Viewing page 100 of 134

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

214

We want to know also that our teachers will be provided with suitable boarding places.

I am Sir, very respectfully, 
Your Obedient Servant,
Enoch K Miller 
Ass't Sup't Education.

File 197 - 1867

Office Sup't Education
Little Rock, Ark. Sept. 12" 1867.

Thibant Lt. F. W.
Agent Bu R. F. & A. L.
Washington, Ark.

Sir:
From an extract of your report for Aug. forwarded for my information by the Ass't Commissioner, I learn that you are taking an active interest in the education of the freedmen.

We are glad to receive such favorable reports from Washington, also to learn that there is such an eagerness for the establishment of schools in your county. You say, "If three teachers were to be sent I could find good positions for them, as several parties have spoken to me about it, white citizens, who will aid in organizing and sustaining schools."

We shall be happy to supply you with teachers, but it is necessary that we should know the locations where it is proposed to establish schools, that suitable school buildings are provided, the estimated number of pupils at each point, and whether a male or a female teacher is desired.

With this information, and the assurance that our teachers will be provided with suitable boarding places and receive in payment $30 per month, we will procure teachers. I am Sir, very respectfully

Your Obedient Servant,
Enoch K Miller
Ass't Sup't Education

File 196 - 1867.

215 

Office Sup't of Education
Little Rock, Ark. Sept 13" 1867.

Shipherd Jacob R.
Sect'y Amer. Missy Ass'on
29 Lombard Block Chicago.

Dear Brother:
Enclosed you will find a letter from Mr. D. Howard betraying evident dissatisfaction with the situation. I am at a loss to know what to write to him and therefore submit the matter to you with some explanation, hoping that you will communicate by telegraph your wishes in regard to it, so that there will not be useless delay. I had the locating of all the teachers of Mr. Webb's party except Mr Howard and Miss Farrar, and as Mr Colby had just returned from Ft. Smith and Van Buren and reported both points as promising and important, I left the decision in this case to him. The Gen'l felt also that those points, especially Ft. Smith, should have schools, and from what you said to me about taking possession of important strategic points, I felt as though we ought to go up and possess the land. Both these teachers have performed a good work amid many and peculiar discouragements, and they ought to be sustained. I have lately been able to secure by shrewd management an appropriation of $50 for Miss Farrar's aid in addition to the $10 which Gov't allowed for her expenses to Ft. Smith, and I think that she will be sustained by the Freedmen. I regret exceedingly that the Bureau does not furnish a dolar towards support of teachers, as in many towns it is simply impossible for a teacher to collect enough for a living from the freedmen. It is so with the Friends at Helena and also here, that not 25 per cent of teachers' salaries is raised by the freedmen. What shall we do then, abandon these great centres of influence? Shall 

Transcription Notes:
changed "Shibant" to "Thibaut"