[Footnote 1: See the _Address of the Am. Conv. of Abolition Societies_, 1794; _ibid._, 1795; _ibid._, 1797 _et passim._]
[Footnote 2: Wickersham, _History of Ed. in Pa._, p. 249.]
[Footnote 3: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1869, p. 375.]
[Footnote 4: Andrews, _History of the New York African Free Schools_, p. 20.]
None urged this duty upon the directors of these schools more persistently than the antislavery organizations. In 1794 the American Convention of Abolition Societies recommended that Negroes be instructed in "those mechanic arts which will keep them most constantly employed and, of course, which will less subject them to idleness and debauchery, and thus prepare them for becoming good citizens of the United States."[1] Speaking repeatedly on this wise the Convention requested the colored people to let it be their special care to have their children not only to work at useful trades but also to till the soil.[2] The early abolitionists believed that this was the only way the freedmen could learn to support themselves.[3] In connection with their schools the antislavery leaders had an Indenturing Committee to find positions for colored students who had the advantages of industrial education.[4] In some communities slaves were prepared for emancipation by binding them out as apprentices to machinists and artisans until they learned a trade.
[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the American Convention_, 1794, p. 14.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, 1795, p. 29; _ibid._, 1797, pp. 12, 13, and 31.]
Two early efforts to carry out this policy are worthy of notice here. These were the endeavors of Anthony Benezet and Thaddeus Kosciuszko. Benezet was typical of those men, who, having the courage of their conviction, not only taught colored people, but gladly appropriated property to their education. Benezet died in 1784, leaving considerable wealth to be devoted to the purpose of educating Indians and Negroes. His will provided that as the estate on the death of his wife would not be sufficient entirely to support a school, the Overseers of the Public Schools of Philadelphia should join with a committee appointed by the Society of Friends, and other benevolent persons, in the care and maintenance of an institution such as he had planned. Finally in 1787 the efforts of Benezet reached their culmination in the construction of a schoolhouse, with additional funds obtained from David Barclay of London and Thomas Sidney, a colored man of Philadelphia. The pupils of this school were to study reading, writing, arithmetic, plain accounts, and sewing.[1]