With such influence brought to bear on persons in the various walks of life, the movement for the effective education of the colored people became more extensive.  Voicing the sentiment of the different local organizations, the American Convention of Abolition Societies of 1794 urged the branches to have the children of free Negroes and slaves instructed in “common literature."[1] Two years later the Abolition Society of the State of Maryland proposed to establish an academy to offer this kind of instruction.  To execute this scheme the American Convention thought that it was expedient to employ regular tutors, to form private associations of their members or other well-disposed persons for the purpose of instructing the people of color in the most simple branches of education.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Proceedings of the American Convention of Abolition Societies, 1796, p. 18.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid., 1797, p. 41.]

The regular tutors referred to above were largely indentured servants who then constituted probably the majority of the teachers of the colonies.[1] In 1773 Jonathan Boucher said that two thirds of the teachers of Maryland belonged to this class.[2] The contact of Negroes with these servants is significant.  In the absence of rigid caste distinctions they associated with the slaves and the barrier between them was so inconsiderable that laws had to be passed to prevent the miscegenation of the races.  The blacks acquired much useful knowledge from servant teachers and sometimes assisted them.

[Footnote 1:  See the descriptions of indentured servants in the advertisements of colonial newspapers referred to on pages 82-84; and Boucher, A View of the Causes, etc., p. 39.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid., pp. 39 and 40.]

Attention was directed also to the fact that neither literary nor religious education prepared the Negroes for a life of usefulness.  Heeding the advice of Kosciuszko, Madison and Jefferson, the advocates of the education of the Negroes endeavored to give them such practical training as their peculiar needs demanded.  In the agricultural sections the first duty of the teacher of the blacks was to show them how to get their living from the soil.  This was the final test of their preparation for emancipation.  Accordingly, on large plantations where much supervision was necessary, trustworthy Negroes were trained as managers.  Many of those who showed aptitude were liberated and encouraged to produce for themselves.  Slaves designated for freedom were often given small parcels of land for the cultivation of which they were allowed some of their time.  An important result of this agricultural training was that many of the slaves thus favored amassed considerable wealth by using their spare time in cultivating crops of their own.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Special Report of the U.S.  Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 196.]