161.]
[Footnote 5: Boone, _History of Education in Indiana_, p. 237.]
A resolution of the House instructing the educational committee to
report a bill for the establishment of schools for the education of
the colored children of the State was overwhelmingly defeated in 1853.
Explaining their position the opponents said that it was held "to be
better for the weaker party that no privilege be extended to them,"
as the tendency to such "might be to induce the vain belief that the
prejudice of the dominant race could ever be so mollified as to break
down the rugged barriers that must forever exist between their social
relations." The friends of the blacks believed that by elevating them
the sense of their degradation would be keener, and so the greater
would be their anxiety to seek another country, where with the spirit
of men they "might breathe fresh air of social as well as political
liberty."[1] This argument, however, availed little. Before the Civil
War the Negroes of Indiana received help in acquiring knowledge from
no source but private and mission schools.
[Footnote 1: Boone, _History of Education in Indiana_, p. 237.]
In Illinois the situation was better than in Indiana, but far from
encouraging.
Pages:
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420