Now we must remember that the South is bitterly taxed, awfully in debt, and very poor. I will read one more statistic and stop. Louisiana has 330,930 school children (those who ought to be); Massachusetts, 303,836. The school income in Louisiana is $613,453; in Massachusetts, $4,399,801. The value of school property in Louisiana is $700,000; in Massachusetts you cannot estimate it; it is not estimated. You say Louisiana is not doing anything for her children as compared with Massachusetts. True; but carry the comparison farther. The whole taxable property of Louisiana is not $150,000,000; and the whole taxable property of Massachusetts is $1,500,000,000. The debt of Louisiana is about $16,000,000; your debt, deducting the sinking fund, is $21,000,000. The amount raised by taxes in Louisiana is half that raised in Massachusetts. You pay 3½ cents state tax on every $100, and Louisiana pays 60 cents. Have you, paying 3½ cents, the face to ask her to increase her 60 cents, when this evil at the South springs out of a national sin and involves a national peril? Not one million of the Southern population are in cities. The problem is one of educational facilities in poor sparsely settled agricultural districts. The South unquestionably needs a different spirit in educational matters; but even with the best spirit, it needs national aid. * * * * * ADDRESS OF REV. J. R. THURSTON. MR. PRESIDENT AND FRIENDS: We have six and a quarter millions of Freedmen at the South and three-quarters of a million at the North. They belong to a strong and prolific race that does not waste at the contact of civilization, neither does it waste under oppression. They numbered but four millions in 1860, and have increased 55 per cent. in the past twenty years. Since 1870, if the statistics are correct, they have increased 33 per cent. If this rate of increase goes on at 55 per cent. for twenty years, in 1900, which many of us expect to see, they will be nearly ten millions; and if the increase of the last ten years continues, they will be more than eleven millions. It becomes, then, a matter of exceeding moment for us, as a nation, to consider their condition and their future. Several things are at least now clear: that for a long series of generations they are to remain a distinct people. They will not amalgamate so much at the South, Dr. Haygood and others say, as they did before the war. The other elements that come to us from abroad—the German, the Celtic and all—we expect soon to be lost, and they will not retain their individuality; but this race will for generations remain a distinct colored race; so that it becomes a problem of peculiar difficulty to deal with them. We may think we are strong enough to throw them off. We cannot. God Almighty is on their side, and with the welfare of these growing millions our welfare is interlocked.