The work was begun by a Negro and continued by an educated
Scotch-Irishman, who had followed the profession of teaching in his
native land. Becoming suspicious that a school of this kind was
maintained at the home of De Baptiste, the police watched the place
but failed to find sufficient evidence to close the institution before
it had done its work.[1]
[Footnote 1: Simmons, _Men of Mark_, p. 352.]
In 1854 there was found in Norfolk, Virginia, what the radically
proslavery people considered a dangerous white woman. It was
discovered that one Mrs. Douglass and her daughter had for three years
been teaching a school maintained for the education of Negroes.[1] It
was evident that this institution had not been run so clandestinely
but that the opposition to the education of Negroes in that city had
probably been too weak to bring about the close of the school at an
earlier date. Mrs. Douglass and her pupils were arrested and brought
before the court, where she was charged with violating the laws of the
State. The defendant acknowledged her guilt, but, pleading ignorance
of the law, was discharged on the condition that she would not commit
the same "crime" again.
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