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287

Oct. 2d 1867

Mrs. Sarah D. Lane

My Dear Madam

I reply to yours of the 26 in reference to school rooms. A large 2d story room, not used last yar, I have had divided, by partitions, into two ample school rooms with cloak rooms attached. The rooms occupied last year by Miss Canedy and Mary Clark were light, airy, 2d story rooms, on the whole the best rooms in use for colored schools in the city. Two of the 1st story rooms (Mr Honeys and Miss Bullards) [[strikethrough]] were [[/strikethrough]] are ample in size, not less than 25 x 35 feet, lighted by two or three full length windows on each of three sides. The floors being not more than 18 inches below the level of the pavement. I cannot regard them as unpleasant or bad rooms. Miss Augiers and Sarah Clarks were about the same except that they were lighted only on two sides; they were not such rooms as I should desire. The Bakery property being what it is, it would be utterly unjustifiable for the Bureau to have those buildings unused, and purchase lots and erect new ones. 

In fact the $25,000 to which the expenses of the Bureau for Schools by Virginia are limited this year, would be more than half used if we were to attempt to supply, by new buildings, an equal amount of school accommodations, to what you have at the Bakery.

With the exception of the N. Y. Branch (who provided their buildings at a cost of about $5000 "out of their treasury, none of which has been refunded) you have by far the best accommodations in the city;-- and I am not certain that theirs are better. None of them are what they ought to be, for I am a full believer in good school-rooms. But they are the best it possible for the Bureau to provide.

Very Resp'y-- R. M. Manly
Sup Education