Before the whole of this great domain shall be squandered upon speculative schemes and plundering syndicates, let the people in all parts of our country demand that what remains of it shall be dedicated forever to the high purposes which are comprehended by making future generations appreciate their solemn responsibilities to protect and preserve the heritage of their fathers the civil and religious liberties guaranteed to them by the Constitution, but only guaranteed in name, until they shall be thoroughly taught the value of the legacy, and the price at which it was won. Let the representatives of the people act upon the maxim that liberty is but a name without education, and free government only the merest mockery unless the people have been prepared to maintain it by virtuous and intelligent conduct.

The precedents for such a dedication are numerous in our legislative annals. In the sale of lands of the Chickasaw and Choctaw purchases in the South, and I believe in all the land sales in the great West, the uniform policy was to reserve the sixteenth sections of all the townships for school purposes. This policy, never at any time, that I am aware, was signalized by the rancor of political or partisan assault. On all hands it is conceded that intelligence and virtue are the base of republican institutions; and, therefore, it can scarcely be claimed that it is liable to constitutional objection, since the preparation of the people, commencing when their minds are most impressible and tender, for the highest style of citizenship, and manhood constitute the object of such an appropriation.

But again: On the second of July, 1862, an act of Congress appropriated many millions of land scrip to the establishment of agricultural colleges in the States, and the conditions of the act were approved and accepted by the States. Was the purpose of this act merely to educate citizens to be skilful and scientific farmers and mechanics? If so, is it any less essential that the men of this Republic should be good citizens, and should understand selfgovernment? Is it an inferior or less important degree of education that the children of every generation should be taught the principles of free government, and those high moral motives which impel them to obey the laws? But this appropriation contemplated only the education of a limited number who might have the ability to meet all the expenses of a collegiate education, save tuition, which is the least part of the cost. Are the great masses, who need education to make them intelligent self-governors, to be neglected by the same legislative authority, when the great domain from which they have drawn the endowments of these colleges is supposed to be abundant and ample to reach every humble and obscure home in the land, and supply the school-house and the schoolmaster at the very door of the poorest citizen? I have no prejudice against, or objection to the endowment of these agricultural colleges. On the other hand, I applaud the spirit which impelled and the wisdom which dictated it. It will be one of the proudest days in the annals of our country, when the Congress shall extend this auspicious act and endow every school district in the United States with a similar fund. But this act did not limit its beneficence to agricultural and mechanical education. It expressly provided that literary and scientific culture should not be excluded from these colleges, thus in terms making an appropriation out of the public domain for the common ends of education, and making provision for the culture of the minds of a few of the citizens of the

Republic. Having thus made a start in the right direction, will the capstone ever be placed upon the arch they have constructed, without making the blessings and benefits to be derived from education free and universal? If any stress is laid upon agricultural and mechanical culture, not to exclude literary and scientific education, let the act extending this appropriation from the public lands require that the free district schools or free common schools shall foster agricultural and mechanical culture as a specialty, and this will be accepted as an additional advantage. Every citizen of the United States would be the better prepared to discharge the duties of a good citizen by being early trained in habits of industry, economy, and thrift, and by being taught agricultural and mechanical art and science. It is one of the most decided aims of a right education to teach bread-winning pursuits to all alike, so that there may be no drones or idlers, and consequently no temptation to disreputable or vicious means of gaining a livelihood, no dependence, pauperism, vagabondage, or criminal practices to sustain life. Industrial schools, where skilled labor is taught, and where habits of industry are nurtured, are the schools for a free and virtuous people. Thus labor is recognized by all as the highest effort of human hands, the highest reach and end of the mind of man. That people will ever be independent, fortunate, and happy, who depend upon it, and who are fully inured to it by early habits and exact training.

