121.] [Footnote 5: _Ibid._, p.

121.] [Footnote 6: Laws of New Jersey, 1788.] With such influence brought to bear on persons in the various walks of life, the movement for the effective education of the colored people became more extensive.

Voicing the sentiment of the different local organizations, the American Convention of Abolition Societies of 1794 urged the branches to have the children of free Negroes and slaves instructed in "common literature."[1] Two years later the Abolition Society of the State of Maryland proposed to establish an academy to offer this kind of instruction.

To execute this scheme the American Convention thought that it was expedient to employ regular tutors, to form private associations of their members or other well-disposed persons for the purpose of instructing the people of color in the most simple branches of education.[2] [Footnote 1: _Proceedings of the American Convention of Abolition Societies_, 1796, p.

18.] [Footnote 2: _Ibid._, 1797, p.