discretion of the court, not exceeding fifty
lashes, the informer to be entitled to one-half the fine and to
be a competent witness. And if any free person of color or slave
shall keep any school or other place of instruction for teaching
any slave or free person of color to read or write, such free
person of color or slave shall be liable to the same fine,
imprisonment, and corporal punishment as by this act are imposed
and inflicted on free persons of color and slaves for teaching
slaves to write."

The second section forbids, under pain of severe penalties, the
employment of any Colored persons as "clerks or salesmen in or about
any shop, store, or house used for trading."

TENNESSEE

passed a law in 1838 establishing a system of common schools by which
the scholars were designated as "white children over the age of six
years and under sixteen." In 1840 an act was passed in which no
discrimination against color appeared. It simply provided that "all
children between the ages of six and twenty-one years shall have the
privilege of attending the public schools." And while there was never
afterward any law prohibiting the education of Colored children, the
schools were used exclusively by the whites.

TEXAS

never put any legislation on her statute-books withholding the
blessings of the schools from the Negro, for the reason, doubtless,
that she banished all free persons of color, and worked her slaves so
hard that they had no hunger for books when night came.

VIRGINIA,

under Sir William Berkeley, was not a strong patron of education for
the masses. For the slave there was little opportunity to learn, as he
was only allowed part of Saturday to rest, and kept under the closest
surveillance on the Sabbath day. The free persons of color were
regarded with suspicion, and little chance was given them to cultivate
their minds.

On the 2d of March, 1819, an act was passed prohibiting "all meetings
or assemblages of slaves, or free negroes, or mulattoes, mixing and
associating with such slaves, at any meeting-house or houses, or any
other place or places, in the night, or at any school or schools for
teaching them reading and writing either in the day or night." But
notwithstanding this law, schools for free persons of color were kept
up until the Nat. Turner insurrection in 1831, when, on the 7th of
April following, the subjoined act was passed:

"SEC. 4. _And