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This great multitude rise up simultaneously, and ask for an education. With it they will at once start upward in all character. Without it they will as quickly sink into the depravities of ignorance and vice; free to be what they please, and in the presence only of bad example, they will be carried away with every species of evil. And, then, what is the actual and astounding fact? One that startles philanthropy itself. A million, at least, of these four millions, (and mainly the rising generation,) are to-day ready to engage in the study of books. They cannot well be put off. Political, social, financial, and moral considerations all ask that their demand be promptly met. If this million be divided into schools of fifty each, we need for its supply 20,000 teachers. Where are they to come from? The north can supply a few thousands. Perhaps the more noble, here and there, in the south will help us. But still at least 15,000 remain to be supplied from some other quarter.

The great impulse to teach among these freed people themselves, with readiness to pay expenses, gives to us the solution of this problem. If they be by some short method at first helped on in study, perfected in what they already know, taught how to teach the same, how also to organize, classify, and govern a school, many thus prepared could in a very few months be sent out to commence the work. Successive classes, prepared more thoroughly, would follow, and, with the certificate of their instructors, no difficulty would be found in obtaining employment. I have never known among the freedmen the offer of a teacher which was not accepted.

The benefits of this plan would be-

1. Such native teachers would go everywhere with very little opposition. The interior of States could be penetrated where now no white teacher can go.

2. The freedmen would mainly support these schools themselves. If school-houses were furnished they would need no other charity.

3. The elevating effort of this plan would be universal. The better class of young among the freedmen would at once see an honorable employment open to them. The present schools would be stimulated with the same idea, and those of a higher grade would imitate this plan and have a normal class into which their better pupils could at once go.

4. It could be shown in this way what the freedmen are, as by their own efforts. This opportunity they deserve. A development system, bringing out what they can

do themselves, is far better than a perpetual pauperizing, which only shows what others can do for them. If they are to be men, let them be self-educated. Calumny from their worst enemies will grow silent when this is successfully commenced.

If such a system could be instituted at all the central points of the south, we could ere long approximate the great demand for teaching now felt. This does not imply that the schools of northern Associations could not all go on, and be greatly increased. The large cities and towns where they now are need them. They could rise still higher in grade, preparing pupils for all the spheres of life, and help immensely in the plan I am now advocating.

On this plan I feel sure that in a few years the whole education of the freedmen could be made self-supporting, and by that time the white population would perhaps be willing to incorporate them into some great common-school system for the State. What should prevent this, when these freedmen become intelligent, and it is seen that they are no longer to be a public burden?

Labor, also, would feel the impulse. Negroes now crowd into large towns where their children can have learning. If they are to be retained as laborers, or brought back, similar opportunities must be furnished on the plantations. Hence, instances could be already given where a school in the interior has been started only from this motive. This is now being stipulated in the contracts. Liberal-minded and northern men, who are preparing for crops, are earnestly asking that schools be established, knowing that they concentrate and keep the people contented, greatly stimulating industry, and especially that labor is valuable just as it becomes intelligent. The head of one of the largest of the timber and turpentine enterprises in South Carolina (a German) told me that he formerly had hired only men, but he had now learned that he must have their families too, and that this could only be done by allowing them patches of land, treating them properly, paying them well, and giving them schools.

Your Commissioners, in several of the States, have been consulted on this subject, and they will give it their unqualified approval. Attempts are making at several points to inaugurate something of the kind, either by officers of the Bureau, or by northern benevolence. But a systematic plan is called for, and would very easily be carried into effect. In Tennessee already nearly one hundred colored teachers are at different places in a course of training. The Superintendent says: "This

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