Prominent among the first of these workers was Daniel Coker,
known to fame as a colored Methodist missionary, who was sent to
Liberia. Prior to 1812 he had in Baltimore an academy which certain
students from Washington attended when they had no good schools of
their own, and when white persons began to object to the co-education
of the races. Because of these conditions two daughters of George
Bell, the builder of the first colored schoolhouse in the District of
Columbia, went to Baltimore to study under Coker.[1] An adult Negro
school in this city had 180 pupils in 1820. There were then in the
Baltimore Sunday-schools about 600 Negroes. They had formed themselves
into a Bible association which had been received into the connection
of the Baltimore Bible Society.[2] In 1825 the Negroes there had a day
and a night school, giving courses in Latin and French. Four years
later there appeared an "African Free School" with an attendance of
from 150 to 175 every Sunday.[3]
[Footnote 1: _Ibid._, p. 196.]
[Footnote 2: Adams, _Anti-slavery_, etc., p. 14.]
[Footnote 3: Adams, _Anti-Slavery_, etc., pp. 14 and 15.]
By 1830 the Negroes of Baltimore had several special schools of their
own.
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