Before answering the question, I may say that if we come at all, it is not strange that we should select so beautiful a spot as this for a location; nor that we should come to Nashville, for there seems to be some sort of educational lodestone that attracts schools to this city. Joshua conquered a Moabite city called Kirjath-sepher, which scholars tell us means “Book City.” What could have given it that title in that remote era, whether the possession of one book or several books, when letters had probably not long been invented, must remain forever a mystery. So when Macaulay’s New Zealander, after having meditated on the ruins of London Bridge, shall come to this spot and meditate upon the ruins here, or when some Layard or Cesnola or Schliemann shall dig down deep into their foundations, this place may be denominated the “School City;” for at the earliest date of the settlement of Nashville, good schools were formed, and now the hill-tops are crowned and the streets are adorned with schools of the highest character. Nor are these for the white race alone. The Methodist Central Tennessee College, the Baptist Normal and Theological Institute, and neither last nor least, Fisk University, crowning these heights, attest the interest taken in the Christian education of the colored race. But why do we come here from the North to build these buildings? First, we come as fellow-citizens, who have shared in the agony of the late civil conflict, at the bottom of which lay negro slavery, and for which North and South were responsible, though it may be in different degrees. In the piping hot days of the anti-slavery contest, the Evangelical Alliance met in London. An English gentleman took the platform and delivered a scathing rebuke to America for slavery. Dr. Cox, our most celebrated off-hand orator of that day, took the floor, saying that of course America had her view as to who was responsible for negro slavery in America, whether Britons or Americans; “but,” said he, “I propose to take one corner of the mantle, and let the brother who has just spoken take the other corner, and we will walk backwards and throw it over the originator of negro slavery in America.” We come as fellow-citizens in a like spirit, ready to throw the mantle of charity over the past. But emancipation has introduced a new element. The ex-slaves need Christian education and elevation, and we come as Christian brethren and say to our friends at the South: We will take one corner of the mantle of Christian education, if you will take the other, and we will go _forward_, with our faces lifted to Heaven, and will throw that mantle over the emancipated slaves.