25 unsuccessfully sought to exclude Guilford County from a bill which made it a criminal offense to teach slaves to read and write.13 The Greens» boro people, however, are said to have taught many Negroes secretly to

read and write.]4

A third probable reason was the large Negro p0pula- tion of the Greensboro area. According to the 1870 census, the More— head and Gilmer townships, including Greensboro, had a total population

of 4,4l5, of which l,887-wor almost 40%—=were Negroes.]5

The Principalship 2: E, g. Parkinson. w. J. Parkinson came to

be principal of the Methodist day-school in January of 187h.]6 He re-

ported that an average of 70 students studied under him that winter term,

meeting in the basement of the Warnersville church. 7 The average

I3Ethel Stephens Arnett, Greensboro, North Carolina: The County Seat 9: Guilford (Chapel Hill, N. C.: The U° N. C. Press, I955), p. 81.

1“mid.

I5LeviBranson, ed., The North Carolina Business Directory (Raleigh: J. A. Jones, l872), p. 109.

16Greensboro New North State, May 28, l875.l An extensive search of the official church—records and newspaper articles of the period con- cerned has revealed no date for the opening of the school to students. If the school began in 1873, as many secondary sources say, it would have to have been after July 23, l873, when the decision to establish the school in Greensboro was announced. Parkinson's comments, however, leave the impression that the first school term began in January, I874. The determination of the exact beginning date must remain an unresolved question.

”Ibid.‘