Springfield, Mass., has set the doors of its hospitality wide open in its welcome to the Fifty-fourth Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association. This city occupies an ideal position for such a convention. It is the center of many railroad lines, both steam and electric. A large population are resident in the towns and cities and countryside, easily accessible through these lines of transportation. It is so located geographically that many of our most populous states are within easy distance. Add to this the cordial enthusiasm of the churches and citizens who invite the Association, and we have every element of a great and inspiring meeting. Already committees are organized and arrangements are being perfected for this meeting.
Full particulars will be given in a future number of the Missionary, and in our Congregational papers. Rev. Philip S. Moxom, D.D., Springfield, Mass., is the chairman of the general committee, and will receive and pass over to the proper sub-committee any correspondence which may reach him.
TILLOTSON COLLEGE, AUSTIN, TEXAS.
M. R. GAINES, PRESIDENT.
ALLEN HALL, TILLOTSON COLLEGE
January 17, 1881, witnessed the opening of this institution. It was christened "Tillotson Institute." The age of "romance" in the education of the negro was well-nigh passed. The matter-of-fact brain of the late Rev. George J. Tillotson, of Wethersfield, Conn., formulated the plan, and his generous heart enabled him, with the aid of individual contributors and the American Missionary Association, to carry his plan into execution. His purpose was to give the negroes of this far-away Southwest opportunities for securing an education equal to those of any other portion of our fair land. With this end in view he visited Austin and secured an ideal site for the coming college, destined to become the "Yale of the Southwest." Austin contains the magnificent Capitol, the State University, St. Edward's College and other schools, public and private, besides the state institutions for the insane, the blind, the deaf, the aged soldier and the orphan. Within the limits of the city, and yet removed from its din and dust, commanding views of many of these buildings, and of the far-reaching valley of the Colorado and the wooded hills beyond, our campus of twenty acres is a delight to the eye. Undulating, well suited for drainage, well stocked with shade trees and a profusion of wild flowers in their season, it is at once beautiful, healthful and inspiring.
