“Professor” Latta is one of the rare negroes who combines the habit with white folks of the old fashioned southern darky, and the astuteness of the “new issue” in high finance.  Years ago he conceived the idea of establishing a negro school near Raleigh, to which he gave the above mentioned name.  He had no funds, no credit and little or no education.  Nevertheless he had ideas, the central one of which was that New England was the land of plenty.  With the “university” in his head, and with a miscellaneous collection of photographs, he managed to make a tour of northern cities, and came back with his pockets lined.  As a result he procured a little land, put up frame buildings, gathered a few youths about him, and was fully launched on his career as a university president.

So long as the money held out, Latta was content to drift along with his school.  When he came to the bottom of the bag he invested the last of his savings in another ticket north and, armed with his title of “president,” made addresses to northern audiences and replenished his finances with their contributions.

Finally, as the great act of his career, Latta managed to get passage to Europe and was gone for several months.  When he came back he had added a manuscript to his possessions:  “The History of My Life and Work,” which he published, and which is one of the most curious volumes I have ever seen.

It is illustrated—­largely with photographs of the author.  One of the pictures is entitled, “Rev. M.L.  Latta when he first commenced to build Latta University.”  This shows Latta with the tips of his fingers resting on a small table.  Another picture shows him posed with one hand raised and the other resting on what is unmistakably the same little table.  The latter picture, however, has the caption, “Rev. M.L.  Latta making a speech in Pawtucket, R.I., at Y.M.C.A.”  Both pictures were all too clearly taken in a photographer’s studio.  Another page shows us, “Rev. M.L.  Latta and three of his Admirable Presidents.”  In this case Latta merely takes for himself the upper right-hand corner, the other eminent persons pictured being ex-Presidents Roosevelt, McKinley and Cleveland.  The star illustration, however, is a “made up” picture, in which a photograph of Latta, looking spick-and-span, has been pasted onto what is very obviously a painted picture of a hall full of people in evening dress, all of them gazing at Latta, who stands upon the stage, dignified, suave, impressive, and all dressed-up by the brush of the “re-toucher.”  This picture is called:  “In the Auditorium at London, in 1894.”  Similar artfulness is shown in pictures of the “university” buildings, where the same frame structure, photographed from opposite ends, appears in one case as, “Young Ladies’ Dormitory,” and in the other as, “Chapel and Young Men’s Dormitory.”

In his autobiography, Latta tells how, in the course of getting his own schooling, he raised money by teaching a district school during vacation.  He says: