375.] [Footnote 4: Andrews, _History of the New York African Free Schools_, p.

20.] None urged this duty upon the directors of these schools more persistently than the antislavery organizations.

In 1794 the American Convention of Abolition Societies recommended that Negroes be instructed in "those mechanic arts which will keep them most constantly employed and, of course, which will less subject them to idleness and debauchery, and thus prepare them for becoming good citizens of the United States."[1] Speaking repeatedly on this wise the Convention requested the colored people to let it be their special care to have their children not only to work at useful trades but also to till the soil.[2] The early abolitionists believed that this was the only way the freedmen could learn to support themselves.[3] In connection with their schools the antislavery leaders had an Indenturing Committee to find positions for colored students who had the advantages of industrial education.[4] In some communities slaves were prepared for emancipation by binding them out as apprentices to machinists and artisans until they learned a trade.
[Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the American Convention_, 1794, p.

14.] [Footnote 2: _Ibid._, 1795, p.

29; _ibid._, 1797, pp.