The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920

Returning North, Miss Miner found other difficulties than poor health confronting her in her efforts to establish a school for the Negro youth in the District of Columbia. Funds had to be raised, pro-slavery opposition had to be overcome, and public sentiment had to be changed at least to indifference. Each of these in itself was sufficiently colossal to try the strength, physical and moral, of the ablest anti-slavery agitators of that day. It was at the time of the passage of that infamous Fugitive Slave Law, when freedmen and runaways like William Parker, Jerry McHenry and Joshua Glover were knocked down, beaten, bound and cast into prison; when abolitionists were incarcerated for their anti-slavery propaganda and giving aid to the fugitives; when even our valiant Frederick Douglass admitted himself too timid to support any such project as that undertaken by Miss Miner in the city of Washington.690 It was in times such as these that this fearless and resolute little woman, with an enthusiasm that seemingly glistened in her penetrating eyes, determined to give her life to the cause of alleviating suffering, dispelling ignorance, and liberating the oppressed Americans in body and mind.

With the small sum of one hundred dollars that she had secured from Mrs. Ednah Thomas,691 of Philadelphia, a member of the Society of Friends, Miss Miner started out upon her great work in behalf of the Negro children of the District of Columbia. Her thrift prompted her to solicit funds of various and peculiar sorts. Donations of old papers, books, weights, measures and other castaway material were transformed by this real teacher into valuable material for the instruction of her undeveloped pupils.

Funds of the material sort were not the only difficulties that beset her road of progress, for pro-slavery opposition assailed Miss Miner from every side.692 Such propaganda as the following appeared in the National Intelligencer, a Washington newspaper of pro-slavery sentiments and was spread far and wide. (1) The school would attract free colored people from the adjoining States, (2) it was proposed to give them an education far beyond what their political and social condition would justify, (3) the school would be a center of influence directed against the existence of slavery in the District of Columbia, and (4) it might endanger the institution of slavery and even rend asunder the Union itself.693

The truth of some parts of this declaration was quite evident and irrefutable, for education, as Miss Miner understood it, was destined to make every slave a man and every man free. This, of course, increased the difficulty of Miss Miner's task but her faith was abiding and her courage unabated. Miss Miner realized fully that the lot of the eight thousand free people of color of the District of Columbia was but little better than that of the 3,000 slaves, for the former, though free according to the letter of the law, in actual life had no rights that a white man was compelled to respect. They were not admitted to public institutions, could not attend the city schools, could not testify against a white man in court, and could not travel without a pass without running the risk of being cast into prison.

Amidst it all, on the 6th day of December 1851, in a rented room about fourteen feet square, in the frame house on Eleventh Street near New York Avenue then owned and occupied as a dwelling by Edward C. Younger,694 a Negro, Myrtilla Miner with six pupils established as a private institution for the education of girls of color the first Normal School in the District of Columbia and the fourth one in the United States. Increase of enrollment soon forced her to secure accommodations and within two months she had moved into a house on the north side of F Street between Eighteenth and Nineteenth, near the house then occupied by William T. Carroll and Charles H. Winder. This house furnished her a very comfortable room for her growing school of well-behaved girls, from the best Negro families of the District of Columbia. Threats on the part of white neighbors to set fire to the house forced her to leave the home of the Negro family with whom she had stayed but one month and to seek quarters elsewhere. Miss Miner then succeeded in getting accommodations in the dwelling-house of a German family on K Street, near the K Street market. After tarrying a few months there, she moved to L Street into a room in the building known as the "The Two Sisters," then occupied by a white family. But the inconvenience of holding school in rented quarters of private dwellings proved a very unpleasant one indeed; for not only did she suffer the lack of comfort which such quarters naturally could not offer, but found herself constantly harassed by the necessity of moving to escape the enmity and persecution of her white neighbors.

