[Footnote 1:  Ibid., p. 20, and Niles Register, vol. lxvi., p. 320.]

[Footnote 2:  Minority Report, etc., p. 23.]

[Footnote 3:  Minority Report, etc., p. 25.]

The consolidation of the colored school of Salem with the others of that city led to no disturbance.  Speaking of the democracy of these schools in 1846 Mr. Richard Fletcher said:  “The principle of perfect equality is the vital principle of the system.  Here all classes of the community mingle together.  The rich and the poor meet on terms of equality and are prepared by the same instruction to discharge the duties of life.  It is the principle of equality cherished in the free schools on which our government and free institutions rest.  Destroy this principle in the schools and the people would soon cease to be free.”  At Nantucket, however, some trouble was experienced because of the admission of pupils of color in 1843.  Certain patrons criticized the action adversely and withdrew fourteen of their children from the South Grammar School.  The system, however, prospered thereafter rather than declined.[1] Many had no trouble in making the change.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Ibid., p. 6.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid., p. 23.]

These victories having been won in other towns of the State by 1846, it soon became evident that Boston would have to yield.  Not only were abolitionists pointing to the ease with which this gain had been made in other towns, but were directing attention to the fact that in these smaller communities Negroes were both learning the fundamentals and advancing through the lower grades into the high school.  Boston, which had a larger black population than all other towns in Massachusetts combined, had never seen a colored pupil prepared for a secondary institution in one of its public schools.  It was, therefore, evident to fair-minded persons that in cities of separate systems Negroes would derive practically no benefit from the school tax which they paid.

This agitation for the abolition of caste in the public schools assumed its most violent form in Boston during the forties.  The abolitionists then organized a more strenuous opposition to the caste system.  Why Sarah Redmond and the other children of a family paying tax to support the schools of Boston should be turned away from a public school simply because they were persons of color was a problem too difficult for a fair-minded man.[1] The war of words came, however, when in response to a petition of Edmund Jackson, H.J.  Bowditch, and other citizens for the admission of colored people to the public schools in 1844, the majority of the school committee refused the request.  Following the opinion of Chandler, their solicitor, they based their action of making distinction in the public schools on the natural distinction of the races, which “no legislature, no social customs, can efface,” and which “renders a promiscuous