[Footnote 2: Grégoire, _La Littérature des Nègres_.]

[Footnote 3: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 375.]




CHAPTER IV

ACTUAL EDUCATION


Would these professions of interest in the mental development of the
blacks be translated into action? What these reformers would do to
raise the standard of Negro education above the plane of rudimentary
training incidental to religious instruction, was yet to be seen.
Would they secure to Negroes the educational privileges guaranteed
other elements of society? The answer, if not affirmative, was
decidedly encouraging. The idea uppermost in the minds of these
workers was that the people of color could and should be educated as
other races of men.

In the lead of this movement were the antislavery agitators.
Recognizing the Negroes' need of preparation for citizenship, the
abolitionists proclaimed as a common purpose of their organizations
the education of the colored people with a view to developing in them
self-respect, self-support, and usefulness in the community.[1]

[Footnote 1: Smyth, _Works of Benjamin Franklin_, vol. x., p. 127;
Torrey, _Portraiture of Slavery_, p. 21. See also constitution of