A new day, however, was to dawn. With the aid of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Dr. Gamaliel Bailey and a few such faithful Philadelphia friends as Thomas Williamson, Samuel Rhoads, Benjamin Tatham, Jasper Cope and Catherine Morris, enough funds were raised to purchase a site of three acres or more for a permanent home on a lot near N Street and New Hampshire Avenue, between Nineteenth and Twentieth Streets, Northwest. Though the environment of this new home was most pleasing and beautiful, being surrounded with flowers and fruit trees, the enmity of the white hoodlums still followed her. She and her pupils were frequently assailed with torrents of stones and other missiles. Once threatened by mob violence, Miss Miner bravely and defiantly exclaimed, "Mob my school! You dare not! If you tear it down over my head I shall get another house. There is no law to prevent my teaching these people and I shall teach them even unto death!" Testimony of some of Miss Miner's former pupils upholds such a defiance as truly descriptive of her fearless nature.

In its earlier days the Miner Normal School was supported by private funds and directed by a board of trustees consisting of Benjamin Tatham and H. W. Bellows of New York; Samuel M. Janney of Virginia; Johns Hopkins of Baltimore; Samuel Rhoads and Thomas Williamson of Philadelphia; G. Bailey and L. D. Gale of Washington; C. E. Stowe of Andover; H. W. Beecher of Brooklyn, together with an executive committee consisting of S. J. Bowen, J. M. Wilson and L. D. Gale of Washington; Miss Miner, principal and William H. Beecher, secretary.

The curriculum of the school then embraced boarding, domestic economy, teachers' training course and the primary departments. It is interesting to note that some of the advanced ideas in education today, such as student self-government, vitalized teaching, socialized recitation, and civic as well as personal hygiene, were taught and practiced by Miss Miner during the fifties of the last century.

As an illustration of pupil self-government, I quote the following from the Memoir of M. Miner by Mrs. Ellen M. O'Connor, concerning a visit made by Miss Margaret Robinson of Philadelphia to Miss Miner's school: "In the winter of 1853 accompanied by a friend, I visited the school of Myrtilla Miner, under circumstances of peculiar interest. Arriving about ten A. M., we learned from a pupil at the door that the teacher was absent on business of importance to the school. We were not a little disappointed, supposing all recitations would await her coming. What was our surprise on entering to find every girl in her place, closely occupied with her studies. We seated ourselves by polite invitation; soon a class read; then one in mental arithmetic exercised itself, the more advanced pupils acting as monitors; all was done without confusion. When the teacher entered she expressed no surprise, but took up the business where she found it and went on." On one occasion, being obliged to leave for several days, Miss Miner propounded to the pupils the question, whether the school should be closed, or they should continue their exercises without her? They chose the latter. On her return she found all doing well, not the least disorder having occurred.

As to vitalized teaching, Matilda Jones Madden, one of Miss Miner's pupils, wrote the following: "She gave special attention to the proper writing of letters and induced a varied correspondence between many prominent persons and her pupils, thus in a practical way bringing her school into larger notice with many of its patrons and friends and vastly increasing the experience of her pupils."

Mrs. John F. N. Wilkinson, a former pupil of Miss Miner, of Washington, D. C., states that Miss Miner held classes in astronomy with the larger girls who were required to meet at the school in the evenings to study their lessons from nature. Mrs. Amelia E. Wormley, the mother of the writer, residing in Washington, also a pupil of Miss Miner, recalls vividly the emphasis which Miss Miner placed upon the teaching of physical culture and the tenderness with which she handled the younger children of her school.695

The school increased in usefulness and importance. As a result of this, on March 3, 1863, the Senate and House of Representatives passed an act to incorporate this institution for the education of girls of color in the District of Columbia. By the act William H. Channing, George J. Abbot, Miss Miner, and others, their associate and successors were constituted and declared a body politic and corporate by the name and title of "The Institution for the Education of Colored Youth," to be located in the District of Columbia. Though this act of Congress legalized the institution, the school appears to have lapsed into inactivity from 1863 to 1871 because of the absence of its guiding spirit, Miss Miner. On account of ill health she was compelled to give up the work, and the strain and stress of civil affairs reduced national interest and support to a minimum. After a sojourn of three years in California in search of renewed energy and more funds for the fulfillment of her plans and the consummation of her ideals, Miss Miner departed from this life at the home of Mrs. Nancy M. Johnson of Washington, D. C., on the 17th of December 1864.

