The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 Part 23

"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 a.s.sociation 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]

[Footnote 1: The views of the abolitionists at that time were well expressed by Garrison in his address to the people of color in the convention a.s.sembled in Philadelphia in 1830. He encouraged them to get as much education as possible for themselves and their offspring, to toil long and hard for it as for a pearl of great price. "An ignorant people," said he, "can never occupy any other than a degraded place in society; they can never be truly free until they are intelligent. It is an old maxim that knowledge is power; and not only is it power but rank, wealth, dignity, and protection. That capital brings highest return to a city, state, or nation (as the case may be) which is invested in schools, academies, and colleges. If I had children, rather than that they should grow up in ignorance, I would feed upon bread and water: I would sell my teeth, or extract the blood from my veins." See _Minutes of the Proceedings of the Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color_, 1830, pages 10, 11.]

[Footnote 2: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, pp.

213-214; and _The African Repository_, under the captions of "Education in Liberia," and "African Education Societies," _pa.s.sim_.]

The policy of promoters of African colonization, however, did not immediately become unprogressive. Their plan of education differed from previous efforts in that the objects of their philanthropy were to be given every opportunity for mental growth. The colonizationists had learned from experience in educating Negroes that it was necessary to begin with the youth.[1] These workers observed, too, that the exigencies of the time demanded more advanced and better endowed inst.i.tutions to prepare colored men to instruct others in science and religion, and to fit them for "civil offices in Liberia and Hayti."[2]

To execute this scheme the leaders of the colonization movement endeavored to educate Negroes in "mechanic arts, agriculture, science, and Biblical literature."[3] Exceptionally bright youths were to be given special training as catechists, teachers, preachers, and physicians.[4] A southern planter offered a plantation for the establishment of a suitable inst.i.tution of learning,[5] a few masters sent their slaves to eastern schools to be educated, and men organized "education societies" in various parts to carry out this work at shorter range. In 1817 colonizationists opened at Pasippany, New Jersey, a school to give a four-year course to "African youth" who showed "talent, discretion, and piety" and were able to read and write.[6] Twelve years later another effort was made to establish a school of this kind at Newark in that State,[7] while other promoters of that faith were endeavoring to establish a similar inst.i.tution at Hartford, Connecticut,[8] all hoping to make use of the Kosciuszko fund.[9]

[Footnote 1: _African Repository_, vol. i., p. 277.]

[Footnote 2: _African Repository_, vol. ii., p. 223.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, vol. xxviii., pp. 271, 347; Child, _An Appeal_, p. 144.]

[Footnote 4: _African Repository_, vol. i., p. 277.]

[Footnote 5: _Report of the Proceedings at the Organization of the African Education Society_, p. 9.]

[Footnote 6: _African Repository_, vol. i., p. 276, and Griffin, _A Plea for Africa_, p. 65.]

[Footnote 7: _African Repository_, vol. iv., pp. 186, 193, and 375; and vol. vi., pp. 47, 48, 49, and _Report of the Proceedings of the African Education Society_, p. 7.]

[Footnote 8: _Ibid_., pp. 7 and 8 and _African Repository_, vol. iv., p. 375.]

[Footnote 9: What would become of this plan depended upon the changing fortunes of the men concerned. Kosciuszko died in 1817; and as Thomas Jefferson refused to take out letters testamentary under this will, Benjamin Lincoln Lear, a trustee of the African Education Society, who intended to apply for the whole fund, was appointed administrator of it. The fund amounted to about $16,000. Later Kosciuszko Armstrong demanded of the administrator $3704 bequeathed to him by T. Kosciuszko in a will alleged to have been executed in Paris in 1806. The bill was dismissed by the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, and the decision of the lower Court was confirmed by the United States Supreme Court in 1827 on the grounds that the said will had not been admitted to probate anywhere. To make things still darker just about the time the trustees of the African Education Society were planning to purchase a farm and select teachers and mechanics to instruct the youth, the heirs of General Kosciuszko filed a bill against Mr.

Lear in the Supreme Court of the United States on the ground of the invalidity of the will executed by Kosciuszko in 1798. The death of Mr. Lear in 1832 and that of William Wirt, the Attorney-General of the United States, soon thereafter, caused a delay in having the case decided. The author does not know exactly what use was finally made of this fund. See _African Repository_, vol. it., pp. 163, 233; also 7 Peters, 130, and 8 Peters, 52.]

