tunity of knowing what may be expected in the way of welcome, and I wish to bespeak for the meeting at Nashville the largest possible attendance on the part of educators at the North. It has been my good fortune not only to be there at the National Convention of Educators, but also at that of the scientific men of the country, and to know how cordially both associations have been received and how readily the railroads and other means of facilitating an interesting convention will use their opportunities to add interest to the meeting, and I hope it will be early manifest to the people of the South that there is to be a large attendance. Let it be a great love-feast of the most intelligent classes of the country." Dr. E. E. White moved that a vote of thanks be tendered General Noble for his presence, and for his words assuring his support in educational work. Passed by a rising vote. The Department adjourned till 8 P. M. EVENING SESSION. The Department met at 8 P. M. in the hall of the National Museum, pursuant to adjournment. The CHAIRMAN: "I beg to announce to the Department that all the committees have reported but one, that being a committee of oue, consisting of myself. I desire to say a word in acknowledgment of the great help I have had from the associate officers of the Association, the vice-president, Mr. Davidson, of Ohio, and the secretary, Hon. W. R. Thigpen, of Savannah, Ga., and I want to acknowledge in particular the obligations of myself and of this Department to Mr. W. E. Sheldon. The success that has attended this meeting is due to the assistance I have had on all hands. I make this acknowledgment with heart-felt thanks. [Applause.] "I beg to announce to the meeting that I received a dispatch this afternoon from the Canadian gentleman who was expected to address us this evening stating that he regretted exceedingly his inability to be with us on this occasion. "I now take pleasure in presenting to the audience, Hon. W. R. Garrett of Nashville, Tenn. The next meeting of the Association is to be held in Nashville. Mr. Garrett is president of the local executive committee which has been organized there for the reception of that great body of people." Mr. Garrett then proceeded to read a paper on Education in the South. (Page 280.) Senator Blair was introduced and spoke on National Aid to Education. (Page 297.) On motion, the meeting adjourned to meet in Nashville, Tenn., in July next, INTRODUCTORY ADDRESSES. ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, FRED. M. CAMPBELL, Superintendent of Oakland (Cal.) Schools. As president for the year, I have the honor to call to order for the spring session the Department of Superintendence of the National Association of the United States, the officers and representatives, in convention assembled, of the grand army of 312,000 public school teachers of our country; those whose office it is to conserve and to direct that most important factor of our national prosperity, the American system of free, non-sectarian, non-political public schools. The scene witnessed two days ago in this city may well have drawn hither the great concourse of people who thronged the halls and thoroughfares of the nation's capital. Nay, more than this; it is a scene which may well have centred the gaze of the world. Petty monarchs of petty kingdoms attained by strategy or by bloody wars, ascend their thrones with pomp and retinue and the gilded glitter of display. But grand in its simplicity is the ceremonial that quietly transfers the govern ment of sixty millions of people from the hands of one of their chosen rulers to another. Like the ever-recurring miracles of the spring-time and the dawn-mighty in its results, quiet in its processes-comes to our nation at stated times the crisis which, in other less favored lands, is looked forward to with anxiety and foreboding. It might seem that in the importance justly attached to the scene which has brought hither so many thousands of eager observers, a meeting like the present would sink into comparative insignificance. But, gentlemen, it is the interests which we represent that have largely made this scene possible. Long before the spring-time shows any visible sign to the outward eye, far down in the depths of the valleys, away over stretches of prairie, high up on the slopes of mountains, hidden in the heart of tiny seed, quietly moving in the veins of northern oak and southern vine, are those mighty forces noiselessly at work that shall by and by bring forth in perfected beauty the full-born glory of the year. And so, all over our happy country, are the influences silently working that make a free government possible. In the hearts of little chil 23 |