y, the author of this dissertation is far from
presuming that he has exhausted the subject. With the hope of vitally
interesting some young master mind in this large task, the undersigned
has endeavored to narrate in brief how benevolent teachers of both
races strove to give the ante-bellum Negroes the education through
which many of them gained freedom in its highest and best sense.

The author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to Dr. J.E.
Moorland, International Secretary of the Young Men's Christian
Association, for valuable information concerning the Negroes of Ohio.

C.G. Woodson.

Washington, D.C. _June 11, 1919._

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I.--Introduction

II.--Religion with Letters

III.--Education as a Right of Man

IV.--Actual Education

V.--Better Beginnings

VI.--Educating the Urban Negro

VII.--The Reaction

VIII.--Religion without Letters

IX.--Learning in Spite of Opposition

X.--Educating Negroes Transplanted to Free Soil

XI.--Higher Education

XII.--Vocational Training

XIII.--Education at Public Expense

Appendix: Documents

Bibliography

Index

The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861

* * * * *

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Brought from the African wilds to constitute the laboring class of
a pioneering society in the new world, the heathen slaves had to be
trained to meet the needs of their environment. It required little
argument to convince intelligent masters that slaves who had some
conception of modern civilization and understood the language of their
owners would be more valuable than rude men with whom one could not
communicate. The questions, however, as to exactly what kind of
training these Negroes should have, and how far it should go, were to
the white race then as much a matter of perplexity as they are now.
Yet, believing that slaves could not be enlightened without developing
in them a longing for liberty, not a few masters maintained that the
more brutish the bondmen the more pliant they become for purposes of
exploitation. It was this class of slaveholders that finally won the
majority of southerners to their way of thinking and determined that
Negroes should not be educated.

The history of the education of the ante-bellum Negroes, therefore,
falls into two periods. The first extends from the time of the
introduction of slavery to the climax