formed, discussions held, tracts issued, legislatures memorialized, and yet, perhaps, none of these that succeeded in bringing about favorable legislation were more able or significant than those that were, during this period, prepared and presented in Kentucky and Maryland, where the influence of slavery rendered them of no avail. In New England, when Horace Mann, Dr. Barnard, and their compeers came on the stage of action, these efforts began to secure recognition in legislation. Reports on education in Europe, especially of German schools, made by Bache, Mann, Stowe, and Barnard, were printed and circulated at State expense. The results we see to-day; they need not be described.

It is an interesting fact and worthy of special note that in all the efforts for national aid to education southern men were especially prominent in the Congress of the Confederation, in the convention which adopted the Constitution, and in the series of efforts which followed in Congress, to which I have alluded.

SPECIAL NEEDS OF THE SOUTHERN STATES.

Why should these considerations be renewed to-day? It is undoubtedly true that as each new State is carved out of the remaining public domain the appropriate sections will be set apart for the State university, for the common school, and the appropriate grant made for the college of agriculture and the mechanic arts. But if this be done the necessity which brought on the continued agitation to which I referred for equalization and general distribution still remains.

Slavery, whose interests hindered and defeated, as we believe, the adoption of a systematic plan, has passed away.

In the States where it has been more recently abolished, peculiar circumstances render national aid necessary and desirable.

Dr. Sears, in his last able report to the trustees of the Peabody fund, says:

I have already alluded to the debts which, with almost crushing weight, hang over most of the Southern States. Among other questions of fearful import which are engaging the attention of public men in these States, that of supporting or not supporting the schools in their existing financial condition is not the least perplexing. It is not for me to express an opinion how far it would be expedient or possible for Congress to come to the aid of the impoverished States, by making temporary or permanent provision for national education. The subject is not a new one to Congress. But if ever there was a moment when its consideration seemed called for by the exigencies of the cause of education in the Southern States it is this moment. Nor can it ever be regarded as a mere local or sectional question. No part of the country can be uninterested in its decision. The want of good schools in any quarter of the Union is an injury to the whole Union, as the success of republican institutions rests upon the intelligence and capacity for self-government of the whole people and of all the States. The inability of some of the States to maintain their schools for more than four months in the year may have influences far beyond the region in which the inability exists. Our own funds are obviously insufficient for the exigencies which such a state of things creates; and I can only make this passing allusion to it as an evidence that it has not been unobserved in the discharge of the duties which have devolved upon me.

I do not know of a single prominent school official in one of these States who does not desire this aid. One gentleman, at the head of a State system, who was State superintendent of public instruction before the war, referring to the difficulties of raising funds in his own State, observes that they can contribute hardly one-fourth of the amount necessary for such a system :

May I not, therefore, my dear sir, request your recommendation of such measures as will benefit this State in connection with her sister Commonwealths, and thus strengthen her attachment to the Government of the Union, of which she now feels and appreciates the kindly beneficence?

To whom can we appeal for a correct judgment on this subject if not to those specially charged with the responsibility of administering edu cation in these States? In all my intercourse with these gentlemen and direct communication on this subject, all save two have been emphatic in their approval and urgency. No one who studies education in any of the States can fail to see the need of important improvements. The fact mentioned by the President in his late message, that one in seven of the voters of the country is practically illiterate, is a comprehensive and conclusive statement of the necessity; while in a number of the States a majority of the voters are unable to read their ballots.

POSITION OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

But we cannot contemplate education in a national light without looking to that domain which is beyond State organizations, and which in respect to education has been conspicuously neglected since the passage of the great ordinance of 1787. The District of Columbia should have fair and just consideration. The fact that the seat of government is here gives the nation a peculiar interest in the intelligence and virtue of the population. Where else should these characteristics be more conspicuous? The security of Government property, the honesty and efficiency of Government employés, and the fair fame of the nation are specially involved. Besides, there is special injustice in taxing the permanent population to provide the necessary means for the education of the children of those here as visitors or residing here temporarily in Government service. This the President has appropriately recognized in his recent message. But our Territories are in some respects peculiarly situated, and specially deserving of aid according to their population. For nearly twenty years New Mexico was without any legal provision for common schools, and the 25,000 to 30,000 Alaskans today have no provision in law by which they can organize themselves to build a road, erect a school-house, or employ a teacher. Yet this is the best Government on which the sun ever shines. But I have said enough to justify the anxiety of the educators of the country for some just and comprehensive action by the General Government in aid of education. True, by the Bureau of Education it gathers, records, and publishes the educational experience of the several portions of the coun

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try for the benefit of the whole. It seeks to bring within the reach of our school officers and teachers a knowledge of the progress in educational systems, methods, and appliances throughout the world. Thus it aids in giving wise direction to local struggles in behalf of education, but the necessity for supplemental pecuniary aid remains the same.

