time, however, when the stigma of charity was removed as a result
of the development of the free schools at public expense, Negroes
concluded that it was not dishonorable to share the benefits of
institutions which they were taxed to support.[1] Unable then to cope
with systems thus maintained for the education of the white youth, the
directors of colored schools requested that something be appropriated
for the education of Negroes. Complying with these petitions boards
of education provided for colored schools which were to be partly or
wholly supported at public expense. But it was not long before the
abolitionists saw that they had made a mistake in carrying out this
policy. The amount appropriated to the support of the special schools
was generally inadequate to supply them with the necessary equipment
and competent teachers, and in most communities the white people
had begun to regard the co-education of the races as undesirable.
Confronted then with this caste prejudice, one of the hardest
struggles of the Negroes and their sympathizers was that for
democratic education.

[Footnote 1: The Negroes of Baltimore were just prior to the Civil War
paying $500 in taxes annually to support public schools which their
children could not attend.]

The friends of the colored people in Pennsylvania were among the first
to direct the attention of the State to the duty of enlightening the
blacks as well as the whites. In 1802, 1804, and 1809, respectively,
the State passed, in the interest of the poor, acts which although
interpreted to exclude Negroes from the benefits therein provided,
were construed, nevertheless, by friends of the race as authorizing
their education at public expense. Convinced of the truth of this
contention, officials in different parts of the State began to yield
in the next decade. At Columbia, Pennsylvania, the names of such
colored children as were entitled to the benefits of the law for the
education of the poor were taken in 1818 to enable them to attend the
free public schools. Following the same policy, the Abolition Society
of Philadelphia, seeing that the city had established public schools
for white children in 1818, applied two years later for the share of
the fund to which the children of African descent were entitled by
law. The request was granted. The Comptroller opened in Lombard Street
in 1822 a school for children of color, maintained at the expense of
the State. This furnished a pre