New Orleans, a city of 220,000 inhabitants, of whom 80,000 are colored people, is a most important point to be occupied in missionary work among the freedmen. As the commercial centre of the South-west—as the great cotton, sugar, and rice market of the Union—it out-ranks all others. In its intimate connections by river, bayou, and railroad with the most thickly populated negro districts of the old slave States, it is second to none. Texas, Mississippi, and Florida are constantly adding to the negro population of Louisiana. By the census of 1875 there were 369,000 colored people in this State, and each year swells the number. Already it is fifty-five per cent. of the entire population. Without disparagement to any other section, we claim, also, that the colored population of New Orleans represents the highest intelligence yet attained by the race in America. It includes the genuine African, the mulatto, the quadroon, the octaroon, and yet other shades and grades; and in this mingling of races we see, also, the diffusion of intelligence, and a corresponding increase in the capacity of culture and development. It would require the quick eye of an “expert” to detect, in the fair complexion and delicate features of many who throng our churches and schools, the faintest trace of African descent. Without speculating upon the cause, certain it is that we find among the colored people of the Crescent City a quickness of intelligence, and a capacity for the best culture and the noblest development, and withal a thirst for knowledge, which is worthy of our best sympathy and most generous benevolence. THE RESULTS WE HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH. In a word, our aim is Education, in its broadest and best meaning. The elevation, the prosperity, the highest manhood, and the co-ordinate rank of the African race in America, in the friendly rivalry of races, are still in the future—whether in the near or remote future, depends largely upon the race itself to determine. Education, under Divine guidance, is the gateway to that longed-for future. That I mean education as allied with religion, will be assumed. That the race is not educated, is by no fault of theirs. That they desire education, is to their credit. To help them to this education is both our duty and our privilege. The courses of study in this Institution include in the Academic Department, the Collegiate, the Normal, and the Preparatory; and in the Professional Department, the Theological and the Law.