[Footnote 1:  Proceedings of the Third Convention of Free People of Color held in Philadelphia in 1836, pp. 7 and 8; Ibid., Fourth Annual Convention, p. 26; Proceedings of the New England Antislavery Society, 1836, p. 40.]

[Footnote 2:  Minutes and Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention of the Free People of Color, 1836; Garrison’s Address.]

In the course of time these workers succeeded in various communities.  The movement for the higher education of the Negroes of the District of Columbia centered largely around the academy established by Miss Myrtilla Miner, a worthy young woman of New York.  After various discouragements in seeking a special preparation for life’s work, she finally concluded that she should devote her time to the moral and intellectual improvement of Negroes.[1] She entered upon her career in Washington in 1851 assisted by Miss Anna Inman, a native of New York, and a member of the Society of Friends.  After teaching the girls French one year Miss Inman returned to her home in Southfield, Rhode Island.[2] Finding it difficult to get a permanent location, Miss Miner had to move from place to place among colored people who were generally persecuted and threatened with conflagration for having a white woman working among them.  Driven to the extremity of building a schoolhouse for her purpose, she purchased a lot with money raised largely by Quakers of New York, Philadelphia, and New England, and by Harriet Beecher Stowe.[3] Miss Miner had also the support of Mrs. Means, an aunt of the wife of President Franklin Pierce, and of United States Senator W.H.  Seward.[4] Effective opposition, however, was not long in developing.  Articles appeared in the newspapers protesting against this policy of affording Negroes “a degree of instruction so far above their social and political condition which must continue in this and every other slaveholding community."[5] Girls were insulted, teachers were abused along the streets, and for lack of police surveillance the house was set afire in 1860.  It was sighted, however, in time to be saved.[6]

[Footnote 1:  O’Connor, Myrtilla Miner, pp. 11, 12.]

[Footnote 2:  Special Report of the U.S.  Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 207.]

[Footnote 3:  Ibid., 1871, p. 208.]

[Footnote 4:  Ibid., pp. 208, 209, and 210.]

[Footnote 5:  The National Intelligencer.]

[Footnote 6:  Special Report of the U.S.  Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 209.]

Undisturbed by these efforts to destroy the institution, Miss Miner persisted in carrying out her plan for the higher education of colored girls of the District of Columbia.  She worked during the winter, and traveled during the summer to solicit friends and contributions to keep the institution on that higher plane where she planned it should be.  She had the building well equipped with all kinds of apparatus, utilized