During the meal we found out from our hostess, who had two boys in school, that Atlanta University opened on that very day.  I had somehow mixed my dates.  My friend the porter suggested that I go out to the University at once and offered to walk over and show me the way.  We had to walk because, although the University was not more than twenty minutes’ distance from the center of the city, there were no street-cars running in that direction.  My first sight of the School grounds made me feel that I was not far from home; here the red hills had been terraced and covered with green grass; clean gravel walks, well shaded, led up to the buildings; indeed, it was a bit of New England transplanted.  At the gate my companion said he would bid me good-by, because it was likely that he would not see me again before his car went out.  He told me that he would make two more trips to Atlanta and that he would come out and see me; that after his second trip he would leave the Pullman service for the winter and return to school in Nashville.  We shook hands, I thanked him for all his kindness, and we said good-by.

I walked up to a group of students and made some inquiries.  They directed me to the president’s office in the main building.  The president gave me a cordial welcome; it was more than cordial; he talked to me, not as the official head of a college, but as though he were adopting me into what was his large family, personally to look after my general welfare as well as my education.  He seemed especially pleased with the fact that I had come to them all the way from the North.  He told me that I could have come to the school as soon as I had reached the city and that I had better move my trunk out at once.  I gladly promised him that I would do so.  He then called a boy and directed him to take me to the matron, and to show me around afterwards.  I found the matron even more motherly than the president was fatherly.  She had me register, which was in effect to sign a pledge to abstain from the use of intoxicating beverages, tobacco, and profane language while I was a student in the school.  This act caused me no sacrifice, as, up to that time, I was free from all three habits.  The boy who was with me then showed me about the grounds.  I was especially interested in the industrial building.

The sounding of a bell, he told me, was the signal for the students to gather in the general assembly hall, and he asked me if I would go.  Of course I would.  There were between three and four hundred students and perhaps all of the teachers gathered in the room.  I noticed that several of the latter were colored.  The president gave a talk addressed principally to newcomers; but I scarcely heard what he said, I was so much occupied in looking at those around me.  They were of all types and colors, the more intelligent types predominating.  The colors ranged from jet black to pure white, with light hair and eyes.  Among the girls especially there