Driven to the extremity of building
a schoolhouse for her purpose, she purchased a lot with money raised
largely by Quakers of New York, Philadelphia, and New England, and
by Harriet Beecher Stowe.[3] Miss Miner had also the support of Mrs.
Means, an aunt of the wife of President Franklin Pierce, and of United
States Senator W.H. Seward.[4] Effective opposition, however, was not
long in developing. Articles appeared in the newspapers protesting
against this policy of affording Negroes "a degree of instruction so
far above their social and political condition which must continue in
this and every other slaveholding community."[5] Girls were insulted,
teachers were abused along the streets, and for lack of police
surveillance the house was set afire in 1860. It was sighted, however,
in time to be saved.[6]
[Footnote 1: O'Connor, _Myrtilla Miner_, pp. 11, 12.]
[Footnote 2: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 207.]
[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, 1871, p. 208.]
[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, pp. 208, 209, and 210.]
[Footnote 5: _The National Intelligencer._]
[Footnote 6: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 209.]
Undisturbed by these efforts to destroy the institution, Miss Miner
persisted in carrying out her plan for the higher education of colored
girls of the District of Columbia.
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