Orders filled through the Corresponding Secretary, J. W. Cromwell, 1439 Pierce Place, Washington, D. C. Trade supplied through John H. Wills, 506 Eleventh Street, N. W., Washington, D. C....

Gentlemen :— There is no need, I apprehend, that I should undertake to impress you with a sense either of the need or of the importance of our assemblage here to-day. The fact of your coming here is, of itself, the clearest evidence of your warm acquiescence in the summons to this meeting, and of your cordial interest in the objects which it purposes to consider. Nothing has surprised and gratified me so much as the anxiousness of many minds for the movement which we are on the eve of beginning.

For the first time in the history of this nation the colored people of America have undertaken the difficult task, of stimulating and fostering the genius of their race as a distinct and definite purpose. Other and many gatherings have been made, during our own two and a half centuries’ residence on this continent, for educational purposes; but ours is the first which endeavors to rise up to the plane of culture. For my own part I have no misgivings either with respect to the legitimacy, the tim