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policy seemed to dictate that fields already occupied must not be abandoned for new ones. Hence the opening of the present year found us still upon the threshold of our work. But one Northern Aid Society was operating in the State. The North Western Freedmens Aid Commission of Chicago Illinois had for several months previous, supported a large School at Mobile, under the able supervision of Mr. E.C. Branch; and another equally successful at Montgomery, under the charge of Rev. J. Selsby. The above remark does not apply, however, to the Huntsville District, which until recently had been attached to another Department. Here good schools had been in operation for more than a year supported by the Pittsburg Aid Commission.
It was at this time, and in this critical juncture of School interests, that the Assistant Commissioner inaugurated a system which has been attended with marked success. Fearing that the first strong desire for education, so clearly manifested by the freedmen, might, if allowed to pass away unimproved, require years or generations to renew, and feeling unwilling to wholly trust interest so vital to the race and the nation, to a system of charities which originated and were continued by the necessities of a gigantic war, now ended, he determined to employ such Southern persons as were