f the shop objected, refusing to allow the newcomer
even to work in a room by himself.[1] A Negro who could preach in a
white church of the North would have had difficulty in securing the
contract to build a new edifice for that congregation. A colored man
could then more easily get his son into a lawyer's office to learn law
than he could "into a blacksmith shop to blow the bellows and wield
the sledge hammer."[2]

[Footnote 1: _The Liberator_, June 13, 1835.]

[Footnote 2: Douglass, _Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass_,
p. 248.]

Left then in a quandary as to what they should do, northern Negroes
hoped to use the then popular "manual labor schools" to furnish the
facilities for both practical and classical education. These schools
as operated for the whites, however, were not primarily trade schools.
Those which admitted persons of African descent paid more attention to
actual industrial training for the reason that colored students could
not then hope to acquire such knowledge as apprentices. This tendency
was well shown by the action of the free Negroes through their
delegates in the convention assembled in Philadelphia in 1830.
Conversant with the policy of so reshaping the educational system of
the country as to carry knowledge even to the hovels, these leaders
were easily won to the scheme of reconstructing their schools "on the
manual labor system." In this they saw the redemption of the free
Negroes of the North. These gentlemen were afraid that the colored
people were not paying sufficient attention to the development of the
power to use their hands skillfully.[1] One of the first acts of the
convention was to inquire as to how fast colored men were becoming
attached to mechanical pursuits,[2] and whether or not there was any
prospect that a manual labor school for the instruction of the youth
would shortly be established. The report of the committee, to which
the question was referred, was so encouraging that the convention
itself decided to establish an institution of the kind at New Haven,
Connecticut. They appealed to their fellows for help, called
the attention of philanthropists to this need of the race, and
commissioned William Lloyd Garrison to solicit funds in Great
Britain.[3] Garrison found hearty supporters among the friends of
freedom in that country. Some, who had been induced to contribute
to the Colonization Society, found it more advisable to aid the new
movement. Charles Stewart