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Department, hereto appended, the building known as the Mobile Medical College, already in the custody of the United States, was transferred to this Bureau, and schools were opened in it, which are still in successful operation. The building was principally the property of the State of Alabama, which has for years enjoyed a great fund from lands donated by the United States for the education of its people, but from which the colored portion are and have been rigidly excluded. 
It was therefore considered that this building might be rightfully occupied by colored schools as long as they could not be carried on uninterruptedly elsewhere. 
During the summer of last year on the application of the Trustees of the College, preparation was made to vacate the building by the transfer of the schools to churches occupied by the colored people of Mobile, This was found to be wholly impracticable by reason of the public sentiment of that community. Dr. J.C. Scott Dean of the Faculty of the College in an official communication to this Bureau characterized the teachers as "a pack of thieves", "little dirty school masters and schoolmistresses", and expressed his great anxiety "to get out of a free country", Subsequently he declared to Maj. Gen Howard in Mobile that he "would rather see the building burned down, than use for its present purpose", or words to that effect. He has not been alone in strenuously maintaining this position. The sentiments promulgated by the Dean of the