40.] [Footnote 3: _Proceedings of the American Conv._, etc., 1801, p.

12.] The efforts made in this direction in Delaware, were encouraging.

The Abolition Society of Wilmington had not greatly promoted the special education of "the Blacks and the people of color." In 1801, however, a school was kept the first day of the week by one of the members of the Society, who instructed them gratis in reading, writing, and arithmetic.

About twenty pupils generally attended and by their assiduity and progress showed themselves as "capable as white persons laboring under similar disadvantages."[1] In 1802 plans for the extension of this system were laid and bore good fruit the following year.[2] Seven years later, however, after personal and pecuniary aid had for some time been extended, the workers had still to lament that beneficial effects had not been more generally experienced, and that there was little disposition to aid them in their friendly endeavors.[3] In 1816 more important results had been obtained.
Through a society formed a few years prior to this date for the express purpose of educating colored children, a school had been established under a Negro teacher.

He had a fair attendance of bright children, who "by the facility with which they took in instruction were silently but certainly undermining the prejudice"[4] against their education.