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0423

to completion. I am not sure that it can be done without a small additional appropriation but shall make a thorough trial of the partialy self supporting school system, believeing that the schools started on that basis will do more permanent good than those, supported wholy by outside help. The fact that it is so hard to make the Freedmen, up on the school question is, it seems true a strong reason why the work should be carried through to success. A people who have no Church, or school House cannot be expected to do or be much better year by year, rather will be inclined to go down in the scale of intelligence and morality. The cold weather has come so suddenly that it has found some of the Freedmen unprepared, and there has been some stealing in consequence, but there is much less of it than might be expected from the unsettled state of affairs. There is nothing new to report regarding the Temperance movement. It can only be successful in driving currents, in Company with the Church and school House. The local preachers take their moderate drink, and see no harm in it. The white Christians & their Preachers all drink. Moderate drinking is preached as part of the Law & Gospel in the white churches. If some northern benevolent society would send an earnest missionary with a roving Commission to travel through such counties as this, and talk to the people giving them sound practical advice, it would do great

Transcription Notes:
3.20.2024 - Transcribed per guidelines (spelling transcribed as is) and marking for review