its origin in the wrong quarter,
be productive of mischief.[3] The leading people of Baltimore
thought that it would be better to accomplish this task through the
Colonization Society, a southern organization carrying out the very
policy which the American Union proposed to pursue.[4]

[Footnote 1: On January 14, 1835, a convention of more than one
hundred gentlemen from ten different States assembled in Boston and
organized the "American Union for the Relief and Improvement of the
Colored Race." Among these workers were William Reed, Daniel Noyes,
J.W. Chickering, J.W. Putnam, Baron Stow, B.B. Edwards, E.A. Andrews,
Charles Scudder, Joseph Tracy, Samuel Worcester, and Charles Tappan.
The gentlemen were neither antagonistic to the antislavery nor to the
colonization societies. They aimed to do that which had been neglected
in giving the Negroes proper preparation for freedom. Knowing that
the actual emancipation of an oppressed race cannot be effected by
legislation, they hoped to provide religious and literary instruction
for all colored children that they might "ameliorate their economic
condition" and prepare themselves for higher usefulness. See the
_Exposition of the Object and Plans of the American Union_, pp.
11-14.]

[Footnote 2: Andrews, _Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade_, p. 57.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid_., p. 188.]

[Footnote 4: Andrews, _Slavery_, etc., p. 56.]

The instruction of ambitious blacks in this city was not confined to
mere rudimentary training. The opportunity for advanced study was
offered colored girls in the Convent of the Oblate Sisters of
Providence. These Negroes, however, early learned to help themselves.
In 1835 considerable assistance came from Nelson Wells, one of their
own color. He left to properly appointed trustees the sum of $10,000,
the income of which was to be appropriated to the education of free
colored children.[1] With this benefaction the trustees concerned
established in 1835 what they called the Wells School. It offered
Negroes free instruction long after the Civil War.

[Footnote 2: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed_., 1871, p. 353.]

In seeking to show how these good results were obtained by the
Negroes' cooeperative power and ability to supply their own needs, we
are not unmindful of the assistance which they received. To say that
the colored people of Baltimore, themselves, provided all these
facilities of education would do injustice to the benevolent ele