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this their severest hour of [[strikethrough]] their [[/strikethrough]] trial? Would they not aid, instead of cheating them out of what they earn? And one of the most positive proofs of this, which I can give, is the refusal on their part to sell the colored people any land. Except in a few cases, I know of none who will sell them an acre, and many of the colored people who work plantations on shares, are indebted to their employers at the end of the year. This is a species of slavery, without the horrors of the old institution.

During the last school year, the Penn. Branch Association has had eight white teachers employed in this district, and the colored people have supported some ten of their own color besides, with an aggregate of some two thousand pupils in school. And the cost of supporting all these has been near seven thousand dollars, which is a fraction over three dollars a head. Out of this number about fourteen hundred have learned to read, and the others are rapidly mastering the alphabet. A large quantity of books have been distributed to the people living in the rural districts, where no schools have been established. Now concerning the work in the future, We know that the various associations can only reach the surface of this great mass of ignorant beings. It is an utter impossibility for them to even attempt to establish schools at all points in the South, for in many places though their means were sufficient they cannot obtain board for the teachers, or rooms for school purposes. Now to remedy this difficulty and to penetrate the benighted districts, it is absolutely necessary that we employ colored teachers, for they can go into the country, open schools, and live with their own people, and that very cheaply too. 

By this means we will be enabled to reach a class