Indenturing Committee to find positions for colored students who had
the advantages of industrial education.[4] In some communities slaves
were prepared for emancipation by binding them out as apprentices to
machinists and artisans until they learned a trade.

[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the American Convention_, 1794, p. 14.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, 1795, p. 29; _ibid._, 1797, pp. 12, 13, and 31.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, 1797, p. 31.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, 1818, p. 9.]

Two early efforts to carry out this policy are worthy of notice here.
These were the endeavors of Anthony Benezet and Thaddeus Kosciuszko.
Benezet was typical of those men, who, having the courage of their
conviction, not only taught colored people, but gladly appropriated
property to their education. Benezet died in 1784, leaving
considerable wealth to be devoted to the purpose of educating Indians
and Negroes. His will provided that as the estate on the death of
his wife would not be sufficient entirely to support a school, the
Overseers of the Public Schools of Philadelphia should join with a
committee appointed by the Society of Friends, and other benevolent
persons, in the care and maintenance of an institution such as he
had planned. Finally in 1787 the efforts of Benezet reached their
culmination in the construction of a schoolhouse, with additional
funds obtained from David Barclay of London and Thomas Sidney, a
colored man of Philadelphia. The pupils of this school were to study
reading, writing, arithmetic, plain accounts, and sewing.[1]