ment with them is strength. * # We have to wait for these master spirits of the South to bring in the new order." The Southern Education Board is composed largely of southern men. All the members of the campaign committee and the field agents working with them live in the South. The active work of the board is left in their hands. Its appeal for better schools has been and is to be to the people who are to be the most directly benefited by these schools. It recognizes the principle that the best help is that which stimulates to independent self-activity. The evolution of a society, like the growth of an individual, is a process of self-expression and can not, therefore, be imposed from without. This board is a frank recognition of the fact that the southern people must work out their own destiny by their own efforts and under the direction of southern leadership. Thus the two boards, embodying the practical wisdom of the Conference and its spirit of patriotic devotion to the service of humanity, represent the two aspects of the one work. Certainly [says Doctor Murphy] nothing could have been finer than the spirit of the northern men who have been interested in this movement. They have simply said: "You have shown us that the South is trying heroically to deal not only with the negro, but with the great unprivileged masses of its white population. You understand your own people and your own problems as we do not. This work is, therefore, yours. Take it and do it. In so far as we can help you we are at your service. We have no desire to meddle or to interfere. If you will take the helm we will stand by you, not as Northerners, but as fellow-citizens of a common country.' Work of the Southern Education Board.-The district directors of the Southern Education Board began active work in January, 1902, Doctor Dabney to organize the bureau at Knoxville, Doctor Frissell to organize the campaign in Virginia, Doctor McIver to inaugurate the campaign in North Carolina, and Doctor Alderman to initiate the work in Louisiana. It was proposed that about $80,000 be expended within the first two years in creating a public sentiment for better schools, and that the campaign be conducted through local agencies already in the field. The proposition met with cordial support from the people, and the campaign committee was able at the April conference to report substantial results. President Ogden stated in his opening address at this meeting that he had in his possession written reports from all branches of the work, and that the energetic earnestness that had marked every branch of the operations created at a single bound a powerful and effective organization. Doctor McIver's report of the work in North Carolina may be taken as typical of the best methods and results of the board. It was the understanding at the last session of the board [he says] that, if practicable, a vigorous campaign for the improvement of the public schools of North Carolina should be inaugurated. Knowing that it would be unwise and useless to undertake such a campaign except in hearty cooperation with the educational authorities of the State, I laid our plans and purposes before the governor, Hon. Charles B. Aycock, and the State superintendent of public instruction, Gen. Thomas F. Toon, both of whom gave their hearty indorsement and expressed their hearty appreciation of the spirit in which the Southern Education Board desired to aid in our educational development. The Raleigh conference.-On February 13 General Toon and Governor Aycock united with me in calling a conference of about 40 teachers, representing all lines of educational work. Representatives of the State colleges and denominational colleges, county superintendents and city superintendents, representatives of high schools and seminaries of every class were present. The conference made a declaration against illiteracy and issued a striking address to the people of North Carolina. There was perfect harmony in the meeting and unanimity of sentiment that the combined educational influence of the State should be brought to bear upon the improvement of the rural public schools. A campaign was inaugurated to secure the consolidation of weak school districts, the improvement of public schoolhouses, and the adoption of local taxation to supplement the State school tax. The governor, the State superintendent, and your district director were made the executive committee of this association and the managers of the campaign. The address was published by practically all the newspapers in the State and copies were furnished to students of colleges and pastors of all churches. A special committee was appointed to furnish educational matter for the newspapers from time to time and another committee to make a special request of every preacher in North Carolina to deliver to his congregation at least one sermon on the subject of public education. From the beginning this movement had the almost unanimous indorsement of the press of the State. In accordance with the plan of the Raleigh conference the executive committee has decided to hold district conferences at accessible centers in various portions of the State. To these conferences county superintendents and other school officers will be invited, and also other workers for public education. These conferences will give the State superintendent an opportunity to confer with the county superintendents and inaugurate a uniform policy for developing the educational work of the State. At least one large mass meeting will be held in connection with each conference, at which addresses will be made by the governor, the State superintendent, and others. These district conferences will be held at such places as will furnish free entertainment for the delegates. The railroad expenses of the county superintendents will be paid out of the campaign fund provided by the Southern Education Board. The Greensboro conference.