Gentlemen, cannot this convention, representing all the States of our extended country, put in motion a mechanism by which these grand endswhich I trust will not appear merely ideal or utopian to any of you may be achieved? Ninety-nine years ago the possibility of so colossal a structure as our great and free government was regarded as wild and visionary by many. But the patriotic enthusiasm of the fathers of the Revolution, their courage, wisdom, and endurance, made of a possibility an enduring and glorious reality. We may contribute our share in making their splendid vision still more enduring and renowned by perfecting the project for extending the reality of freedom, intellectual and moral, as well as political freedom, to every one of the generations that are to succeed. If we do so, we shall but have completed the great work begun in 1776, and have proved ourselves worthy to stand in the places of our noble sires.

Letters of sympathy with the work of the Association, and regret for absence, from Hon. Alex. Hogg, State Superintendent of Alabama, from Hon. Cornelius Hedges, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Montana, and from J. Ormond Wilson, Superintendent of City Schools, of Washington, D. C., were read.

Also a letter containing expressions of cordial welcome and hearty co-operation from the Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences, authorized at a meeting held in Minneapolis, July 6, 1875, was presented by N. H. Winchell and Charles Simpson, as a committee from the Academy.

12

MR. HOGG'S LETTER.

AUBURN, ALABAMA, July 31st, 1875.

HON. W. T. HARRIS, President National Educational Association. MY DEAR SIR-I regret that circumstances over which I have no control prevent my attendance this year at Minneapolis. I desire to express through you my warmest sympathy with and continued interest in the Association, believing it to have been the first successful movement in bringing about cordial relations between the sections.

I am pained, indeed, at not being able to meet again the representative Teachers of our nation—to receive their hearty welcome and expressions of professional attachment.

Say to the friends of the National University, that while it will take time, to be patient-that a National University is one of the certainties of our country-its growing necessity will be the controlling argument in favor of it. Let your next meeting be nearer to us of the Gulf. The Lakes surely will be willing to grant us, for once, this request. Remember this Association is National, and that we are still a part of the Nation-that our faith is still in the permanence of the Union-that our success depends upon the success of Thomas Jefferson's Republic.

Praying that the richest blessings of Providence may rest upon and guide the deliberations of your meeting, I am

Hon. W. T. HARRIS, President National Educational Association. DEAR SIR:-Unexpectedly I find that my duties here will prevent the anticipated pleasure of meeting with the Association at Minneapolis. Please accept my most cordial wishes for the success of the “Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the National Educational Association.’

HON. W. T. HARRIS, President National Educational Association. DEAR SIR-Noticing an account in the Journal of Education of the approaching assembly of the Association, of which you are President, I make bold to ask you to present to the consideration of the convention the subject of public free schools in the Territories. Probably none of them will be represented and the truth is not generally known about our real situation. Though all the Organic Acts seem to make an ample endowment for schools in the several Territories, practically it is a dead letter or a promise made to the ear to be broken to the heart. So long as the Territorial condition lasts, the lands promised for schools are held by Government and the poor people have not a cent to aid them from this source. They have not even the power to control the use of a single acre of this vast endowment. It is to be retained till we become States or in other words, while we need it most and when a portion of it could do the most good in the way of educating the generation

that will found and give character to the early State, we can receive no such aid. When our own struggles in opening the country are crowned with success and we have become richer and more populous and hence better able to support ourselves and educate our own children, then we are to receive bountiful aid. Illustrating in their style the Scripture that “to him who hath shall be given and from him that hath not shall be taken even what he hath."

It may be good Scripture but it is very poor justice or wisdom.

Why should not the General Government lay aside from the sales of lands a fund the interest of which should be paid for the annual support of schools upon such terms and conditions as they may deem best, repaying themselves when the school lands can be sold. Could not your Association endorse and recommend some such action?

Our people are poor in realized wealth, they have everything to do and to create. A little salt in the fountain might give health to the whole stream that will flow forth.

I know your time is greatly engrossed and the labors of the Convention apportioned in advance, but if possible, you will or some one to whose zeal and discretion you can entrust the matter procure for our case a hearing. I believe reflection will convince you and others that our cause is worthy and your labor will not be unrewarded.

If you fail utterly to bring it up in this meeting then please assign it for next year.

