As the North gave, willingly and freely, men and millions to save
the nation from disruption, so, when peace came, it gave other brave
men and braver women, and other unstinted millions to strengthen
the hands which generations of slavery had left feeble and inept.
Not only the colored, but the white also, were the recipients of
this bounty. The Queen City of the Confederacy, the proud capital
of the commonwealth of Virginia, saw the strange spectacle of her
own white children gathered, for the first time, into free public
schools which were supported by Northern charity, and taught
by noble women with whom her high-bred Christian dames and dainty
maidens would not deign to associate. The civilization of the
North in the very hour of victory threw aside the cartridge-box,
and appealed at once to the contribution-box to heal the ravages of
war. At the door of every church throughout the North, the appeal
was posted for aid to open the eyes of the blind whose limbs had
just been unshackled; and the worshipper, as he gave thanks for
his rescued land, brought also an offering to aid in curing the
ignorance which slavery had produced.
It was the noblest spectacle that Christian civilization has ever
witnessed--thousands of schools organized in the country of a
vanquished foe, almost before the smoke of battle had cleared away,
free to the poorest of her citizens, supported by the charity, and
taught by kindly-hearted daughters of a quick-forgiving enemy.
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