The training of Negroes in any manner whatever was then very unpopular
in many parts of the North. When prejudice, however, lost some of its
sting, the friends of the colored people did more than ever for
their education. But in view of the changed conditions most of these
philanthropists concluded that the Negroes were very much in need
of practical education. Educators first attempted to provide such
training by offering classical and vocational courses in what they
called the "manual labor schools." When these failed to meet the
emergency they advocated actual vocational training. To make this new
system extensive the Negroes freely coöperated with their benefactors,
sharing no small part of the real burden. They were at the same time
paying taxes to support public schools which they could not attend.

This very condition was what enabled the abolitionists to see that
they had erred in advocating the establishment of separate schools for
Negroes. At first the segregation of pupils of African blood was, as
stated above, intended as a special provision to bring the colored
youth into contact with sympathetic teachers, who knew the needs of
their students. When the public schools, however, developed at the
expense of the state into a desirable system better equipped than
private institutions, the antislavery organizations in many Northern
States began to demand that the Negroes be admitted to the public
schools. After extensive discussion certain States of New England
finally decided the question in the affirmative, experiencing no great
inconvenience from the change. In most other States of the North,
however, separate schools for Negroes did not cease to exist until
after the Civil War. It was the liberated Negroes themselves who,
during the Reconstruction, gave the Southern States their first
effective system of free public schools.