The schemes failed, however, on account of the unyielding opposition of the free Negroes and abolitionists. They could see no philanthropy in educating persons to prepare for doom in a deadly climate. The convention of the free people of color a.s.sembled in Philadelphia in 1830, denounced the colonization movement as an evil, and urged their fellows not to support it. Pointing out the impracticability of such schemes, the convention encouraged the race to take steps toward its elevation in this country.[1] Should the colored people be properly educated, the prejudice against them would not continue such as to necessitate their expatriation. The delegates hoped to establish a Manual Labor College at New Haven that Negroes might there acquire that "cla.s.sical knowledge which promotes genius and causes man to soar up to those high intellectual enjoyments and acquirements which place him in a situation to shed upon a country and people that scientific grandeur which is imperishable by time, and drowns in oblivion's cup their moral degradation."[2]

[Footnote 1: Williams, _History of the Negro Race_, p. 67.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 68; and _Minutes of the Proceedings of the Third Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color_, pp.

9, 10, and 11.]

Influential abolitionists were also attacking this policy of the colonizationists. William Jay, however, delivered against them such diatribes and so wisely exposed their follies that the advocates of colonization learned to consider him as the arch enemy of their cause.[1] Jay advocated the education of the Negroes for living where they were. He could not see how a Christian could prohibit or condition the education of any individual. To do such a thing was tantamount to preventing him from having a direct revelation of G.o.d.

How these "educators" could argue that on account of the hopelessness of the endeavors to civilize the blacks they should be removed to a foreign country, and at the same time undertake to provide for them there the same facilities for higher education that white men enjoyed, seemed to Jay to be facetiously inconsistent.[2] If the Africans could be elevated in their native land and not in America, it was due to the Caucasians' sinful condition, for which the colored people should not be required to suffer the penalty of expatriation.[3] The desirable thing to do was to influence churches and schools to admit students of color on terms of equality with all other races.

[Footnote 1: Reese, _Letters to Honorable William Jay._]

[Footnote 2: Jay, _Inquiry_, p. 26; and _Letters_, p. 21.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, p. 22.]

Encountering this opposition, the inst.i.tutions projected by the colonization society existed in name only. Exactly how and why the organization failed to make good with its educational policy is well brought out by the wailing cry of one of its promoters. He a.s.serted that "every endeavor to divert the attention of the community or even a portion of the means which the present so imperatively calls for, from the colonization society to measures calculated to bind the colored population to this country and seeking to raise them to a level with the whites, whether by founding colleges or in any other way, tends directly in the proportion that it succeeds, to counteract and thwart the whole plan of colonization."[1] The colonizationists, therefore, desisted from their attempt to provide higher education for any considerable number of the belated race. Seeing that they could not count on the support of the free persons of color, they feared that those thus educated would be induced by the abolitionists to remain in the United States. This would put the colonizationists in the position of increasing the intelligent element of the colored population, which was then regarded as a menace to slavery.

Consequently these timorous "educators" did practically nothing during the reactionary period to carry out their plan of establis.h.i.+ng colleges.

[Footnote 1: Hodgkin, _Inquiry into the Merits of the Am. Col. Soc._, p. 31.]

Thereafter the colonizationists found it advisable to restrict their efforts to individual cases. Not much was said about what they were doing, but now and then appeared notices of Negroes who had been privately prepared in the South or publicly in the North for professional work in Liberia. Dr. William Taylor and Dr. Fleet were thus educated in medicine in the District of Columbia.[1] In the same way John V. DeGra.s.se, of New York, and Thomas J. White,[2] of Brooklyn, were allowed to complete the Medical Course at Bowdoin in 1849. Garrison Draper, who had acquired his literary education at Dartmouth, studied law in Baltimore under friends of the colonization cause, and with a view to going to Liberia pa.s.sed the examination of the Maryland Bar in 1857.[3] In 1858 the Berks.h.i.+re Medical School graduated two colored doctors, who were gratuitously educated by the American Colonization Society. The graduating cla.s.s thinned out, however, and one of the professors resigned because of their attendance.[4]

[Footnote 1: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, and _African Repository_, vol. x., p. 10.]

