Besides supporting these institutions, however, the
intelligent colored men of Philadelphia had maintained smaller schools
and organized a system of lyceums and debating clubs, one of which had
a library of 1400 volumes. Moreover, there were then teaching in the
colored families and industrial schools of Philadelphia many men and
women of both races.[1] Although these instructors restricted their
work to the teaching of the rudiments of education, they did much to
help the more advanced schools to enlighten the Negroes who came to
that city in large numbers when conditions became intolerable for
the free people of color in the slave States. The statistics of the
following decade show unusual progress. In the year 1859 there were
in the colored public schools of Philadelphia, 1031 pupils; in the
charity schools, 748; in the benevolent schools, 211; in private
schools, 331; in all, 2321, whereas in 1849 there were only 1643.[2]
[Footnote 1: About the middle of the nineteenth century colored
schools of various kinds arose in Philadelphia. With a view to giving
Negroes industrial training their friends opened "The School for the
Destitute" at the House of Industry in 1848.
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