—The first district conference was held April 3 and 4, in Greensboro, and about 20 counties were represented by their superintendents and other school officers. The presidents of the State colleges and presidents or other representatives of most of the denominational colleges attended the Greensboro conference. Finding some liberal-hearted gentlemen in Greensboro disposed to raise a fund by popular subscription to be used for aiding those rural districts in Guilford County which would vote upon themselves a local tax to improve their schools, I wrote an urgent letter to President W. H. Baldwin, jr., of the General Education Board, and Dr. Wallace Buttrick, the executive officer of that board, asking the General Education Board to duplicate these subscriptions to an amount not exceeding $4,000. The General Education Board, which had just opened its new office two days before our conference, generously complied with the request, sending Doctor Buttrick to Greensboro to represent it in the conference and to make the following propositions: The General Education Board will duplicate all private subscriptions made by the people of Guilford County, N. C., for the public schools in Guilford County to an amount not exceeding $4,000 in all, provided that in each case school districts where such gifts are made shall have levied a special local tax for free public schools for all the people, and provided further that the appropriation from this board in fulfillment of its pledge shall be paid to each of the several districts, through the North Carolina State department of public instruction, when information is received that the above conditions have been fulfilled. The mass meeting readily raised more than $4,000 for the improvement of the rural schools of Guilford County. None of this money can be used in the city of Greensboro, where it was raised, nor can any of it be used for any district in the county which does not levy a local tax upon its property. At the Richmond conference, one year later, Doctor McIver reported thatAs a result of the Greensboro conference a local tax has been voted in nine districts in Guilford County. It is hoped to have a local tax voted in every district in the county in the next two years. So far our local board has adhered to no hard-and-fast rule as to the disposition of the $8,000 raised at the Greensboro conference to promote local taxation, but usually in the districts that have voted the local tax we have given one dollar for every two raised by private subscription to build and furnish schoolhouses. Under the direction of the campaign committee an aggressive campaign began in North Carolina in the month of June, 1902, for local taxation. The governor of the State, an ex-governor, the State superintendent and an ex-State superintendent, a Congressman, the presidents and professors from nearly all the colleges joined the school superintendents and teachers in this work. As a result the State superintendent reported in his last report 79 cities, towns, and rural districts having a local tax, pending elections in 45 other communities, and probable elections in the near future in nearly 100 others. Legislation has been secured encouraging local taxation, school libraries for rural schools, and improvement of schoolhouses. An important step has been made toward securing better supervision in the counties. Varying somewhat in specific aims, agencies, and methods to meet local needs, this work conducted in North Carolina is being repeated in the other Southern States, and may be taken as a type of what is being done throughout the field. The bureau of investigation and information.-In addition to the campaign work conducted in the field by the district directors and their associates, the Southern Education Board assumed the parallel function, as provided by the original Winston-Salem resolution, of conducting a bureau of investigation and information. This bureau was organized and located at Knoxville, under the directorship of Dr. Charles W. Dabney, with P. P. Claxton and J. D. Eggleston, jr., as associates. Its purpose.-The bureau outlined for itself two main lines of work: (1) It proposed to make a careful and thorough study of educational conditions in the South, in other sections of our own country, and in the more important foreign countries; and (2) it proposed, by means of its own publications, through the public press, and the campaign orator, to give the results of this comparative study to the public, and thereby to educate the people into the adoption of sound constructive educational policies. This is among the most important tasks undertaken by the board. It is not a difficult task to arouse a popular momentary enthusiasm on vital subjects. The campaign of education, as being conducted, has already awakened in many communities educational enthusiasm amounting to religious fervor. But unless this emotion be transformed into quiet intelligent interest it can not last, neither can it construct efficient schools unless it be guided by sane educational statesmanship. This statesmanship can not be adequately supplied by a few minds capable of taking the larger view, for in a democratic community schools and school systems must, in the last resort, be constructed by the people. It is of the highest importance, therefore, that while the campaign orator is kindling a popular enthusiasm the people be given a broad perspective of the real problems before them. They should be given the facts which portray the schools and school systems as they are in the Southern States. They should be led to view the situation in the light of the larger educational experience of other sections of our country and of other countries, and to use this comparison for constructive criticism in harmony with the genius of their own civilization. This should constitute the objective of the whole campaign, and the bureau calling into its service the educational leadership of the South should be, in President Ogden's happy phrase, the "ordnance department." This is the theory of the bureau. Methods of the bureau.—On March 10, 1902, the bureau issued the first number of its publication, entitled **Southern Education Notes;" a bi-weekly publication, intended to furnish matter in convenient form for newspapers. As stated in the issue of April 21, “The object of Southern Education Notes is to act as a clearinghouse of educational information and comment for the convenience of the newspapers of the South." And in the issue of March 24 we find that **Southern Education Notes is gratified at the reception of its first issue by the newspapers throughout the South." A single number of the Notes consists of six single column leaflets printed on one side. The matter is composed of brief paragraphs of educational statistics, quotations, and comments. It is intended to be terse, striking, popular, so as to win its way into the columns of the newspaper. Any adequate discussion of an important topic is obviously impossible in the columns of the Notes. In April, 1902, the bureau issued the first of a series of circulars, intended not for the press but for the reading public, Each issue was devoted to a special sub ject, and was intended to supplement the Notes by giving opportunity for more adequate statement and discussion. Only four circulars were issued. In March, 1903, the bureau began the publication of Southern Education," a weekly publication in magazine form which, taking the place of Southern Education Notes and the circulars, combines the best features of both, and assumes the function of a more definite campaign document. The issue of May 14 may be taken as typical of its best methods and results. This is the North Carolina edition, and was prepared as a special campaign document for the campaign now being conducted in that