Thus we conform, as we believe, to that act of Congress which conferred the endowment for the new industrial education. This statute calls for the establishment of colleges—i. e., institutions of superior rank. The endowment cannot be justly expended in mere primary and secondary instruction. We also respond to the real demand of the farmers. The Agricultural College was never wanted as a mere farmers' school, in which their sons and daughters could be taught to extract the cube root and decline adjectives of three terminations. The real demand of the farmer is that there be men trained up to interrogate science, as to its application to that great industry which is at the bottom of all the industries and activities of the world. When the Agricultural College is made a professional school, this work may begin. The Agricultural College as a secondary school, however efficient, can contribute but scantily to this end. It was laid down in the introductoy part of this paper, as a principle to be gone upon in organizing the public instruction, that the system must be such as to employ and encourage all agencies likely to engage seriously in the work. By what means, if by any, to open the whole field of educational effort to the same free competition between individuals as now exists in the learned and other professions, is an alluring problem, but because it is not of immediate practical importance it must be laid aside for the graver and unavoidable question, "where is the place and what the work of the Christian Church in education?" Let us meet this question resolutely. Let us face first of all this fact, that in the newer States of America education of all grades is already public. The people have taken the whole work in hand. It is impossible to disguise this fact. It is equally impossible to escape from this next conclusion-that if the Church means to do any work in education which will last and grow, she must come within the system of public instruction. The institutions of her foundation and maintenance must take their place as elements in whatever system may happen to exist. What part of the field then may the Christian forces occupy in the grand movement? Not the primary theater. Experience has already decided that; and further, this is the place for parental co-operation. Not the field of superior, academical, and professional education, for that too the people have occupied with a corps of observation-if no more. There remains but one province, the secondary education. May the Church venture upon that? It is certain that in her present estate the Church cannot sustain the university. It is useless to talk of the university unless there is a prospect of millions of dollars flowing into her coffers. Were the Church one in visible representation, this might be expected, but divided and contending, her various sections vainly attempt the mighty task of collecting a university endowment. This I say while recalling, not without bitterness, the fact that we have yet as a people to educate ourselves up to the point reached by some Christian benefactors of higher education. The people have resolved to have the university, but they have not as yet fully appreciated the magnitude of their enterprise nor equalled in munificence a few noble citizens. If, however, a Church were equal to the maintenance of the university, I cannot see that she has any sufficient motive for it. The history of American universities shows that just as they have grown into consequence they have outgrown the spirit of denomination. The Christian college of to-day is forced to hoist at its maintop the motto "Christian, but not sectarian." If Christian, but not sec- not sectarian, why then shall the sect support it? tarian," is the watchword of the people's university. versity is secular, and cannot be Church work. It can only aid the Church —as Church—in an indirect way, by extending the boundaries of knowledge, diffusing culture, and arming the hand of charity with new balms and potions. Why then should the tithes and offerings go to the cultivation of science and letters, to the training of lawyers and physicians, farmers and engineers? When a thousand villages are without churches and pastors, shall the Church found observatories to study the spots on the sun? There is, however, in the scope of the secondary education a work which may be regarded as distinctively Christian. I have, with some emphasis, advocated the full development of the secondary education for the purpose of bringing that institution to the doors of the people, and into close relation with homes. Two practical difficulties here present themselves. The first, that there is a large body of youth who have literally no homes. There are many who are worse off than that-who have fathers and mothers, but no parents. There are also sons and daughters of persons holding public offices, military and civil, the duties of which carry them to stations remote from schools and civilization; there are children of persons traveling or living transiently in public houses. The number of children thus incapacitated from resorting to the public high schools from homes, will be found upon reflection to be very great. For this class the boarding school is the proper resource. What work now I ask can the Church better do than to throw her sheltering arms around these homeless ones, and train them up to useful and blameless living? There is room then in the system for the Christian Boarding School. I cannot pass from this topic without stopping to advertise to this national convention of teachers that our State of Minnesota presents today the unique and unparalled spectacle of the best boys' boarding school in the northwest, built up in nine years on the ruins of a paper university, Let me say proposed ruins, for that university-thanks to one wise and farseeing man*-never lifted the first stone into daylight. The other difficulty had in mind is this, that the high school of any grade of development is possible only in the cities and larger villages. There are fifty smaller villages, more or less, in Minnesota, which cannot support a high school in fifty years. How shall these places, the most favorable perhaps for the development of scholarly tastes and ambition be supplied with secondary schools? The answer is, by means of academies, to be mainly supported by the people of the vicinity, but aided liberally by the State. Such academies, public in the sense of complying with the conditions neceseary to insure the just expenditure of the public funds would habitually fall under the control of some Christian body, who would be responsible to the patrons for the judicious training of their children. The Christian academy may thus have its place in the system of public instruction. There is one such in our State, scarcely known beyond the bounds of a beautiful hamlet nestling beside Lake St. Croix, which sends more students to this University than any high school in the State except three or four. The Christian academy can do that work which most of all the Church wants done, the work of training the growing and impressible youth. The time for