he Northern and Middle States an increasing number of educational
advantages for the white race made germane the question as to what
consideration should be shown to the colored people.[1] A general
admission of Negroes to the schools of these progressive communities
was undesirable, not because of the prejudice against the race, but on
account of the feeling that the past of the colored people having been
different from that of the white race, their training should be in
keeping with their situation. To meet their peculiar needs many
communities thought it best to provide for them "special,"
"individual," or "unclassified" schools adapted to their condition.[2]
In most cases, however, the movement for separate schools originated
not with the white race, but with the people of color themselves.

[Footnote 1: _Niles's Register_, vol. xvi., pp. 241-243 and vol.
xxiii., p. 23.]

[Footnote 2: See _The Proceedings of the Am. Conv. of Abolition
Societies_.]

In New England, Negroes had almost from the beginning of their
enslavement some chance for mental, moral, and spiritual improvement,
but the revolutionary movement was followed in that section by a
general effort to elevate the people of color through the influence
of the school and church. In 1770 the Rhode Island Quakers were
endeavoring to give young Negroes such an education as becomes
Christians. In 1773 Newport had a colored school, maintained by a
society of benevolent clergymen of the Church of England, with a
handsome fund for a mistress to teach thirty children reading and
writing. Providence did not exhibit such activity until the nineteenth
century. Having a larger black population than any other city in New
England, Boston was the center of these endeavors. In 1798 a separate
school for colored children, under the charge of Elisha Sylvester, a
white man, was established in that city in the house of Primus Hall, a
Negro of very good standing.[1] Two years later sixty-six free blacks
of that city petitioned the school committee for a separate school,
but the citizens in a special town meeting called to consider the
question refused to grant this request.[2] Undaunted by this refusal,
the patrons of the special school established in the house of Primus
Hall, employed Brown and Hall of Harvard College as instructors, until
1806.[3] The school was then moved to the African Meeting House
in Belknap Street where it remained until 1835 when, with funds
contribute