THE SEPTEMBER, 1891. THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION. BEDFORD MEETING: THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL SESSION. HE Pennsylvania State Teachers' Association met in its annual session at Bedford, on Tuesday, July 7, 1891, in the fine assembly hall of the Public School Building. The number of arrivals previous to the opening was unusually large, and these included most of the older and more active members. President PHILIPS called the Association to order at 10 a. m., and the exercises were opened with Scripture reading (1 Cor., chap. 2,) and prayer by Rev. R. L. GERHART, of the Reformed Church. Hon. John M. REYNOLDS then delivered the following ADDRESS OF WELCOME. I deem it a distinguished privilege to be perImitted to welcome you to this old county of Bedford, for I recognize in you the future of the State, and in the work of the teachers of this land the future glories of the republic. As I stand here, where twenty-four years ago I began in this community my work as a teacher, when I see before me so many who through association in this cause, both as teachers and schoolmates, I learned to know and cherish as friends in the years that have gone; when I reflect on the high consideration you have shown this locality in coming from distant parts of the State to this region somewhat out of the line of convenient access, no more pleas ing duty could fall to my lot, than that of bidding you welcome to one of the most enchanting spots that nature has adorned within the limits of this Commonwealth. But I will not dwell upon the charms of Bedford or upon the beauty of our autumn hills, the health-giving properties of our far-famed waters, or the em No. 3. bracing purity of our mountain air, for I prefer to welcome you to a place of historic memories, which to you as educators may have some points of interest, and which I have thought it now appropriate to recall. During the struggle between the French and English for supremacy here, this whole region was the theatre of strife and bloodshed. In the advancing march of civilization, this point was one of the early outposts to which in times of danger, of suffering and disaster, the pioneer settlers flocked for refuge to escape the scalping knife of the savage; or where the armies of his majesty, the king, were mustered and marshalled to wrest from the French and their allied savages their dominion throughout this province. Within six miles of us, on the bank of the Raystown Branch at Mt. Dallas, Queen Alliquippa at the head of her dusky tribe of the Six Nations reigned, when the first white man entered this region; and though nearly a hundred and fifty years have rolled away, yet there the huge piles of stones are still visible, and the buried relics of savage warfare may yet be exhumed, thus marking the graves till this day where she laid her warriors to repose. While this point was not on the line of Braddock's march, yet Will's Creek and Fort Cumberland, forming the base of his operations in that disastrous campaign, are familiar names to all of us, and so near that we fancy the settlers here might have heard the tramp of his army, the roar of his musketry, or the echoes of the crashing timbers cut from before his advancing pathway. After Fort Duquesne had been found invincible and Braddock had been slain, and the prowess of his army crushed and humiliated, this region became the scene of untold sufferings. The French were supreme at their for |