New Orleans, a city of 220,000 inhabitants, of whom 80,000 are colored people, is a most important point to be occupied in missionary work among the freedmen. As the commercial centre of the South-west—as the great cotton, sugar, and rice market of the Union—it out-ranks all others. In its intimate connections by river, bayou, and railroad with the most thickly populated negro districts of the old slave States, it is second to none. Texas, Mississippi, and Florida are constantly adding to the negro population of Louisiana. By the census of 1875 there were 369,000 colored people in this State, and each year swells the number. Already it is fifty-five per cent. of the entire population. Without disparagement to any other section, we claim, also, that the colored population of New Orleans represents the highest intelligence yet attained by the race in America. It includes the genuine African, the mulatto, the quadroon, the octaroon, and yet other shades and grades; and in this mingling of races we see, also, the diffusion of intelligence, and a corresponding increase in the capacity of culture and development. It would require the quick eye of an “expert” to detect, in the fair complexion and delicate features of many who throng our churches and schools, the faintest trace of African descent. Without speculating upon the cause, certain it is that we find among the colored people of the Crescent City a quickness of intelligence, and a capacity for the best culture and the noblest development, and withal a thirst for knowledge, which is worthy of our best sympathy and most generous benevolence.
THE RESULTS WE HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH.
In a word, our aim is Education, in its broadest and best meaning. The elevation, the prosperity, the highest manhood, and the co-ordinate rank of the African race in America, in the friendly rivalry of races, are still in the future—whether in the near or remote future, depends largely upon the race itself to determine. Education, under Divine guidance, is the gateway to that longed-for future. That I mean education as allied with religion, will be assumed. That the race is not educated, is by no fault of theirs. That they desire education, is to their credit. To help them to this education is both our duty and our privilege.
The courses of study in this Institution include in the Academic Department, the Collegiate, the Normal, and the Preparatory; and in the Professional Department, the Theological and the Law.
We have a preparatory course, that we may secure better material for the higher courses. In the Normal course, special attention is given to those studies which will furnish young men and women with the education needed in the various branches of business life open to them, and which especially will qualify them as teachers, for which there is, and must continue to be, a great demand. In the Collegiate Department—which includes, among other studies, the higher Mathematics, Mental and Moral Philosophy, and Latin—a higher grade and wider scope of studies will be added so soon as there is a demand for them. The school is yet in its infancy, and the number of those who are fitted to pursue to advantage the highest grade of studies is, of course, very limited.
LAW DEPARTMENT.
An able corps of Professors has been secured. Jurists of reputation and successful practice at the bar of Louisiana have kindly offered their services, with little hope of adequate compensation, and every facility is provided for young men of talent, who are attracted by the profession of the law, to fit themselves for honorable and successful practice. Regular graduates from this department, at the conclusion of a two years’ course of study, and a well sustained examination, are admitted to the bar of New Orleans, with authority to practice in all the courts of the Commonwealth.
THEOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT.
College graduates, who can be instructed in the original languages in which the Scriptures were written, are greatly desired, and until they can be secured, this department will but partially accomplish the object for which it was organized. The churches need thoroughly educated ministers, with carefully cultivated minds, who can intelligently preach the word. The degree of suffering for the lack of such ministers cannot be told. In the meantime, it is our aim to make the best use of the material we have, and transform it from a state of utter crudeness to one of partial fitness for the present demands of the churches. Men of piety and ability to speak and to teach are received, and advanced as far and as rapidly as their imperfect preparatory education will admit. Louisiana, with a colored population of 370,000, is ripe for a glorious spiritual harvest. The churches are calling in vain for intelligent laborers to go forth into the harvest. I wish the prospect was brighter for a large class of intelligent, spiritual, and enthusiastic students to enter this department, and to lift it to a high grade of usefulness.