The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920

Transcriber's Note:
Vol V—January, 1920—No. 1
Vol V—April, 1920—No. 2
Vol V—July, 1920—No. 3
Vol V—October, 1920—No. 4
St. Frances Academy, established in Baltimore in 1829, by The Colored Woman's Society, was the first school for colored girls. An institute for Negro children was established in 1837 in Cheyney, Pennsylvania, with the $10,000 left by Richard Humphries. By 1838 there were thirteen private schools in Philadelphia for the education of the Negro and in 1849 Avery College was established in Allegheny. Many of the schools were organized by church societies. The African Methodist Episcopal Church purchased in 1844 120 acres of land in Ohio upon which was opened the Union Seminary in 1847. This church later in co-operation with the Methodist Episcopal Church, North, established Wilberforce University in Ohio in 1856. Oberlin College in Ohio was opened in 1833 and Ashmun Institute, which later became Lincoln University, was established in 1854 in Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, there was in certain parts much opposition on the part of the citizens, evidenced by the mobbing of a young Quaker woman, Prudence Crandall, in Canterbury, Connecticut, in 1832, for having opened a school for Negro children; and in 1835 by the removal from the town of Noyes Academy in Canaan, New Hampshire, a school which had opened its doors to Negroes.

In regard to the elementary education of the Negro children the whole situation is rather discouraging, but great progress has been made and one may hope for still greater progress in the future. The increase in facilities for education between 1866 and 1870 was quite marked, with a corresponding increase in the number of pupils, as shown by the following table:

The total expenditure for education during this period was $5,879,924. There was in 1870, however, only about one tenth of the Negro children of school age in school. Later, from 1889 to 1909, the number of children enrolled greatly increased: