As it took
some time to secure adequate funds, the main building was not
completed, and students were not admitted before 1862.
[Footnote 1: _African Repository_, under the caption of "Education in
Liberia" in various volumes; and Alexander, _A History of Col._, pp.
348, 391.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 348.]
[Footnote 3: Monroe, _Cyclopaedia of Education_, vol. iv., p. 6.]
Though the majority of the colored students scoffed at the idea of
preparing for work in Liberia their education for service in the
United States was not encouraged. No Negro had graduated from a
college before 1828, when John B. Russworm, a classmate of Hon. John
P. Hale, received his degree from Bowdoin.[1] During the thirties
and forties, colored persons, however well prepared, were generally
debarred from colleges despite the protests of prominent men. We have
no record that as many as fifteen Negroes were admitted to higher
institutions in this country before 1840. It was only after much
debate that Union College agreed to accept a colored student on
condition that he should swear that he had no Negro blood in his
veins.[2]
[Footnote 1: Dyer, Speech in Congress on the Progress of the Negro,
1914.
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