S.Laidley, Superintended City Schools; L.E.McWhorter, President Board of Education; Chas.

K.Payne, wholesale merchant; and many others.
This invitation, coming as it did from the City Council, the state officers, and all the substantial citizens of both races of the community where I had spent my boyhood, and from which I had gone a few years before, unknown, in poverty and ignorance, in quest of an education, not only surprised me, but almost unmanned me.

I could not understand what I had done to deserve it all.
I accepted the invitation, and at the appointed day was met at the railway station at Charleston by a committee headed by ex-Governor W.A.
MacCorkle, and composed of men of both races.

The public reception was held in the Opera-House at Charleston.

The Governor of the state, the Hon.