Page:Extracts from letters of teachers and superintendents of the New-England Educational Commission for Freedmen.djvu/7



the publication of the Annual Report, the Commission has been actively engaged in sending out Teachers, Superintendents, and material aid to the Freedmen of the South and West. In South Carolina the schools have now been in operation more than a year and a half, and the progress made by the colored pupils is considered by the teachers as at least equal to that of pupils in Northern schools. The success of the industrial movement among the Freedmen of Port Royal is equally marked with that of the schools. They have shown a capacity for intelligent and continued labor which would do credit to any community. The most industrious among them have not only supported their own families, but have accumulated no inconsiderable amount of money. Some of them have purchased lands, which they cultivate with energy and profit. In Virginia and North Carolina the success of the schools has been as great, in proportion to the time during which they have been in operation, as in South Carolina. The Freedmen in those States have also shown the same readiness to labor that has characterized them at Port Royal. Encouraging progress has been made in the reorganization of labor among the Freedmen of the Southwestern States, and in many localities valuable crops have been raised by them during the past season. The Freedmen within our lines in South Carolina are now self-supporting, and need no further contributions of material aid. Those in Virginia and North Carolina are fast becoming so, while the great destitution of many families among those at the West, it is hoped and believed, will cease as soon as the plans now in progress for employing them upon the land early in the coming spring are perfected and put in operation. This Commission has already distributed a large amount of clothing and supplies, and will continue to aid those