training is past when the youth has gone to college. Happy is that young man who leaves *Bishop Whipple. school with his principles and habits so fixed and grounded that the temptations of college life assail his soul in vain. The hour will not permit me to speak of a third sort of Christian work in education-that of establishing Christian College Homes around the State universities, and thus to restore the "college" to its original function. In such establishments a church may gather its sons and daughters, maintaining its favorite cultus and ritual, and thus gain to herself all the advantages of a college in the modern sense, while saving the whole cost of faculty, library, apparatus, laboratories, etc. I have said that the boarding school and the academy may be Christian, meaning Christian in the lower sense of being actually in the hands of a Christian body, as a corporation. There is, however, a higher sense in which these and all schools may be Christian. There are many schools, of many grades, which are Christian because they are owned and operated by Christian men and women, but are not controlled by any conference, synod, or council. In this same sense, all schools may be Christian. If the Church do her duty there will be no other. The schools of a Christian people will be Christian. The Church might be more than content to surrender entirely any immediate management of schools, in order to be at leisure to attend to the grander work of molding and inspiring all the educational agencies. The Church may then lay down the text-book, and retire from the school-room, as pedagogue, only to reappear in the clouds of a new heaven, with angelic belongings," with power and great glory,”- -a messenger from above to inform, to hallow, to sanctify, and consecrate all the agencies of human culture. It took more than two hundred years for modern Christianity, to learn the lesson that her power over the nation would be greatest when Church and State should be organically severed. Have we not yet to learn the further and more blessed truth that the Church will only then be mightiest in culture, when she has surrendered all mere schooling to the people? The Committee on nominations submitted the following report, which was unanimously adopted: Association was opened with prayer by the Rev E. D. Neill, D. D. Leon Trousdale, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, of Nashville, Tennessee, then delivered an address on THE EDUCATIONAL NECESSITIES OF THE SOUTH. In an address delivered by the Hon. Emory Washburn, of Massachusetts, at the dedication of the Worcester Normal School Building, September 11th, 1874, occurs this language, which must arrest the earnest attention and invoke the serious consideration of every enlightened educator of our great Republic: "But a problem far more momentous and solemn has yet to be solved, in respect to citizens born upon our own soil, in which, I apprehend, schools are to bear an important part, if, indeed, the problem is ever to be solved. In looking at the Statistics of several of the States in which are heard portentous mutterings of intestine discord, threatening even a war of races, we find a population of whom from twenty-nine to thirty-nine in every hundred, above the age of ten years, cannot write, and which, if true of Massachusetts, would give us from four to five hundred thousand illiterate, untaught men, who had never learned the first lessons of self-government. "To what can we look to cure this frightful tendency to anarchy and disorder but schools, in which the young and yet unperverted intellects and passions of a new generation shall be trained and educated to a common sense of humanity, self-respect, and the discipline of self-government, and both races thereby elevated to a higher plane of intelligence and civilization. The subject is too broad to be treated of at length upon this occasion; but I could not suffer it to pass without recognizing what is due to the representative in Congress from this District, for his earnest and consistent efforts to call the attention of that body to this most pressing need of supplying to this population the means of guarding against the dangers that threaten that fair portion of our land, by planting in the midst of them the boon of free and common schools, open alike to all who can be persuaded to share in their conservative discipline. Accepting the figures of the distinguished gentleman, whose solemn and suggestive utterance I have read, as approximately correct, let us weigh well the significance of the great fact which he has announced for our most deliberate consideration. What is the great central fact which presents itself to our minds? That from twenty-nine to thirty-nine hundredths of persons, above the age of ten years, in one portion of our Republic, have not learned the first principles of self-government. It is a most pregnant fact to come before a national convention of educators, and I, an humble representative from that unfortunate portion of our Union, ask you to give it that calm and profound deliberation which its great significance demands. The period is most propitious for such deliberation as may result in solving the important problem connected with it. The extremes of our country, in view of the approaching centennial of our national independence, are "shaking hands over the vanished shadow of the dark night" which has encompassed our land. That approaching centennial demands something more from the educated and thoughtful minds here assembled than mere jubilee singing and intensely-wrought oratory. We can address ourselves to no higher problem than how to feel in our hearts, when we stand face to face with the glittering ensign of the Republic, not only not a star erased and still high advanced, but twenty-five other stars added to the constellation. Esto perpetua! When and where could we better solve the problem, how to perpetuate our civil and religious liberties, than in the historical presence of those colossal figures who deliberately signal the solemn declaration of the freedom and independence of their country, or, as the alternative, their own death warrants? How better can we illuminate the canvas, over which shall pass in solemn procession, the patriots and heroes of our Revolution, than by invoking from their consecrated shades the wisdom and inspiration to strike out of the genius of their patriotism that Promethean spark which shall kindle our whole land with the living light of virtue and intelligence? How more appropriately welcome to our ark the dove, as she comes in, bearing in her mouth an olive leaf "plucked off? Gentlemen, we need not mistake the problem which we are asked to solve. It is neither our duty nor our privilege to decide whether intelligence should precede citizenship, or citizenship should be conferred before intelligence. This question has been definitely and finally settled for us by the statesmen of our country. The democratic or republican constitution of our Republic has decreed that each one of the thirty-nine hundredths in the unfortunate section which I have the honor in part to represent in this |