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that hostility to educational effort in Jefferson County extends to all free schools, white as well as colored. The letter also states what provisions have been made by law for the education of colored youth and the cause of their present failure.

Nearly twenty thousand dollars have been raised by individuals of the Free Baptist Home Mission Society to found a colored normal school at some point in the valley of Virginia. It is probable that Harpers Ferry will be the place selected.

While such an institution would be undoubtedly beneficial the greatest present need is a larger number of well sustained primary schools. I would respectfully suggest that as the building now occupied by the colored school at Harpers Ferry, belongs to the Government an application for its transfer to this Bureau for school purposes, to which it is well adapted, seems to me advisable.

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Respectfully