d have a building adequate to their needs and instruction of the
best kind.[2] Complying with this decision the School Society erected
the much-needed building in 1852. To provide for the maintenance of
the separate schools the property of the citizens was taxed at such a
rate as to secure to the colored pupils of the city benefits similar
to those enjoyed by the white pupils.[3]

[Footnote 1: _Minority Report_, etc., p. 21.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., p. 22.]

[Footnote 3: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed_., 1871, p. 334.]

Ardent antislavery men believed that this segregation in the schools
was undemocratic. They asserted that the colored people would never
have made such a request had the teachers of the public schools taken
the proper interest in them. The Negroes, too, had long since been
convinced that the white people would not maintain separate schools
with the same equipment which they gave their own. This arrangement,
however, continued until 1868. The legislature then passed an act
declaring that the schools of the State should be open to all persons
alike between the ages of four and sixteen, and that no person should
be denied instruction in any public school in his school district on
account of race or color.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Public Acts of the General Assembly of Conn_., 1868, p.
296.]

In the State of Massachusetts the contest was most ardent. Boston
opened its first primary school for colored children in 1820. In other
towns like Salem and Nantucket, New Bedford and Lowell, where the
colored population was also considerable, the same policy was carried
out.[1] Some years later, however, both the Negroes and their friends
saw the error of their early advocacy of the establishment of special
schools to escape the stigma of receiving charity. After the change
in the attitude toward the public free schools and the further
development of caste in American education, there arose in
Massachusetts a struggle between leaders determined to restrict the
Negroes' privileges to the use of poorly equipped separate schools and
those contending for equality in education.

[Footnote 1: _Minority Report_, etc., p. 35.]

Basing their action on the equality of men before the law, the
advocates of democratic education held meetings from which went
frequent and urgent petitions to school committees until Negroes were
accepted in the public schools in all towns in Massachusetts except
Boston.[1] Children of Afric