40.] [Footnote 3: _Notions of the Americans_, p.

26.] [Footnote 4: Wright, _Views of Society and Manners in America_, p.
73.] The successful strivings of the race in the District of Columbia furnish us with striking examples of Negroes making educational progress.

When two white teachers, Henry Potter and Mrs.Haley, invited black children to study with their white pupils, the colored people gladly availed themselves of this opportunity.[1] Mrs.Maria Billings, the first to establish a real school for Negroes in Georgetown, soon discovered that she had their hearty support.

She had pupils from all parts of the District of Columbia, and from as far as Bladensburg, Maryland.

The tuition fee in some of these schools was a little high, but many free blacks of the District of Columbia were sufficiently well established to meet these demands.