It is a very great pleasure to be here this afternoon and say a few words of greeting to you. Let me by way of beginning say a word of special greeting to my comrades of the Grand Army. I had a colored cavalry regiment in my brigade at Santiago, and they did well. My friends, let me say what a pleasure it has been in driving along the streets to have the Governor and the Mayor point out to me house after house owned by colored citizens, who by their own industry, energy, and thrift had accumulated a small fortune honestly and were spending it wisely. Every good American must be interested in seeing every other American citizen rise, help himself upward, so as to be better able to do his duty by himself and those dependent upon him and by the State at large. It seems to me that it is true of all of us that our duties are even more important than our rights. If we do our duties faithfully in spite of all difficulties, then sooner or later the rights will take care of themselves. What I say to this body of my colored fellow-citizens is just exactly what I would say to any body of my white fellow-citizens. What we need in this country is typified by what I have been shown to-day as having been done by people of your race. We need education, morality, industry; we need intelligence, clean living, and the power to work hard and effectively. No man interested, as every President must be, in the welfare of all his fellow-Americans, could be otherwise than deeply pleased, not only at the evidences of thrift and prosperity among what must be evidently many hundreds of your number here in this city, as shown by the homes that I have seen, but interested also in seeing an educational institute like this carried on as this institute evidently is carried on. The costliest crop for any community is the crop of ignorance. It is perfectly true that education in mind alone won’t make a good citizen; but it is equally true that you can not get the best citizen without education. We need to have our people of every race educated, as the Principal said in his words of introduction, in heart, mind, and hand; educated so that head and hand can do their several tasks, and so that there shall be behind head and hand also the heart, the conscience, the sense of clean and just living, which make the foundation of all good citizens. This is just as true for the white man as for the colored man. It is true of every man.