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constrained by the force of example in the other cases, to settle with their hands. 

Have approved forty contracts; and have been able to procure homes for nearly all who are able to labor. I am sorry to report that the six schools mentioned in my last report stand just as reported at that time. As yet, I have been unable to obtain assistance from the Bureau, or from any of the Charitable Societies North, for the object of of opening and conducting schools. The great decline in cotton has had the effect to impoverish many; and where I had fondly hoped for assistance in the school enterprize, I have been disappointed. We must give the freemen schools! More practical good can be done for them by the Bureau, in my opinion, in this way than any other. They thirst for knowledge. And those persons who brand the freedmen as dunces and brutes, are either ignorant of their true character and abilities, or fevered by irrational prejudice. From contact with them-here at their homes-upon the plantations, my estimate of their moral and intellectual qualities has been greatly augmented.