323.] Another difficulty of certain commonwealths had to be overcome.
Apparently Georgia had already incorporated into its laws provisions adequate to the prevention of the mental improvement of Negroes.

But it was discovered that employed as they had been in various positions either requiring knowledge, or affording its acquirement, Negroes would pick up the rudiments of education, despite the fact that they had no access to schools.

The State then passed a law imposing a penalty not exceeding one hundred dollars for the employment of any slave or free person of color "in setting up type or other labor about a printing office requiring a knowledge of reading and writing."[1] In 1834 South Carolina saw the same danger.

In addition to enacting a more stringent law for the prevention of the teaching of Negroes by white or colored friends, and for the destruction of their schools, it provided that persons of African blood should not be employed as clerks or salesmen in or about any shop or store or house used for trading.[2] [Footnote 1: Cobb, _Digest of the Laws of Georgia_, p.

555; and Prince, _Digest of the Laws of Georgia_, p.