In 1871 the work of the school was resumed in connection with Howard University. A preparatory and Normal Department was opened and controlled by this institution but supported by the Miner Funds. The school existed in this connection until September 13, 1876, when it began a separate and independent existence which lasted until 1879 when it was taken over by the school system of the District of Columbia. From 1879 to 1887 the Miner Normal School was jointly controlled by the Board696 of Trustees of the Public Schools of the District and the Miner Board of Trustees, the principal's salary being paid by the Miner Board to which she made her reports while the obligation of keeping up the enrollment of the school was assumed by the Trustees representing the District Government.

In 1887 the Trustees of the District assumed full charge of the school thus centralizing authority and management. The unification of the dual management under District authority added keener interest on the part of the citizenship of the community and a deeper feeling of responsibility on the part of the faculty. Fortunately for the institution, moreover, the women who succeeded Miss Miner as the heads of this institution caught the great spirit of their predecessor and in their efforts to continue the useful work which she had done, followed so closely in the path which she had trodden as to assure success and preclude any necessity for general reorganization.

The first of these women to take up the work of Miss Miner, was Miss Mary B. Smith, of Beverly, Massachusetts, who was assisted by her sister Miss Sarah R. Smith. These two worthy ladies were succeeded by Miss Martha Briggs who is characterized by Dr. W. S. Montgomery in his Historical Sketch on Education for the Colored Race in the District of Columbia, 1807-1905, "as a born teacher whose work showed those qualities of head and heart that have made her name famous in the annals of education in the character of the graduates. The student teachers caught her missionary spirit and went forth from her presence stronger souls, full of sympathy to magnify the teacher's vocation and to inspire the learner. Many of the women who sat at her feet are laboring in the schools here now, filling the highest positions and in beauty and richness of character running like a thread of gold through the teaching corps."

Miss Briggs was succeeded in 1883 by Dr. Lucy E. Moten, who after faithful and successful service for thirty-seven years, retired June 20, 1920. As principal of the Miner Normal School, Dr. Moten graduated the majority of the teachers now employed in the public schools of the District. She saw the Normal course lengthened from a one year course to that of a two year course, offering greater opportunity for broader professional equipment of the student teachers, the results of which are manifest in the Washington Public Schools today. This school, however, is destined in the near future to undergo other changes in the line of progress. It may be the extension of the course to three years or the development of a Teacher's college of four years which will offer courses leading to a degree. With an enthusiastic whole-hearted response of the teaching corps of Washington, D. C., to the slogan of the new Superintendent, Dr. Frank Washington Ballou—"Hats off to the past and coats off to the future," The Miner Normal School will reach higher in its aim to serve and realize the ideals of its noble founder and benefactress, whose struggles and sacrifices are sacred in the memory of every teacher of color in the District of Columbia.

G. Smith Wormley.

COMMUNICATIONS

During the last five years a number of valuable facts have come to the office of the editor in various communications from persons interested in the work which the Association has been promoting. While these communications do not as a whole bear upon any particular phase of Negro history, they will certainly be valuable to one making researches in the general field. Some of these follow.

A SuggestionWashington, D. C., Dec. 23, 1916.

Carter G. Woodson,

My Dear Sir: I notice by the press your Connection with the "Douglass" celebration. It might interest you to receive the enclosed from a rank abolitionist of the John Brown School. After service in Kansas with the Brown element, then in open rebellion against the United States, as typified in men like Judge Taney, who decided that the black man had no rights the white man was bound to respect, I entered the Union army and served in it as a private in the 5th Wis. Infy and as Adjt. of the 7th Eastern Shore Md. Infy—3 years and 6 mos.... I wish some of your influential men would start a movement to erect a monument here for old John Brown, who gave his life to free the country from the great curse of slavery.

