lect of these territorial responsibilities, what injurious ideas and customs are creeping in among their populations, -populations which are to constitute so important parts of this great Union in the future.

Again, take the Indian problem, which is so closely connected with the territorial question. What is the condition of the 300,000 Indians scattered up and down our territorial belt of country, imperilling the pioneers of civilization, and drawing millions of dollars from the treasury, thus adding so largely to our taxation? How thoroughly the question is misunderstood and misconstrued! In New York the State and local communities seek to promote customs of industry, the establishment of institutions of education and justice among the resident Indians. But go into our Territories, and what do you see? If law-abiding and respectable Indian families wish to give culture to their children, they are not favored with the benefits of the public schools, and as a rule the established order of society does not take them into account in its provisions for the promotion of intelligence and virtue. An adequate political education of the community would put a speedy end to such incongruous and unjust differences in its treatment of its various parts.

Miss Schofield, of South Carolina, asked how it was expected they should give instruction in political government, when seven eighths of the teachers of the country (the ladies) were politically classed in the category of idiots.

Rev. A. A. Miner, of Massachusetts, thought there never was a time when political education was more needed; but suggested that if the teachers of the country were thoroughly in earnest in the matter, they would soon find the ways and means. He particularly advocated that in teaching history, more attention should be given to the study of individual character than to the details of events.

E. E. White, of Indiana, said:

He indorsed fully what had been said in respect to the importance of disseminating political knowledge among the people. It seemed to him the assertion of a truism to say that those who participate in representative government should understand its principles and methods, and yet such political knowledge is undeniably the exception and not the rule in all republics. The ignorance of otherwise intelligent persons respecting the organization and functions of the three great departments of our national and State governments is surprising. Nearly every year the American people are called on to decide questions which involve the fundamental principles of political economy, and the absence of a clear knowledge of these principles leads to the support of the most mischievous errors.

But he rose specially to emphasize the point that what is most needed is not political knowledge but political integrity. The great duty resting upon the American teacher is to inculcate the spirit of patriotism, truth, and honor, and to inspire a regal respect for the rights of others. What the nation most needs is not a knowledge of political principles, but loyalty to them. Political knowledge is important, but conscience in politics is imperative. The political education required must purify the heart as well as inform the head.

Mr. Hume, of Lawrence, Mass., concurred with Dr. Miner that, if more attention was drawn to the character of the noble men of history, we should not witness the present political degradation.

Z. Richards, of Washington, D. C., said :

One of the most urgent demands in our country, where governmental power depends upon representative legislation, is a more thorough education of the masses of the people, in regard to the rights and limitations of power in a free government. When the people are properly indoctrinated in reference to their rights and powers, they will not permit party and caucus authority to disregard their own rights.

It is very evident that party gamblers and political tricksters are gradually absorbing and ursurping individual or personal rights. One hundred and fifty thousand American citizens in the District of Columbia are virtually disfranchised, or deprived of the right of suffrage, and are the mere playthings of party rule and King Caucus. The same is true, to a great extent, in many parts of our country. But let the people be trained to know their rights and privileges, and understand the nature of our government, and the domination of political gamblers would cease.

J. W. Webster, of Boston, Mass., suggested that one of the great stepping-stones to this political regeneration was by the instrumentality of temperance, and moved the following resolution, which was unanimously adopted :

Whereas, Teachers, from their position and the responsibility of their office, should ever exert an influence in favor of morality, and against all customs and habits that are injurious to society; and whereas, we regard intemperance as one of the greatest of evils, as productive of disorder and crime, as destructive of individual happiness and social welfare, and the public good; therefore,

Resolved, That we will ever use our influence for the promotion of temperance, and strive, by inculcating its principles, to save the young from the contaminating and destructive power of intemperance, and the vice and misery to which it leads.

Prof. L.A. Butterfield read a paper on visible speech. (See addresses.)

EVENING EXERCISES.

As it was generally known that the evening exercises were to consist of a grand concert, by the Fabyan House Orchestra, Blaisdell's Orchestra Club of Concord,- followed by an address by Dr. G. B. Loring, of Salem, Mass., the spacious parlors, piazzas, and rotunda of the Fabyan at an early hour were crowded, there being

in the main parlor a literally packed audience. The concert programme was especially choice and generously encored.

METHODS AND OBJECTS OF AMERICAN EDUCATION.

Hon. G. B. Loring, of Salem, Mass., delivered an address on this subject, a summary of which is here given.

He considered this age to be especially the age of popular education, and alluded to the efforts now made to extend the privilege to all persons in all sections of our country. He advocated general culture as necessary to prepare the mind for education for a specific purpose, and enlarged upon the relations which should exist between teacher and pupil, and on the schoolhouse best adapted to educational work, urging also the introduction of a measure of the academic system into the work of the high school. In answering the question how far the State should educate, he said, It will be observed that in suggesting the methods and defining the object of American education, I have not endeavored to confine the work of public instruction within any recognized limits. On the contrary, the introduction of what is usually called the academic system of teaching into the public schools, the modification of the graded system, the enlargement of each teacher's sphere of duty, the reduction in size and the increase in number of our schools, to all of which I have called your attention, indicate my belief in the extent to which the State may properly go in the work of popular instruction.

With the most profound respect for those who differ from me on this point, and conscious of the high value of views drawn from experience in the best educational work in our country, I am led to believe that in education, as in every other walk in life, social, civil, practical, material, — the American has an unusual tendency to expand. We "go from strength to strength" in this country, and can only be true to the spirit of the fathers by performing the duty of our day

in the same manner as they performed the duty of theirs. The district school filled their measure of general knowledge. Said Mr. Everett, "To read the English language well, to write with despatch a neat, legible hand, and be master of the first four rules of arithmetic, so as to dispose of at once, with accuracy, every question of figures which comes up in practice, I call this a good education." Fifty years ago it was; and in the comparatively simple and narrow way of life then, it answered a most excellent purpose. But in these days of intense activity, widened duty, enlarged responsibility, incessant mental effort, wide-spread familiarity with life in every quarter of the globe, daily diffusion of knowledge by an unwearied press and unending talk, the necessity for wider culture is imperative; the demand for it is importunate. Those who learn at all will not be satisfied with so small a draught, and in accordance with this desire and the popular necessity, the organization of public instruction has largely expanded, and the value of varied mental effort is truly understood.

It is deemed more fortunate to have forgotten a fact than never to have known it, — better to have lost an accomplishment than never to have had it. "Do you think it does one any good to know Latin?" said one French student to another. "Perhaps not," was the reply, "but it does one great good to have forgotten it." And this is the law of modern education, whether provided by the State or by private institutions. It is the intellectual and moral influence of sound learning, as well as its accomplishments and usefulness, which has given it the high and important place it holds in every well-organized State and in modern society. We have learned to believe in the power of knowledge to draw young men away from the haunts of idleness and vice, to increase their respect for each other, to point the way to honorable industry, to fill their minds with a just estimate of the philanthropic enterprises of the day, and to enable them to appreciate their duties and responsibilities as citizens.

We have learned to believe in the power of knowledge to give young women an influential place in the work of society, and to multiply the objects for which and the means by