[Footnote 1:  Ibid., p. 20.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid., 1802, p. 17.]

[Footnote 3:  Proceedings of the American Convention, etc., 1809, p. 20.]

[Footnote 4:  Ibid., 1816, p. 20.]

[Footnote 5:  Ibid., 1821, p. 18.]

In Pennsylvania the interest of the large Quaker element caused the question of educating Negroes to be a matter of more concern to that colony than it was to the others.  Thanks to the arduous labors of the antislavery movement, emancipation was provided for in 1780.  The Quakers were then especially anxious to see masters give their “weighty and solid attention” to qualifying slaves for the liberty intended.  By the favorable legislation of the State the poor were by 1780 allowed the chance to secure the rudiments of education.[1] Despite this favorable appearance of things, however, friends of the despised race had to keep up the agitation for such a construction of the law as would secure to the Negroes of the State the educational benefits extended to the indigent.  The colored youth of Pennsylvania thereafter had the right to attend the schools provided for white children, and exercised it when persons interested in the blacks directed their attention to the importance of mental improvement.[2] But as neither they nor their defenders were numerous outside of Philadelphia and Columbia, not many pupils of color in other parts of the State attended school during this period.  Whatever special effort was made to arouse them to embrace their opportunities came chiefly from the Quakers.

[Footnote 1:  A.M.E.  Church Review, vol. xv., p. 625.]

[Footnote 2:  Wickersham, History of Education in Pa., p. 253.]

Not content with the schools which were already opened to Negroes, the friends of the race continued to agitate and raise funds to extend their philanthropic operations.  With the donation of Anthony Benezet the Quakers were able to enlarge their building and increase the scope of the work.  They added a female department in which Sarah Dwight[1] was teaching the girls spelling, reading, and sewing in 1784.  The work done in Philadelphia was so successful that the place became the rallying center for the Quakers throughout the country,[2] and was of so much concern to certain members of this sect in London that in 1787 they contributed five hundred pounds toward the support of this school.[3] In 1789 the Quakers organized “The Society for the Free Instruction of the Orderly Blacks and People of Color.”  Taking into consideration the “many disadvantages which many well-disposed blacks and people of color labored under from not being able to read, write, or cast accounts, which would qualify them to act for themselves or provide for their families,” this society in connection with other organizations established evening schools for the education of adults of African blood.[4] It is evident then that with the exception of the school of the Abolition Society organized in 1774, and the efforts of a few other persons generally cooeperating like the anti-slavery leaders with the Quakers, practically all of the useful education of the colored people of this State was accomplished in their schools.  Philadelphia had seven colored schools in 1797.[5]