Cordially,(Signed)  John E. Rastall.Some Interesting FactsMarion, Alabama  July 7th 1916Dr. C. G. Woodson

Dear Sir:

Absence from home has prevented my replying to your request sooner.

The majority of masters in this section of the country were kind to their slaves. They gave them plenty of good wholesome food, good clothes, (warm ones in winter) comfortable homes and attention from Doctors when sick. There were churches on nearly every plantation and ministers provided to preach to them. The only very cruel masters were Northern men who treated their slaves like beasts. For many years it was against the law to teach negroes to read or write because some of them would read things from the North that made them dissatisfied but our family owned such good negroes, who had principle like white people we did not think it could hurt them, and we taught them to read and write. There has always been a kind feeling between the whites and slaves in this country. The young ones were our playmates in childhood. The older ones our nurses and cooks who petted us and loved us as their own color. They were faithful during the War when our protectors were in the Army, and now altho' it is fifty years since they were freed, many of them are our best friends.—I do not know of anything else you wanted to know or I would gladly write you. In some sections of the South there may have been cruel treatment but it was generally from the overseers who were ignorant men and took advantage of their position to give license to their cruel natures.

James Childs and all of his family and many of his relatives belonged to my mother, and there still exists a kind feeling between us that will only be severed by Death. I would like to hear from him. I am nearly 75 years old and cannot be here much longer but want to do all the good I can before I am called.

Respectfully(Signed)   Mrs. Jas. A. Smith,Marion      Alabama23 Dryads Green,    Nov. 7, 1916.

My dear Mr. Woodson:

Your letter in the interest of The Journal of Negro History is welcome. I will try to send you a subscriber or two.

Allow me to suggest a point. It may have been well covered already without my knowing of it. In Louisiana and, I think, in some other states, in Reconstruction days, the lieutenant-governorship was conceded by the Republican party, regularly, to a man of color. These men were sometimes, to say no more, of high character and ability. Such a one in Louisiana was Oscar J. Dunn, the first of them. He was of unmixt African origin. His signal ability and high integrity were acknowledged by his political enemies in the most rancorous days of his career, and his funeral was attended by Confederate generals.

I wish your enterprise the fullest measure of success.

Yours truly,(Signed)   Geo. W. Cable.Washington, D.C.        1443 R St., N. W.,    Nov. 1 —17.

Mr. Carter G. Woodson,

1216 You St., N.W.,

Washington, D. C.

Dear Sir:

I recently received from you a letter followed soon by a volume of The Journal of Negro History edited by yourself which I have scanned and am much impressed with its merits and consider a valuable contribution to our historical literature.

It is somewhat unusual to find colored men in America of American birth who are individually conversant with all of the West Indies a part of South America and the western part of Europe.

My advent in life began at an epoch in the early history of Baltimore when incidents occurred that seem to have escaped the notice of the numerous writers of the history of our race which I shall briefly relate.

Owing to the rapid decadence of the sugar industries of the British West Indies on the Abolition of Slavery and the gravity anent the threatened ruin of the peasantry, some philanthropists and business men from England were sent to Baltimore to try to get free colored people to go to Trinidad. They spoke in many colored churches and succeeded in interesting them so that several shiploads were sent. My father and mother and three children were of the number. I was an infant in arms.

I received an education there and after I grew up was variously employed as bookkeeper, clerking in dry goods stores, in the City Hall, overseer on sugar estate, coach and sign painter, was afterwards sent for by my father who was at the gold mines of Caratal in Venezuela and on my return to Trinidad visited several other islands of the West Indies.

I next returned to America my natal home the second year of Andrew Johnson's term.

I have not since led an idle life. For nearly 25 years I have been engaged as an itinerant private tutor teaching adult folks and I flatter myself that I was very successful among the hundreds of my pupils.

