ition for "_Encouraging the Christian Education of
Indian, Negro, and Mulatto Children_." The author declares it to be
the duty of masters and mistresses of America to endeavor to educate
and instruct their heathen slaves in the Christian faith, and
mentioned the fact that this work had been "earnestly recommended by
his Majesty's instructions." To encourage the movement it was proposed
that "every Indian, Negro and Mulatto child that should be baptized
and afterward brought into the Church and publicly catechized by the
minister, and should before the fourteenth year of his or her age
give a distinct account of the creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten
Commandments," should receive from the minister a certificate which
would entitle such children to exemption from paying all levies until
the age of eighteen.[4] The neighboring colony of North Carolina
also was moved by these efforts despite some difficulties which the
missionaries there encountered.[5]

[Footnote 1: Meade, _Old Families and Churches in Virginia_, p. 264;
Plumer, _Thoughts on the Religious Instruction of Negroes_, pp.
11-12.]

[Footnote 2: Monroe, _Cyclopaedia of Education_, vol. iv., p. 406.]

[Footnote 3: Russell, _The Free Negro in Virginia_, in J.H.U. Studies,
Series xxxi., No. 3, p. 107.]

[Footnote 4: Meade, _Old Families and Churches in Virginia_, pp.
264-65.]

[Footnote 5: Ashe, _History of North Carolina_, pp. 389-90.]

This favorable attitude toward the people of color, and the successful
work among them, caused the opponents of this policy to speak out
boldly against their enlightenment. Some asserted that the Negroes
were such stubborn creatures that there could be no such close dealing
with them, and that even when converted they became saucier than
pious. Others maintained that these bondmen were so ignorant and
indocile, so far gone in their wickedness, so confirmed in their
habit of evil ways, that it was vain to undertake to teach them such
knowledge. Less cruel slaveholders had thought of getting out of the
difficulty by the excuse that the instruction of Negroes required more
time and labor than masters could well spare from their business. Then
there were others who frankly confessed that, being an ignorant and
unlearned people themselves, they could not teach others.[1]

[Footnote 1: For a summary of this argument see Meade, _Four Sermons
of Reverend Bacon_, pp. 81-97; also, _A Letter to an American Planter
from his Friend