180.]
The educational experiences of President Scarborough and of Bishop
Turner show that some white persons were willing to make unusual
sacrifices to enlighten Negroes. President Scarborough began to attend
school in his native home in Bibb County, Georgia, at the age of six
years. He went out ostensibly to play, keeping his books concealed
under his arm, but spent six or eight hours each day in school until
he could read well and had mastered the first principles of geography,
grammar, and arithmetic. At the age of ten he took regular lessons in
writing under an old South Carolinian, J.C. Thomas, a rebel of the
bitterest type. Like Frederick Douglass, President Scarborough
received much instruction from his white playmates.[1]
[Footnote 1: Simmons, _Men of Mark_, p. 410.]
Bishop Turner of Newberry Court House, in South Carolina, purchased
a spelling book and secured the services of an old white lady and a
white boy, who in violation of the State law taught him to spell as
far as two syllables.[1] The white boy's brother stopped him from
teaching this lad of color, pointing out that such an instructor was
liable to arrest. For some time he obtained help from an old colored
gentleman, a prodigy in sounds.
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