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175

March 12
Rev. J. Brinton Smith L.D.

My Dear Sir:
It is not possible for Gen Howard or the Superintendent of Education in North Carolina to give your Commission and all fellow workers in the field of the religious and secular education of the Freedmen a heartier sympathy than I do. To prove this it is only necessary to try me. As to the Sup. in N.C. I can hardly profit from his example as I do not know what questions he has had to decide. As to Gen. Howard, his will is law with me, as a matter of course; and if he were to reduce the orderly arrangement of schools in this city to a chaos I should of course submit. But as I understand his mind he wishes that the societies should not crowd upon each other, and their money be wasted, while millions remain unreached.

In respect to the district system in cities, the laboring oar is with the associations who wish to do this work contrary to the system of the civilized world. Is the ward system of N.Y. city of trifling value?