Hoping your meeting may prove more than ever pleasant and profitable and wishing greatly to be able to participate, I am

Very truly yours,

CORNELIUS HEDGES, Supt. Pub. Inst., Montana.

COMMITTEE'S LETTER.

TO THE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION:

At the regular meeting of the Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences, held in Minneapolis, July 6, 1875, a committee was appointed to express in suitable form the sense of the Academy in reference to the approaching meeting of the National Educational Association in the city of Minneapolis, and to present the same to the Association on its convening.

The undersigned members of said committee, therefore, desire to assure the members of the National Educational Association that the Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences extends to them a cordial welcome to the city of Minneapolis and to the State of Minnesota. The two institutions have the same end in view-the increase and dissemination of human knowledge, and they have a mutual interest in the success of every effort to simplify and perfect the means for attaining that result. The cultivation of the Natural Sciences is both a means and an end in the general information of the people.

The members of the Academy desire to aid the Association in making the meeting at Minneapolis pleasant, profitable, and satisfactory, and to assure it of their earnest sympathy in the cause of education.

August 2, 1875.

N. H. WINCHELL,
CHAS. SIMPSON.

} Committee.

After the reading of these letters a lively discussion arose on the addresses delivered, in which Messrs. Rolfe, of Chicago, A. R. Cornwall, of Albion Academy, Wisconsin; Rev. A. D. Roe, Afton, Minnesota; Dr. Allyn, of Illinois; James Cruikshank, of New York; W. E. Crosby, Editor of the "Common School," Davenport, Iowa; M. Andrews, Galesburg, Illinois; President Harris, and others took an active part.

The drift of the remarks was mostly on the paper read by W. F. Phelps, Principal of the State Normal School at Winona, Minn.

The following report of the discussion is taken from a Minneapolis paper. Mr. John H. Rolfe, of Chicago, thought that Prof Phelps had expressed unnecessary alarm about the present condition of the common schools.

Prof. Cornwall, of Albion, Wisconsin, thought the question of money was important as connected with the schools, mentioning a number of instanced cases where the question had entered, as responsible for rascally maneuvering and projects. The speaker criticized the experiences connected with the Normal Schools, and urging that some revision was necessary. Prof. Phelps's abhorence of the New-England Academy was also gently overhauled, and an eloquent defense of the middle schools made.

Supt. Roe, of Washington County, also entered his criticism against the "abhorrence" or prejudice against the Academic schools. He thought the wisdom of the schools was not confined or boiled down in one system-which ordinarily runs in unprofitable ruts. The need was good superintendents.

President Allyn, of Illinois, said he was glad to hear Prof. Phelps's paper, but he could not but feel satisfied that some of its views should be modified. It made no difference with him how education was obtained, and he protested against any contempt of the country schools, which in some instances had benefited their pupils more in two months than colleges had accomplished for their students in one year. He wished the schools were better, but they should not be depreciated. We should be careful to say as an Association that this expressed feeling against our common schools, was not its view or "deliverance." He believed that Normal schools had made some cast-iron men so far as their systems were concerned, who were absolutely good for nothing.

Dr. Cruikshank believed in pursuing such a course as would result in keeping the interest of the people at large in the common schools or educational systems-all supported from their contributions.

W. E. Crosby, of Iowa, supported Prof. Phelps's view of the common schools. The object of institutes had been to improve the common schools. Mr. Andrews thought it was a sad thing to see the antagonism between Normal and other schools. The position assumed that teachers must be graduates of a Normal school, was calculated to create opposition to them, which was certainly unnecessary and unfortunate.

The chairman called attention to the fact that it was time to close the discussion just as it was becoming a trifle warm and interesting. The city systems of education were gradually extending into the country.

THE EDUCATIONAL CONDITION OF THE SOUTH,

was next discussed by Yardley Warner, of Philadelphia, Pa., A. C. Pickett, Superintendent Memphis Schools, Mrs. H. Nash. of Little Rock Arkansas; John Hancock, Ohio; H. M. Hale, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Colorado; W. F. Phelps, and J. B. Merwin, of St. Louis.