We have," said he, "regular meetings of the blacks in the building where I attend public worship.

I have in the past years devoted myself assiduously, every Sabbath morning, to the labor of learning them to read.

I found them quick of apprehension, and capable of grasping the rudiments of learning more rapidly than the whites."[1] [Footnote 1: Flint, _Recollections of the Last Ten Years_, p.

345.] Later the problem of educating Negroes in this section became more difficult.

The trouble was that contrary to the stipulation in the treaty of purchase that the inhabitants of the territory of Louisiana should be admitted to all the rights and immunities of citizens of the United States, the State legislation, subsequent to the transfer of jurisdiction, denied the right of education to a large class of mixed breeds.[1] Many of these, thanks to the liberality of the French, had been freed, and constituted an important element of society.