ne of the educational system of the other race.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the Third Convention of Free People of
Color held in Philadelphia in 1836_, pp. 7 and 8; _Ibid., Fourth
Annual Convention_, p. 26; _Proceedings of the New England Antislavery
Society_, 1836, p. 40.]

[Footnote 2: _Minutes and Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention
of the Free People of Color_, 1836; Garrison's Address.]

In the course of time these workers succeeded in various communities.
The movement for the higher education of the Negroes of the District
of Columbia centered largely around the academy established by Miss
Myrtilla Miner, a worthy young woman of New York. After various
discouragements in seeking a special preparation for life's work, she
finally concluded that she should devote her time to the moral and
intellectual improvement of Negroes.[1] She entered upon her career in
Washington in 1851 assisted by Miss Anna Inman, a native of New York,
and a member of the Society of Friends. After teaching the girls
French one year Miss Inman returned to her home in Southfield, Rhode
Island.[2] Finding it difficult to get a permanent location, Miss
Miner had to move from place to place among colored people who were
generally persecuted and threatened with conflagration for having a
white woman working among them. Driven to the extremity of building
a schoolhouse for her purpose, she purchased a lot with money raised
largely by Quakers of New York, Philadelphia, and New England, and
by Harriet Beecher Stowe.[3] Miss Miner had also the support of Mrs.
Means, an aunt of the wife of President Franklin Pierce, and of United
States Senator W.H. Seward.[4] Effective opposition, however, was not
long in developing. Articles appeared in the newspapers protesting
against this policy of affording Negroes "a degree of instruction so
far above their social and political condition which must continue in
this and every other slaveholding community."[5] Girls were insulted,
teachers were abused along the streets, and for lack of police
surveillance the house was set afire in 1860. It was sighted, however,
in time to be saved.[6]

[Footnote 1: O'Connor, _Myrtilla Miner_, pp. 11, 12.]

[Footnote 2: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 207.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, 1871, p. 208.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, pp. 208, 209, and 210.]

[Footnote 5: _The National Intelligencer._]

[Footnote 6: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._,