their associates and workers of less prominence, be forgotten? Shall they be revered, or shall they be calumniated? Dumb be the lip, and palsied the hand that would, in any wise, dishonor them and their efforts to uplift humanity! It will not be remiss on my part to ask for their successors in spirit and labor, and for their constituency that consideration which a superior statesmanship and a practical Christianity dictate. These institutions, under their present management, have met the exigencies of the times. Granting that no human effort is perfect, the fact remains that these institutions have lived up to the high purpose for which they were founded, and are still being liberally supported and endowed. What more could be required by rational beings? This couplet may be suggestive: "He who does as best his circumstances will allow, Does well, acts nobly, angels can do no more." That others could have done better or equally as well remains to be seen. The history of the country from 1619-20 to 1865 is valid testimony. It was the influence of the Northern teachers, for the most part, that the best educated men among us were matriculated at the great Northern universities. It was by them that Negro schools were first operated in the South. The needs and magnitude of Negro education in the South have greatly intensified the philanthropic spirit of the Northern missionary societies and workers, each year resulting in a vast expenditure of money and energy. Shall those who believe "culture is colorless" be affronted; and shall their representatives be exiled by the beneficiaries? Is the wounded, dying traveler under the healing ministrations of the good Samaritan competent to protest against the merciful steward? Is such the subsequent of all human action? Let justice and reason answer! Formerly for the Negro literary culture was a sort of forbidden fruit in the Edenic South. For more than two centuries the cherubim of social pollution and moral degradation stood at the school-house gate with sword-like lash in hand, under governmental authority, to defy the return of the Negro to his pristine eminence in literary culture and moral probity held many years prior to the rise and supremacy of his now dominant kinsman. It was the northern missionaries, for such they are, who threw open the wicket-gate of opportunity unto the despairing Negro causing him to reach forth his hand unto the tree of life manifesting itself in the development of the higher faculties of a being with God's image. The Negro colleges in the South, with scarcely an exception, were built up by Northern philanthropy. They are the best institutions available to a great majority of those seeking the fullest possible development of their intellectual powers. As a rule, they are superior in equipment, in both standards of scholarship and discipline at least. This is true by virtue of the power vouchsafed to their management and teaching force through