I was chosen to examine the colored applicants for positions as teachers. In the months of September and October, I spent six half days in the work of examination. It was a difficult task. These aspirants for the responsible office of teacher knew accurately very little. The superintendent of our city schools furnished me with the questions to be asked. But these questions were framed for white teachers of larger knowledge and greater discipline and were quite unfit for my purpose; however, being required to use them, I did my best in Saul’s armor. During the war the price of gold in New York was quoted in every daily paper. It was one dollar and forty cents or one dollar and seventy-five cents or two dollars and twenty-five cents, that is, it took so much in paper currency to buy one dollar in gold. One of the questions designated for these examinations was: “What is the leading industry of New York?” referring of course to the State of New York. It was a rather difficult question for any one to answer. I gave it to a bright-looking colored girl, as a part of her examination. Her answer was, “Buying and selling gold.” Out of the fourteen that I examined, male and female, I found four that showed that they were tolerably well-prepared for their duties as primary teachers and they acquitted themselves very well in the schoolroom. Our schools flourished. Most of the pupils learned rapidly. The number of them multiplied. Soon our room was insufficient. From time to time we added other schools, and succeeded with small means in doing a great, beneficent work. We finally carried our case to the School Board of the city. We went with faint hearts. In a community accustomed to slave laws, which public opinion had heartily sustained, we were to ask the great boon of public schools for those who by legislative enactment had been long kept in ignorance. Moreover, the character of the men before whom we were to plead the cause of the negro made us hesitate. Most of them were what were then called Bourbon Democrats, who, it was declared, never learned anything nor forgot anything, and a majority of the Board were Roman Catholics. What could we expect men of that kind to do for the servile and despised race among us? We were ushered into their presence. With warm hearts we began to state our case. We criminated nobody. We spoke earnestly and tenderly for the wronged and neglected. We were wonderfully cheered when we saw that those whom we addressed were all eye and all ear. They intently looked us in the face, they seemed unwilling to lose a single word that fell from our lips. The injustice that we pointed out was so rank that all their hearts were touched. Without a dissenting voice they declared that the great wrong must be righted; that the children of the men who paid a school tax must share in its benefits.