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Sept. 6  9

A.M Newman

Dear Sir: 

Your letter of the 16th Aug. to Gen. Howard has been referred to me by him.  He entrusts these matters to me and holds me responsible.  You will only lose time by writing to Washington.  I wrote you that we do not pay so much as $500 towards a country school house.  This is in accordance with my instructions.  I know very well that it does not require anything near $500 to build such a house as you describe.  There are so many communities who have no school houses, as yet, who will put up a good one with the assistance of from $50 to $200, that the Bureau can expend all the funds it has for such purposes in just such communities.

Where the Freedmen have churches they are generally used for school purposes, and where they have none the Bureau is glad to aid them in a school-house to be used also for church purposes.  The places that have neither church nor school-house have the strongest claims.  I refer you again to my letter of the 9th August.  I saw Rev. Mr. Simmons in N.Y. last week and he fully agrees with me.

Yours &c
R.M. Manly
Supt Education