[Footnote 2: _Niles Register_, vol. lxxv., p. 384.]

[Footnote 3: _African Repository_, vol. x.x.xiv., pp. 26 and 27.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, p. 30.]

Not all colonizationists, however, had submitted to this policy of mere individual preparation of those emigrating to Liberia. Certain of their organizations still believed that it was only through educating the free people of color sufficiently to see their humiliation that a large number of them could be induced to leave this country. As long as they were unable to enjoy the finer things of life, they could not be expected to appreciate the value and use of liberty. It was argued that instead of remaining in this country to wage war on its inst.i.tutions, the highly enlightened Negroes would be glad to go to a foreign land.[1] By this argument some colonizationists were induced to do more for the general education of the free blacks than they had considered it wise to do during the time of the bold attempts at servile insurrection.[2] In fact, many of the colored schools of the free States were supported by ardent colonizationists.

[Footnote 1: Boone, _The History of Education in Indiana_, p. 237; and _African Repository_, vol. x.x.x., p. 195.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 195.]

The later plan of most colonizationists, however, was to educate the emigrating Negroes after they settled in Liberia. Handsome sums were given for the establishment of schools and colleges in which professors.h.i.+ps were endowed for men educated at the expense of churches and colonization societies.[1] The first inst.i.tution of consequence in this field was the Alexander High School. To this school many of the prominent men of Liberia owed the beginning of their liberal education. The English High School at Monrovia, the Baptist Boarding School at Bexley, and the Protestant Episcopal High School at Cape Palmas also offered courses in higher branches.[2]

Still better opportunities were given by the College of West Africa and Liberia College. The former was founded in 1839 as the head of a system of schools established by the Methodist Episcopal Church in every county of the Republic.[3] Liberia College was at the request of its founders, the directors of the American Colonization Society, incorporated by the legislature of the country in 1851. As it took some time to secure adequate funds, the main building was not completed, and students were not admitted before 1862.

[Footnote 1: _African Repository_, under the caption of "Education in Liberia" in various volumes; and Alexander, _A History of Col._, pp.

348, 391.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 348.]

[Footnote 3: Monroe, _Cyclopaedia of Education_, vol. iv., p. 6.]

Though the majority of the colored students scoffed at the idea of preparing for work in Liberia their education for service in the United States was not encouraged. No Negro had graduated from a college before 1828, when John B. Russworm, a cla.s.smate of Hon. John P. Hale, received his degree from Bowdoin.[1] During the thirties and forties, colored persons, however well prepared, were generally debarred from colleges despite the protests of prominent men. We have no record that as many as fifteen Negroes were admitted to higher inst.i.tutions in this country before 1840. It was only after much debate that Union College agreed to accept a colored student on condition that he should swear that he had no Negro blood in his veins.[2]

[Footnote 1: Dyer, Speech in Congress on the Progress of the Negro, 1914.]

[Footnote 2: Clarke, _The Condition of the Free People of Color_, 1859, p. 3, and the _Sixth Annual Report of the American Antislavery Society_, p. 11.]

Having had such a little to encourage them to expect a general admission into northern inst.i.tutions, free blacks and abolitionists concluded that separate colleges for colored people were necessary.

The inst.i.tution demanded for them was thought to have an advantage over the aristocratic college in that labor would be combined with study, making the stay at school pleasant and enabling the poorest youth to secure an education.[1] It was the kind of higher inst.i.tution which had already been established in several States to meet the needs of the illiterate whites. Such higher training for the Negroes was considered necessary, also, because their intermediate schools were after the reaction in a languis.h.i.+ng state. The children of color were able to advance but little on account of having nothing to stimulate them. The desired college was, therefore, boomed as an inst.i.tution to give the common schools vigor, "to kindle the flame of emulation,"

"to open to beginners discerning the mysteries of arithmetic other mysteries beyond," and above all to serve them as Yale or Harvard did as the capstone of the educational system of the other race.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the Third Convention of Free People of Color held in Philadelphia in 1836_, pp. 7 and 8; _Ibid., Fourth Annual Convention_, p. 26; _Proceedings of the New England Antislavery Society_, 1836, p. 40.]