ces. Accessible statistics do not
show that colored persons ever constituted more than one-third of
the students.[2] It was one of the most durable of the manual labor
schools, having continued after the Civil War, carrying out to some
extent the original designs of its founders. As the plan to continue
it as a private institution proved later to be impracticable the
establishment was changed into a public school.[3]

[Footnote 1: Boone, _The History of Education in Indiana_, p. 77.]

[Footnote 2: According to the _Report of the United States
Commissioner of Education_ in 1893 the colored students then
constituted about one-third of those then registered at this
institution. See p. 1944 of this report.]

[Footnote 3: Records of the United States Bureau of Education.]

Scarcely less popular was the British and American Manual Labor
Institute of the colored settlements in Upper Canada. This school was
projected by Rev. Hiram Wilson and Josiah Henson as early as 1838, but
its organization was not undertaken until 1842. The refugees were then
called together to decide upon the expenditure of $1500 collected in
England by James C. Fuller, a Quaker. They decided to establish at
Dawn "a manual labor school, where children could be taught those
elements of knowledge which are usually the occupations of a grammar
school, and where boys could be taught in addition the practice of
some mechanic art, and the girls could be instructed in those domestic
arts which are the proper occupation and ornament of their sex."[1] A
tract of three hundred acres of land was purchased, a few buildings
were constructed, and pupils were soon admitted. The managers
endeavored to make the school, "self-supporting by the employment of
the students for certain portions of the time on the land."[2] The
advantage of schooling of this kind attracted to Dresden and Dawn
sufficient refugees to make these prosperous settlements. Rev. Hiram
Wilson, the first principal of the institution, began with fourteen
"boarding scholars" when there were no more than fifty colored persons
in all the vicinity. In 1852 when the population of this community
had increased to five hundred there were sixty students attending
the school. Indian and white children were also admitted. Among the
students there were also adults varying later in number from
fifty-six to one hundred and sixteen.[3] This institution became very
influential among the Negroes of Canada. Travelers me