It was then the difference in circumstances, employment, and opportunities for improvement that made the urban Negro more intelligent than those who had to toil in the fields.

Yet, the proportion did not differ very much from that of the previous period, as the first Negroes were not chiefly field hands but to a considerable extent house servants, whom masters often taught to read and write.
[Footnote 1: Jones, _Religious Instruction_, p.

117.] Urban Negroes had another important advantage in their opportunity to attend well-regulated Sunday-schools.

These were extensively organized in the towns and cities of this country during the first decades of the last century.

The "Sabbath-school" constituted an important factor in Negro education.