This work
had been made popular by the efforts of Misses Turpen, Eliza J. Cox,
Ann Cox, and Caroline Roe.[2] The subsequent growth of the classes
was such that in 1820 the Manumission Society had to erect a building
large enough to accommodate five hundred pupils.[3] The instructors
were then not only teaching the elementary branches of reading,
writing, arithmetic, and geography, but also astronomy, navigation,
advanced composition, plain sewing, knitting, and marking.[4] Knowing
the importance of industrial training, the Manumission Society then
had an Indenturing Committee find employment in trades for colored
children, and had recommended for some of them the pursuit of
agriculture.[5] The comptrollers desired no better way of measuring
the success of the system in shaping the character of its students
than to be able to boast that no pupils educated there had ever been
convicted of crime.[6] Lafayette, a promoter of the emancipation
and improvement of the colored people, and a member of the New York
Manumission Society, visited these schools in 1824 on his return to
the United States. He was bidden welcome by an eleven-year-old pupil
in well-chosen and significant words.
Pages:
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135