[3] and was made president of the Abolition Society of
Philadelphia which in 1774 founded a successful colored school.[4]
This school was so well planned and maintained that it continued about
a hundred years.

[Footnote 1: Smyth, _Works of Benjamin Franklin_, vol. v., p. 431.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., vol. iv., p. 23.]

[Footnote 3: Smyth, _Works of Benjamin Franklin_, vol. v., p. 431.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid_., vol. x., p. 127; and Wickersham, _History of
Education in Pennsylvania_, p. 253.]

John Jay kept up his interest in the Negro race.[1] In the Convention
of 1787 he cooeperated with Gouverneur Morris, advocating the abolition
of the slave trade and the rejection of the Federal ratio. His efforts
in behalf of the colored people were actuated by his early conviction
that the national character of this country could be retrieved only
by abolishing the iniquitous traffic in human souls and improving
the Negroes.[2] Showing his pity for the downtrodden people of color
around him, Jay helped to promote the cause of the abolitionists of
New York who established and supported several colored schools in
that city. Such care was exercised in providing for the attendance,
maintenance, and supervision of these schools that they soon took rank
among the best in the United States.

[Footnote 1: Jay, _Works of John Jay_, vol. i., p. 136; vol. iii, p.
331.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., vol. iii., p. 343.]

More interesting than the views of any other man of this epoch on the
subject of Negro education were those of Thomas Jefferson. Born of
pioneer parentage in the mountains of Virginia, Jefferson never
lost his frontier democratic ideals which made him an advocate of
simplicity, equality, and universal freedom. Having in mind when he
wrote the Declaration of Independence the rights of the blacks as well
as those of whites, this disciple of John Locke, could not but feel
that the slaves of his day had a natural right to education and
freedom. Jefferson said so much more on these important questions than
his contemporaries that he would have been considered an abolitionist,
had he lived in 1840.

Giving his views on the enlightenment of the Negroes he asserted
that the minds of the masters should be "apprized by reflection and
strengthened by the energies of conscience against the obstacles of
self-interest to an acquiescence in the rights of others." The owners
would then permit their slaves to be "prepared by instruction and