I found on my arrival in America that education was at a very low ebb amongst the members of my race perhaps not more than 15% of adult folks one would encounter in the streets could read and write.

When the Amendments were passed by Congress conferring citizenship upon colored people I threw myself into the political current and was the first vice president of the 11th ward of Baltimore city which a few years subsequently chose a colored councilman, Harry Cummins.

I became a merchant meanwhile experimenting in groceries, but after a year relinquished this for dry goods for which my early acquaintance therewith amply fitted me. I kept a dry goods store in Baltimore for seven years then went to Jacksonville, Fla. where I successfully continued the business for eighteen years.

While I was in Baltimore I twice passed the Civil Service examination with a handsome percentage this I did simply from curiosity. I kept strictly to merchandise and have never earned a dollar of Uncle Sam's money.

In 1909 and again in 1912 myself and wife, both of us having a knowledge of French and Spanish and I a little Italian made a tour of Western Europe viz, Gibralter Italy Switzerland France Germany Holland Belgium and England plodding on foot amongst the common people studying sociological conditions and comparing with our own people. I find the contrast of the humbler class of Europe also the colored races of the West Indies and South America with less opportunities possessed of more enterprise and ambition than the colored people of America.

It is a lamentable fact that the principal attraction of those who should be our strong men and leaders in enterprise those of high school and college training consists of Uncle Sam's bounty and in the absence of this to cling to some white man in private life.

I have for many years been an ardent advocate of business amongst our people and to this end I have written contributions to the Commonwealth of Baltimore a paper once edited by John E. Bruce (Bruce Grit) the Colored American of Washington, and to other papers edited by our race.

My attitude towards other enterprises is that we are sufficiently and disproportionately represented in other branches, especially teaching preaching politics governmental patronage &c. which require no financial responsibility; consequently the results place us in the attitude of a Castillian gentleman who is facetiously described thus—Caballero sin caballo, Mucho piojo, poco dinero, that is, a knight without a horse, Plenty of lice, little money.

As a race we are the poorest numerically of any race in America. We have so little ambition and so envious and void of race pride. We don't mind a white man climbing over our heads but a colored man never and if you doubt me keep a store.

I have grown weary of the struggle and am leaving the fight to the younger men who I hope may prove vigorous champions.

I have done my part, I am

Yours very truly(Signed)   Stansbury Boyce.London, Ont. October 25/1918

Dr. Carter G. Woodson,

Journal of Negro History,

Washington, D. C.

Dear Dr. Woodson,

I have been reading your "Century of Negro Migration" with interest. On page 36 you speak of a change of attitude on the part of Canadians towards the refugees. I do not know to what this refers. The attitude of the Canadian government never changed—it granted asylum and protection right up to the Civil War and afterwards. From the very earliest days there was an occasional show of prejudice but I doubt if this was greater in 1855 than in 1845 or 1835. The laws were administered fairly, the Negro exercised his vote, could get land cheaply if he desired to farm. The chief prejudice was shown in the schools though this only in some places, this city for instance. But this was only occasional, not general, and you are quite correct in saying that "these British Americans never made the life of the Negro there so intolerable as was the case in some of the free States."

On the same page there is a slight error in the use of the word "towns" in connection with the settlements of refugees in Southern Ontario.

"Dawn" was not a town but a farming community, "The Dawn Settlement" "Colchester" was the same, it is the name now given to a township in Essex county.

"Elgin" was not the name of a Settlement but of the association which managed the settlement. Buxton was the settlement founded by the Elgin association.

"Bush", i.e. "The Bush" is the term applied to a great tract of country north of Toronto, bushland, in which there were some Negro farmers.

"Wilberforce" was also a tract of land divided into farms and termed the Wilberforce settlement. It is in Middlesex county, near London.

"Riley" should be "Raleigh," it is the township in which the Elgin association's settlement was located. It is in Kent County.