41.] The regular tutors referred to above were largely indentured servants who then constituted probably the majority of the teachers of the colonies.[1] In 1773 Jonathan Boucher said that two thirds of the teachers of Maryland belonged to this class.[2] The contact of Negroes with these servants is significant.

In the absence of rigid caste distinctions they associated with the slaves and the barrier between them was so inconsiderable that laws had to be passed to prevent the miscegenation of the races.

The blacks acquired much useful knowledge from servant teachers and sometimes assisted them.
[Footnote 1: See the descriptions of indentured servants in the advertisements of colonial newspapers referred to on pages 82-84; and Boucher, _A View of the Causes_, etc., p.

39.] [Footnote 2: _Ibid._, pp.

39 and 40.] Attention was directed also to the fact that neither literary nor religious education prepared the Negroes for a life of usefulness.
Heeding the advice of Kosciuszko, Madison and Jefferson, the advocates of the education of the Negroes endeavored to give them such practical training as their peculiar needs demanded.