Black Gotham Stories

Peter Guignon's classmates included many young men who would eventually grow up to be prominent community, and in some cases national, leaders: James McCune Smith, George Downing, Alexander Crummell, Henry Highland Garnet, Philip Bell, and the two Reason brothers, Patrick and Charles. Their principal teacher was Britisher Charles Andrews, who wrote a comprehensive history of the school.  Whether intended or not, the education these boys received encouraged them to rise above their impoverished origins.

The African Free Schools followed the Lancasterian System, created by British educator Joseph Lancaster in the late eighteenth century and quickly adopted in U.S. schools.  Lancaster recorded all aspects of his educational methods in his Manual of the Lancasterian System; so, along with Charles Andrews's history we have a pretty good idea of what the Mulberry Street School was like. A two-story building, it would have contained one large room on each floor capable of accommodating up to 250 children. Andrews sat at a desk in the front of the room, facing the students seated in rows or “forms” behind their desks; there might have been up to twenty-five forms of approximately ten students each. The forms were organized according the students’ ability, the least advanced in front, the more advanced in the back. The front row made up the “sand class,” composed of children learning the alphabet by tracing letters with the fingers of their right hand in the sand that covered their desk. The most capable students, called monitors, were called upon to teach the younger and less knowledgeable; they were placed at special desks at the right end of a row and slightly elevated for better observation.

Given the poor quality of early nineteenth-century free schools, the many hundreds of children who passed through the Mulberry Street School undoubtedly left with inadequate literacy and math skills. But a small group excelled. Peter and his friends surely possessed basic skills in the three Rs, and probably didn’t need to spend much time on penmanship, spelling, or taking dictation. They would have taken the more advanced classes in history, geography, English literature, natural science, astronomy, and even navigation.

Crummell, Alexander. “Eulogium on Henry Highland Garnet, D. D.” In Africa and America: Addresses and Discourses. Springfield, MA: Willey, 1891.

Smith, James McCune. “Sketch of the Life of and Labors of Henry Highland Garnet.” In A Memorial Discourse by Henry Highland Garnet, delivered in the Hall of the House of Representatives, Washington D.C., on Sabbath, February 12, 1865. Philadelphia: J. M. Wilson, 1865.

DuBois, W. E. B. "Of Alexander Crummell." In The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1903.