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531

but they are becoming more petty every year. The prejudice on the part of the whites that "the negroes can't learn" has disappeared altogether. The prejudice against a respectable white Virginian's teaching colored schools is going slowly, very slowly; that against northern teachers is slowly going too; that against mixed schools is solid as the primitive rocks of the Alleghanies. Then the colored people have their prejudices. Communities, made up mostly of the free-born, are unwilling to accept a teacher born in bondage, unless of a very light complexion. A community of this sort treated very coldly a black teacher that was sent to them, and withheld their children from school. The teacher was immediately removed and the community informed that they could have no school. After a month's reflection, their head man came to my office and said, "send us a teacher, I don't care if he is as black as the ace of spades if he will only come and teach my children". Denominational prejudices are sometimes very troublesome, in which illiterate preachers are the principal fomenters of difficulty.
Temperance and Savings Bank. These topics are made an important staple in all