1883.] ADDRESS OF H. M. SESSIONS. 297 



The President. According to the arrangement this after- 

 noon, when this meeting adjourns, we are to adjourn to meet 

 at the hall for the closing exercises. If no gentleman has 

 anything further to say, we will adjourn to the hall. 



CLOSING MEETING AT THE HALL. 



The President. We have with us two gentlemen from 

 abroad, from whom we are very anxious to hear before the 

 close of this meeting. I will introduce to you Mr. Sessions, 

 of Atlanta, Georgia. 



ADDRESS OF MR. H. M. SESSIONS. 



Mr. President: — This is a very unexpected call on me, and I 

 hardly know what response to make. I was born and bred in a 

 neighboring State, only a few miles from here, and made it my 

 life-long residence up to twelve months ago, when I broke loose 

 from my moorings on New England soil and wandered with the 

 migratory birds to a southern, clime, and have been there one 

 year. I went to the city of Atlanta, through the States of Ken- 

 tucky, Tennessee, and a part of Northern Georgia, and during the 

 exposition, I was welcomed on all hands and on all sides, by 

 southerners. Knowing that I was, from Massachusetts and was an 

 exhibitor of a little "trick," as they call it, for keeping butter — 

 glass butter jars — they wished to express to me their welcome and 

 their desire to receive northern enterprise and capital to help 

 develop the great resources of the south. They claimed that they 

 were doing great things at the exposition. " "We here- at the south 

 have great resources," they said, "and we have got up an exhibi- 

 tion equal or superior to the Centennial." 



I am now connected with the agricultural or industrial depart- 

 ment of Atlanta university, a school for the colored people, estab- 

 lished by the American Missionary Association of the Congrega- 

 tional church. They have over three hundred students; they have 

 a corps of twenty-two teachers and superintendents, with their 

 families — all white people from the north. The State of Georgia 

 divides the appropriation for agricultural colleges between the 

 white and colored people. Our university gets an appropriation 



