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100 Head Quarters District of Alabama Office Superintendent Education Bureau R.F. and A.L. Montgomery Ala. Aug 9" 67 Bradford C.T. Esq. Sect'y Board School Commis. Mobile, Ala Dear Sir Your letter of 7" inst. announcing that "A committee of the Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County have under consideration the inquiry whether our system of public instruction can be extended to the colored children of Mobile, and if so by what means, and in what manner such instruction can be most effectively accomplished," is this morning received. In reply to so much of your communication as states that "the only obstacle in the way of extending our system of schools in all its vigor and completeness to the colored people is the want of funds, as well for the payment of teacher's salaries, as building School-houses, and asks what aid it is in the power of the Bureau to give to this object," I have to invite your attention briefly to the course pursued by the Assistant Commissioner of the State, under whose direction the appropriations of counsel for colored people are expended. The fund has been expended in two principal ways: first rent and repair of school-houses; secondly, in payment of teacher's Salaries. The monies used in this way have been sufficient to enable the Bureau to establish upwards of one-hundred and seventy-five schools, located in more than one-half the counties of the State, and attended by two thousand colored pupils. A deep and abiding interest has been awakened in the colored 101 people, regarding the education of their children. Yet in all this the thought has been impressed upon the minds of the colored people that all the Bureau was doing was only preliminary to a more permanent and effective expediter, which, it was hoped, would form out of the new order of things, and adapted to all classes, and supported by all through a judicious method of taxation. In view of this transient character of the Bureau and its work the Assistant Commissioner has most judicially decided that the period has arrived in the progress of the work where his expenditures can be meet the wants of the colored race by erecting several substantial school buildings in the larger cities of the State which will remain after the expiration of the Bureau as structures of permanent usefullness. In the smaller towns and rural districts the freedmen already have a number of plain cheap houses. It is now proposed to supply more fully the wants of the cities. Twelve thousand dollars therefore have been appropriated to the City of Mobile with a fair prospect of increasing that amount, from private sources, one-half. It is designed to expend this amount in the erection of one central School-building, and as many primary or ward schools as our funds will admit of. The cooperation of the colored people has been secured in the purchase of sites. Knowing full well the uniform efforts of the Assistant Commissioner for two years past to secure to all classes an efficient system of common schools, I do not hesitate to say, in his absence, that he will most cordially co-operate with your Board on the just and liberal plan under discussion. The advance made in legislation on this subject, at the last Session of the Legislature, has led us to labor and hope that the plan proposed
Transcription Notes:
This one has more than 2 [[?]], so per the instructions I am reopening. I bet someone will have better luck with these than me. --Andrei
