of the insurrectionary movement
about 1835, when the majority of the people in this country answered
in the affirmative the question whether or not it was prudent to
educate their slaves. Then followed the second period, when the
industrial revolution changed slavery from a patriarchal to an
economic institution, and when intelligent Negroes, encouraged by
abolitionists, made so many attempts to organize servile insurrections
that the pendulum began to swing the other way. By this time most
southern white people reached the conclusion that it was impossible
to cultivate the minds of Negroes without arousing overmuch
self-assertion.

The early advocates of the education of Negroes were of three classes:
first, masters who desired to increase the economic efficiency of
their labor supply; second, sympathetic persons who wished to help the
oppressed; and third, zealous missionaries who, believing that the
message of divine love came equally to all, taught slaves the English
language that they might learn the principles of the Christian
religion. Through the kindness of the first class, slaves had their
best chance for mental improvement. Each slaveholder dealt with the
situation to suit himself, regardless of public opinion. Later,
when measures were passed to prohibit the education of slaves, some
masters, always a law unto themselves, continued to teach their
Negroes in defiance of the hostile legislation. Sympathetic persons
were not able to accomplish much because they were usually reformers,
who not only did not own slaves, but dwelt in practically free
settlements far from the plantations on which the bondmen lived.

The Spanish and French missionaries, the first to face this problem,
set an example which influenced the education of the Negroes
throughout America. Some of these early heralds of Catholicism
manifested more interest in the Indians than in the Negroes, and
advocated the enslavement of the Africans rather than that of the Red
Men. But being anxious to see the Negroes enlightened and brought into
the Church, they courageously directed their attention to the teaching
of their slaves, provided for the instruction of the numerous
mixed-breed offspring, and granted freedmen the educational privileges
of the highest classes. Put to shame by this noble example of the
Catholics, the English colonists had to find a way to overcome the
objections of those who, granting that the enlightenment of the slaves
migh