State. It was prepared at the suggestion of the State superintendent of public instruction and of the central campaign committee for the promotion of public education in North Carolina, and the proof was submitted to them for approval. It contains 176 pages devoted to the special educational conditions and problems of North Carolina. It is a document of facts carefully gathered, clearly stated, and arranged in convenient form, portraying in a most graphic and forceful way the conditions in North Carolina along the lines of illiteracy, local taxation, consolidation of schools, schoolhouses, rural libraries, county supervision, the preparation and pay of teachers. Exhibits are made by county, by township, by city, and village, thus enforcing on the consciousness of each community its relative educational standing in terms both of effort and of accomplishment. One brief quotation may serve to show how this document uses facts for purposes of persuasion: DOES CONSOLIDATION PAY? During 1902 three school districts in Mangum Township, Durham County, were consolidated into one district, with the following results: I. Salary of teachers before consolidation: 1. Salary of teacher in district 1, $35 per month. II. Length of term before consolidation: 1. Term in district 1, six months. 2. Term in district 2, six months. 3. Term in district 3, six months. III. Average daily attendance in districts before consolidation: 2. Average daily attendance in district 2, 16. IV. Results of consolidation: 1. Total salary of two teachers, $100 per month. 2. Length of term, seven months. 3. Average daily attendance, 80 out of total enrollment of 113. 4. Greatly increased interest in public education; three poor schoolhouses abandoned and one neat, comfortable house erected; a graded school. This edition is now being used by the press and by public speakers in the campaign in North Carolina, and has demonstrated its effectiveness as a campaign document. Special editions have been prepared for Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Alabama, and it is intended that similar editions be issued for each of the Southern States. Soon after its organization the bureau planned a series of bulletins, by means of which it proposed to give out the results of its most mature study of educational conditions and problems in the South. The first number, entitled "Educational Conditions in the Southern Appalachians," appeared in May, 1902. This was followed with a bulletin on the educational conditions in Tennessee. A number of bulletins were planned, and much material has been collected for some of them. III. SURVEY OF THE CONFERENCE AS IT IS TO-DAY. Inorganic character.-Not the least striking, and perhaps not the least valuable, feature of the conference is its inorganic character. It has had, as we have seen, five years of continuous and wholesome growth, and that without a constitution or by-laws. It has from year to year elected a presiding officer, has appointed committees from time to time to render such service as seemed to demand special committees, has selected places of meeting, prepared its programmes, and published its proceedings without an exchequer, annual dues, or even a definitely constituted membership. * * # It has illustrated the brotherhood of man [says President Ogden] by electing executive officers and committees with no by-laws to restrict, with perfect freedom for unlimited overwork, and the right, by appeals to altruism, patriotism, or fear, to impress into the service of the conference all whose assistance may be required. Cordially appropriating the generous hospitality of locality after locality; piling boundless cares upon local committees; placing upon its chief officers responsibilities broad as the tenderness of conscience or capacity for initiative; trusting, as the birds trust the hand that providentially feeds them, a treasurer without an exchequer; appropriating for the use of its executive committee the whole American Republic of letters that a proper programme should annually be presented, the conference has gone forward from grace to grace and from strength to strength, until now it convenes in this beautiful city of Richmond with a robust intellectual appetite waiting with faith and hope to be fed and satisfied. This lack of definite organization has tended to emphasize the inner life and spirit of the conference and has kept it plastic for unlimited expansion. Membership. The conference at its first three sessions was entertained by Captain Sale at Capon Springs, W. Va., and membership was, obviously enough, limited to the list of guests invited by him. But at present "the only qualification needed by a delegate," says President Ogden, "consists in personal presence and sympathetic accord. Thus the conference is a purely voluntary association." Within the limits of its printed programme it is an open forum, with a constituency commensurate with the catholicity of its purposes. A more representative body could not be found on the continent. This is an assembly [says Dr. Alderman in his address before the Athens conference] of the representatives of all classes of educational institutions and educational forces. Heads of great universities, that once sat apart in Olympic isolation, are here, and humble school teachers, clad in new robes of civic usefulness and civic self-respect. Men and women of the North and of the South are here, with their memories swept clean of all bitterness and misunderstanding; men of affairs of the North and South are gathered here with constructive purpose in their minds, with willingness to compromise, to readjust old view points, to shed old prejudices and reconstruct new theories, and above all to covenant highly with themselves that this educational crusade shall not cease until every child in this nation-high or low, white or black, bond or free-shall be emancipated from the great black empire of ignorance and night. The Richmond conference was in like manner an assembly representing the constructive forces of American democracy-men and women from all sections, officials and citizens, professional men and men of affairs-all united for the time being in the one interest of serving humanity through the education of the child. Its agencies.-The conference has not favored the creation of new educational agencies; it has endeavored rather to discover the agencies already at work in the field, to make these more effective wherever possible by more efficient organization and more adequate equipment, and has recognized in them the instruments for the realization of its ends. It has thus called into its service the women's clubs, the pulpit, and the press, and the whole educational machinery of the Southern States, with those social, political, and economic forces which this comprehends. Thus the conference, needing but little organization within itself, is |