How shall this be bestowed? The great efficiency in the administration of the Peabody benefactions to education in the South arises largely from the conditions on which aid to a school or system of schools is granted. If a community raises $300 for the education of all its children on the improved plan the agent adds $100. If a community raises $3,000 for this purpose he adds, perhaps, $1,000; and thus in an annual distribution of $100,000 there is secured the local collection and expenditure of $700,000 or more.

The several States are accustomed to disburse from their treasuries their State funds in aid of education.'

CONCLUSION.

It cannot be doubted that some appropriate conditions in the method of the disbursement will greatly add to the efficiency of any national aid. We are standing at the beginning of the second century of the Republic. Is it not reasonable that we should learn wisdom by experience? And what mistake of the past century that it was in the power of human skill › to avoid, if traced to the people, must not be charged to their lack, at some point, of intelligence or virtue? The only thing that the fathers could have done to add lustre to the century that has closed which they failed to do, was to make more ample and complete provision for education. Let that mistake be corrected to-day. We do not believe it can be done by any violent measure, by any interference with local administration. We believe that the national obligation will be met, if the General Government (1) gathers records and communicates the edu cational efforts and lessons of the country, and (2) constitutionally be.

State apportionments are made on the following conditions: On the basis of school population-In Alabama, if school be taught 3 months; Arkansas; Connecticut, if school be taught from 24 to 30 weeks; Florida, if school be taught 3 months; Georgia; Illinois, if proper returns are made; Indiana, subject to fine of $25 for failure to make return; Iowa; Kansas, if school be taught 3 months; Louisiana; Maine; Maryland, if school be taught 7 months; Michigan, if school be taught from 5 to 9 months; Minnesota ; Mississippi, if school be taught 4 months; Missouri, if school population be returned and school be taught 3 months; Nevada, if school be taught 3 months; New Jersey, at least $350 to each district having more than 45 children; North Carolina; Ohio, if school population be reported; Oregon, if reports be made and school kept open 3 months; Tennessee; Texas; Vermont, if school be taught 20 weeks; Virginia, if proper local provision has been made; West Virginia, if school be taught 4 months; and Wisconsin, if school be taught 5 months and the teacher paid. On the number of school teachers-In California, if school be taught 6 months. According to school population and attendance-In Colorado, if school be taught 120 days. Partly to counties and partly according to white population-In Delaware, if proper returns are made. By race and then according to school population-In Kentucky, if drawn by districts by January 1. One-half to school district and one-half according to local tax-In Massachusetts, if school be taught 36 weeks and if town tax of $3 per child be raised. To counties according to school population-In Nebraska, if school be taught 3 months. To school districts reporting and to counties according to population-In New York, if school be taught 28 weeks. In proportion to taxa ble persons in each district-In Pennsylvania, if reports be made and counties raise equal tax. According to school attendance-In New Hampshire and South Carolina. According to school population and number of school districts-In Rhode Island.

stows, on appropriate conditions, supplemental aid to education in the several States and Territories. I shall close these remarks by inviting your attention to the following eloquent words of Thomas Smith Grimke, of South Carolina:

