number. Finding this request
reasonable, the School Society decided to take the necessary steps to
comply with it. As such an agreement would have no standing at law
the matter was recommended to the legislature of the State, which
authorized the establishment in that commonwealth of several separate
schools for persons of color.[1] This arrangement, however, soon
proved unsatisfactory. Because of the small number of Negroes in
Connecticut towns, they found their pro rata inadequate to the
maintenance of separate schools. No buildings were provided for them,
such schools as they had were not properly supervised, the teachers
were poorly paid, and with the exception of a little help from a few
philanthropists, the white citizens failed to aid the cause. In 1846,
therefore, the pastor of the colored Congregational Church sent to the
School Society of Hartford a memorial calling attention to the fact
that for lack of means the colored schools had been unable to secure
suitable quarters and competent teachers. Consequently the education
of their children had been exceedingly irregular, deficient, and
onerous. The School Society had done nothing for these institutions
but to turn over to them every year their small share of the public
fund. These gentlemen then decided to raise by taxation an amount
adequate to the support of two better equipped schools and proceeded
at once to provide for its collection and expenditure.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed_., 1871, p. 334.]

[Footnote 2: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed_., 1871, p. 334.]

The results gave general satisfaction for a while. But as it was a
time when much was being done to develop the public schools of New
England, the colored people of Hartford could not remain contented.
They saw the white pupils housed in comfortable buildings and
attending properly graded classes, while their own children continued
to be crowded into small insanitary rooms and taught as unclassified
students. The Negroes, therefore, petitioned for a more suitable
building and a better organization of their schools. As this request
came at the time when the abolitionists were working hard to
exterminate caste from the schools of New England, the School
Committee called a meeting of the memorialists to decide whether they
desired to send their children to the white or separate schools.[1]
They decided in favor of the latter, provided that the colored people
shoul