bsequent improvements thereof, were procured chiefly by her
instrumentality and labors." The idea of Miss Miner in planting a
school here was to train up a class of Colored girls, in the midst of
slave institutions, who should show forth in their culture and
capabilities, to the country and to mankind, that the race was fit for
something higher than the degradation which rested upon them. The
amazing energy with which this frail woman prosecuted her work is well
known to those who took knowledge of her career. She visited the
Colored people of her district from house to house, and breathed a new
life into them pertaining to the education of their daughters. Her
correspondence with the philanthropic men and women of the North was
immense. She importuned Congressmen, and the men who shaped public
sentiment through the columns of the press, to come into her school
and see her girls, and was ceaseless in her activities day and night,
in every direction, to build up, in dignity and refinement, her
seminary, and to force its merits upon public attention.

The buildings upon the lot when purchased--a small frame dwelling of
two stories, not more than twenty-five by thirty-five feet in
dimensions, with three small cabins on the other side of the
premises--served for the seminary and the homes of the teacher and her
assistant. The most aspiring and decently bred Colored girls of the
district were gathered into the school; and the very best Colored
teachers in the schools, of the district at the present time, are
among those who owe their education to this self-sacrificing teacher
and her school. Mrs. Means, aunt of the wife of General Pierce, then
President of the United States, attracted by the enthusiasm of this
wonderful person, often visited her in the midst of her work, with the
kindest feelings; and the fact that the carriage from the Presidential
mansion was in this way frequently seen at the door of this humble
institution, did much to protect it from the hatred with which it was
surrounded.

Mr. Seward and his family were very often seen at the school, both
Mrs. Seward and her daughter Fanny being constant visitors; the
latter, a young girl at the time, often spending a whole day there.
Many other Congressmen of large and generous instincts, some of them
of pro-slavery party relations, went out there, all confessing their
admiration of the resolute woman and her school, and this kept evil
men in abeyance.

The oppos