Nor, gentlemen, while we remember our fellowship and our common parentage, let us forget our common inheritance, our country. We cannot honor our country with too deep a reverence; we cannot love her with an affection too pure and fervent; we cannot serve her with an energy of purpose or a faithfulness of zeal too steadfast and ardent. And what is our country? It is not the East, with her hills and her valleys, with her countless sails, and the rocky ramparts of her shores. It is not the North, with her thousand villages and her giant canal, with her frontiers of the lake and the ocean. It is not the West, with her forest sea and her inland isles, with her luxuriant expanses, clothed in the verdant corn, with her beautiful Ohio and her majestic Missouri. Nor is it yet the South, opulent in the mimic snow of the cotton, in the rich plantations of the rustling cane, and in the golden robes of the rice-field. What are these but the sister families of one greater, better, holier family, our country? I come not here to speak the dialect or to give the counsels of the patriot statesman; but I come, a patriot scholar, to vindicate the rights and to plead for the interests of American literature. And be assured, gentlemen, that we cannot, as patriot scholars, think too highly of that country or sacrifice too much for her. And let us never forget, let us rather remember with a religious awe, that the union of these States is indispensable to our literature, as it is to our national independence and civil liberties, to our prosperity, happiness, and improvement. If, indeed, we desire to behold a literature like that which has sculptured with such energy of expression, which has painted so faithfully and vividly the crimes, the vices, the follies of ancient and modern Europe; if we desire that our land should furnish for the orator and the novelist, for the painter and the poet, age after age, the wild and romantic scenery of war, the glittering march of armies and the revelry of the camp, the shrieks and blasphemies and all the horrors of the battle-field, the desolation of the harvest and the burning cottage, the storm, the sack, and the ruin of cities; if we desire to unchain the furious passions of jealousy and selfishness, of hatred, revenge, and ambition, those lions that now sleep harmless in their den; if we desire that the lake, the river, the ocean, should blush with the blood of brothers; that the winds should waft from the land to the sea, from the sea to the land, the roar and the smoke of battle; that the very mountain-tops should become altars for the sacrifice of brothers; if we desire that these, and such as thesethe elements, to an incredible extent, of the literature of the Old World-should be the elements of our literature, then, but then only, let us hurl from its pedestal the majestic statue of our Union and scatter its fragments over all our land. But if we covet for our country the noblest, purest, loveliest literature the world has ever seen, such a literature as shall honor God and bless mankind—a literature whose smiles might play upon an angel's face, whose tears “would not stain an angel's cheek”—then let us cling to the Union of these States with a patriot's love, with a scholar's enthusiasm, with a Christian's hope. In her heavenly character, as a holocaust self-sacrificed to God; at the height of her glory, as the ornament of a free, educated, peaceful, Christian people, American literature will find that the intellectual spirit is her very tree of life, and that Union her garden of paradise.

President WICKERSHAM remarked that the subject of establishing a national education fund from the proceeds of land sales under the General Land Office is before both houses of Congress, bills for that purpose having been introduced. Superintendents could do much to interest Senators and Representatives by personal interviews. The cry for help from some such source, he said, is very urgent. He asked

that Hon. G. J. Orr, superintendent of Georgia schools, make the convention acquainted with the needs of education in his State.

Mr. Orr's brief remarks, to the same effect as those already given in the proceedings at the meeting in 1879, are here omitted. His remarks at that meeting are given in extenso (pp. 46–58).

Mr. PHILBRICK expressed the warm sympathy felt by the educators and the people of Massachusetts for the difficulties encountered by Dr. Orr and his fellow workers, and said that he was heartily in favor of establishing an educational fund as provided in the bills now before Congress. He thought the income of such a fund should be distributed for ten years on the ratio of the illiteracy; this plan he much preferred to that of distributing the money according to the territorial area. The object of giving the money should be to give help where help is most needed, and not to put a premium on an accident. He recognized the responsibility of the National Government, and would have Congress begin by supporting education in the District of Columbia. The speaker was glad to bear his grateful testimony to the uniform and cordial support that educators in Massachusetts had always received from the honorable gentleman (Mr. Loring) during his service as a member of the State legislature.

Mr. ORR wished to add that, in his opinion, the Southern States would not wish to receive aid from the national funds unless they were held accountable for the manner of spending the same, as provided in the bills pending before Congress.

Mr. HENDERSON said that this measure (Mr. Hoar's bill) solves two problems for Kentucky. When he became State superintendent, Kentucky was without any system of education for the colored people. He devised the best he could; he tried to do what he thought was right, but his plan was more liberal than any the legislature would adopt. The law gives the colored people every dollar of their taxes for education, and in towns their part of the municipal tax also. The taxes paid by colored people have doubled in three years. The provision was made that, if the Congress of the United States should give the States the proceeds of the sale of the public land, the appropriation of that money should go to the colored people until the per capita of colored children equalled that of the white children. The second point is that the bill solves the normal school problem for Kentucky. The speaker felt a great deal of interest in this bill, and expected to stay long enough to use such influence as he had to see it through. In office for six years by a vote of 235,000 citizens of Kentucky, the speaker claimed to know something of the wants of the State.

Mr. BOWMAN said that there seemed to be but one sentiment about those bills, and he wanted to thank his friend from Massachusetts.

On motion, the Department adjourned, to meet at 10 o'clock the following morning.