sufficiently for receiving moral and religious instruction
from books in the English language. In presenting this scheme Torrey
had the idea of most of the antislavery men of that day, who advocated
the education of slaves because they believed that, whenever the
slaves should become qualified by intelligence and moral cultivation
for the rational enjoyment of liberty and the performance of the
various social duties, enlightened legislators would listen to the
voice of reason and justice and the spirit of the social organization,
and permit the release of the slave without banishing him as a traitor
from his native land. See Torrey's _Portraiture of Domestic Slavery_,
p. 21.]

[Footnote 2: Sidney, _An Oration Commemorative of the Abolition of the
Slave Trade in the United States_, p. 5; and Adams, _Anti-slavery_,
etc., pp. 40, 43, 65, and 66.]

Yet in the same proportion that antislavery men convinced masters of
the wisdom of the policy of gradual emancipation, they increased their
own burden of providing extra facilities of education, for liberated
Negroes generally made their way from the South to urban communities
of the Northern and Middle States. The friends of the colored people,
however, met this exigency by establishing additional schools and
repeatedly entreating these migrating freedmen to avail themselves
of their opportunities. The address of the American Convention of
Abolition Societies in 1819 is typical of these appeals.[1] They
requested free persons of color to endeavor as much as possible to use
economy in their expenses, to save something from their earnings
for the education of their children ... and "let all those who by
attending to this admonition have acquired means, send their children
to school as soon as they are old enough, where their morals will
be an object of attention as well as their improvement in school
learning." Then followed some advice which would now seem strange.
They said, "Encourage, also, those among you who are qualified as
teachers of schools, and when you are able to pay, never send your
children to free schools; for this may be considered as robbing the
poor of their opportunities which are intended for them alone."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the American Convention_, etc., 1819, p.
21.]

[Footnote 2: _Proceedings of the American Convention_, etc., 1819, p.
22.]

The concentration of the colored population in cities and towns where
they had better education