When prejudice, however, lost some of its sting, the friends of the colored people did more than ever for their education.

But in view of the changed conditions most of these philanthropists concluded that the Negroes were very much in need of practical education.

Educators first attempted to provide such training by offering classical and vocational courses in what they called the "manual labor schools." When these failed to meet the emergency they advocated actual vocational training.

To make this new system extensive the Negroes freely cooeperated with their benefactors, sharing no small part of the real burden.

They were at the same time paying taxes to support public schools which they could not attend.
This very condition was what enabled the abolitionists to see that they had erred in advocating the establishment of separate schools for Negroes.