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Rh allow children under thirteen to enter, and shejwas compelled to wait for some time before admission could be gained for her. Through the influence of friends she was admitted in September, 1850, when but twelve and a half years old. She completed the course with honors and was the first colored girl graduated from this high school.

Her earliest experience at teaching was at home in her father's house. There she opened a private school with ten or twelve pupils, and at different times had evening pupils, whom she taught to read and write. These evening pupils were most largely men and women who came from slavery. To such fugitives her father, out of the largeness of his heart, often gave refuge and aid. Subsequently she taught at Christiantown, Martha's Vineyard, in the private and public schools of Newport, R. I., and acted as governess in the family of Mr. George T. Downing, of said city, for several years. Because of his loyalty to manhood and justice Mr. Downing repudiated the idea of fastening upon his posterity the notion of their inferiority, by permitting them to submit to attendance upon public schools for colored children, separate and apart from those for white children, when the conditions were such that both teacherships and pupils might have been mixed wuthout detriment to either race. He therefore gave the use of one of his houses as a school and paid for the private tuition of his children, Miss Briggs being one of the three