business, whereby they may be enabled to obtain a comfortable livelihood by their own industry; and through these means to prepare them for fulfilling the various duties of domestic and social life with reputation and fidelity as good citizens and pious men."[2] Directing their attention first to things practical the association purchased in 1839 a piece of land in Bristol township, Philadelphia County, where they offered boys instruction in farming, shoemaking, and other useful trades. Their endeavors, so far as training in the mechanic arts was concerned, proved to be a failure. In 1846, therefore, the management decided to discontinue this literary, agricultural, and manual labor experiment. The trustees then sold the farm and stock, apprenticed the male students to mechanical occupations, and opened an evening school. Thinking mainly of classical education thereafter, the trustees of the fund finally established the Institute for Colored Youth of which we have spoken elsewhere. [Footnote 1: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 379.] [Footnote 2: _Ibid._, 1871, p. 379.]