[2] The following year a school for Negroes was opened for
two days in a week.[3] So successful was the work done by the Quakers
during this period that they could report in 1817 that most colored
minors in the Western Quarter had been "put in a way to get a portion
of school learning."[4] In 1819 some of them could spell and a few
could write. The plan of these workers was to extend the instruction
until males could "read, write, and cipher," and until the females
could "read and write."[5]
[Footnote 1: Weeks, _Southern Quakers_, p. 231; Levi Coffin,
_Reminiscences_, pp. 69-71; Bassett, _Slavery in North Carolina_, p.
66.]
[Footnote 2: Weeks, _Southern Quakers_, p. 232.]
[Footnote 3: Thwaites, _Early Travels_, vol. ii., p. 66.]
[Footnote 4: Weeks, _Southern Quakers_, p. 232.]
[Footnote 5: _Ibid_., 232.]
In the course of time, however, these philanthropists met with some
discouragement. In 1821 certain masters were sending their slaves to
a Sunday-school opened by Levi Coffin and his son Vestal. Before the
slaves had learned more than to spell words of two or three syllables
other masters became unduly alarmed, thinking that such instruction
would make the slaves discontented.
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