In Illinois the situation was better than in Indiana, but far from encouraging. The constitution of 1847 restricted the benefits of the school law to white children, stipulating the word white throughout the act so as to make clear the intention of the legislators.[1] It seemed to some that, in excluding the colored children from the public schools, the law contemplated the establishment of separate schools in that it provided that the amount of school taxes collected from Negroes should be returned. Exactly what should be done with such money, however, was not stated in the act. But even if that were the object in view, the provision was of little help to the people of color for the reason that the clause providing for the return of school taxes was seldom executed. In the few cases in which it was carried out the fund thus raised was not adequate to the support of a special school, and generally there were not sufficient colored children in a community to justify such an outlay. In districts having control of their local affairs, however, the children of Negroes were often given a chance to attend school. [Footnote 1: The Constitution of Illinois, in the _Journal of the Constitution of the State of Illinois_, 1847, p. 344.] As this scant consideration given Negroes of Illinois left one-half of the six thousand of their children out of the pale of education, earnest appeals were made that the restrictive word white be stricken from the school law. The friends of the colored people sought to show how inconsistent this system was with the spirit of the constitution of the State, which, interpreted as they saw it, guaranteed all persons equality.[1] They held meetings from which came renewed petitions to their representatives, entreating them to repeal or amend the old school law. It was not so much a question as to whether or not there should be separate schools as it was whether or not the people of color should be educated. The dispersed condition of their children made it impossible for the State to provide for them in special schools the same educational facilities as those furnished the youth of Caucasian blood. Chicago tried the experiment in 1864, but failing to get the desired result, incorporated the colored children into the white schools the following year.[2] The State Legislature had sufficient moral courage to do away with these caste distinctions in 1874.[3] [Footnote 1: Thorpe, _Federal and State Constitutions_, Const. of Illinois.] [Footnote 2: _Special Report of U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 343.] [Footnote 3: Starr and Curtis, _Annotated Statutes of Illinois_, ch. 105, p. 2261.]