judgment it were best that the request should be complied with. As to the result, I quote from her own records:

“Pending several days' delay, thought was busy, prayers went up to the Throne. The Holy Ghost whispered to the heart, "Go." The life desire for the foreign had but recently given place and preference for the home-mission field. It was God's will! When the opinion, touching the appointment of a teacher for the locality, was called for, it was answered, "Send me!" Objections were urged, 'desirable and lucrative situations in seminaries' were open. These had not been wanting at home. For work of this kind had she left all; Christ had chosen her path; she chose to do His will, believing that for this cause she had come to this generation. Still the decision was delayed, still her eye of faith was fixed on the lone star of the Northwest. "Three days later and this incorrigible young lady received her commission, which covered the entire extent of territory between Wisconsin and the Rocky Mountains, north of Iowa down to the north pole,' and at once started on her perilous journey' westward. The Father who had directed the commission went before, and prospered her way,' causing obstacles to recede and mountains of opposition to become stepping-stones to a higher, holier atmosphere of divine love.

"On Saturday morning, July 13th, 1847, the trip had been accomplished. The heart beat with profoundest gratitude for ‘journeying mercies,' when from a canoe, manned (?) by two squaws and the missionaries for chephorones, she looked on the scene of her future labors, yet with only a vague certainty of the actual reality." Let this suffice for the past.

During your stay in this region you will see something of the developments made from the seed-sowing time of Miss Bishop's first labors. The record of her individual work has been made up; but who shall reckon up the influence of the lines which she set in motion? Her name and memory are held in grateful recollection by all who know her. All honor to Miss Harriet E. Bishop, the first "school teacher" north of Iowa and west of Wisconsin!

You have received a hearty welcome by others, from the State, municipal, and all the educational departments of our commonwealth. No further words are needed. It only remains for me to hand over to you, Mr. President, this weapon of authority, and bespeak for you the happiest and most interesting as it will be the largest) session in the history of the Association.

RESPONSES.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION,

To his Excellency the Governor of Minnesota, to the chairman of the Local Executive Committee, to the chairman of the School Board of this city, and to all who have extended to us this magnificent welcome, we return you our most hearty thanks.

The National Educational Association is the most favored association in the world. It always meets in the grandest city, amid the most enlightened and progressive people, under the bluest skies, with the finest climate and the most perfect weather, no matter where it goes nor whether it rains or shines.

Though we have become accustomed to this, we always welcome again these welcoming words, which we know come from the heart, and mean so much. We know that hearts, hearths and homes are open to us to-day in this city. We know that citizens have laid aside their work, their usual avocations, and for weeks and months have devoted themselves to those undertakings that alone make these great meetings successful. We know -a few of us, who have stood near these men as they have been doing this work we know, as most of you cannot know, how hard and laborious this effort has been; and, representing this great Association, this magnificent assembly, from our hearts. we tender you all our most earnest thanks.

We are here to-day representing every portion of this great continent, every State and every Territory—if there is one left to-day—in the Union. From North and South and East and West, and from that center which has become the grandest of all—that center represented by the Missouri, Mississippi, and Ohio valleys, which is to be the center of power, the center of population, the center of the most magnificent civilization; from all points of the compass, then, from center to circumference, and circumference to center again, we are here to do our work, to meet each other, to stand shoulder to shoulder, and get the inspiration of the elbow-touch just as did those who went down to the front in the angry days of the conflict in the seemingly so long gone by. And we are here to work out, in our way, as magnificent a destiny as they wrought in their day and hour. We are here because a country that is worth dying for, is worth living for, and living for intelligently. We are here because we believe that only an intelligent citizenship can maintain a free republic. We are here in the spirit that sent our fathers into the New World, seeking not only a home but a right-of-way and space in which to grow. We are here because we desire to render truer service to our fellow-men. We are here because we believe in pedigree-the pedigree of brains, the pedigree that makes itself felt in eyes that are keener and more masterful, in fingers that are more deft, and in feet that are more swift in the service of our fellow-men. When pedigree counts in that way it counts most royally, and we are at the fountain-source of a new nobility. We believe that on that line is to be found the highest honor. But we are here to-day representing, perhaps more than any other one thing, that great system of public education, that system which has been with us from the beginning; that system which has been the greatest factor in our national growth; that system which takes every child of the republic, lifts him out of the morass of ignorance and puts him on the firm highway of intelligence; that system which is the great emancipator, which strikes off the fetters of ignorance from every child within the limits of the State; that system which gives a free right-of-way to highest culture and highest citizenship; that system which is waved over a community like a divining-rod, bringing out the best there is wherever it may be, often in the most unlikeliest spots; that system which has taken material from the rough and underlying rock of the common people, and has made for us magnificent

pillars of the State; that system which has so far and so long and so thoroughly and so magnificently met every demand, and satisfied every hope and earned for itself such a superb place in our whole economic and political life.

We are here to-day with the one voice and sentiment of a united people to assert that this system, this public system, this education of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

THE SECRETARY OF THE ASSOCIATION.

The cordial words of welcome which have been expressed to us by the Governor of your State, by the representatives of education in this great commonwealth, by the executive authorities of your city, and by so many distinguished educators in the Northwest, we are most willing and ready to accept. We believe your kind words to be the honest expression of your hearts and the sincere reflection of your sentiments. But if we were disposed to doubt it, the preparation which you have made for our comfort, the cordial welcome which you have extended to us everywhere, the honor which you have done us by presenting so many of your citizens before us, would remove every doubt. We thank you, fellow-citizens, for this, most sincerely.

Your State Superintendent has told you that the schoolmaster was abroad. The elaborate entertainment which you have provided for us, and this welcome, make the schoolmaster feel perfectly at home. We have always been made to feel at home in every portion of the United States. Those who have been members of this Association and have followed these meetings for the past years, have now traveled in every part of the United States. We have been welcomed in the North, in the South, in the East, in the West, and in the center. We have gathered together from time to time from all portions of this great country, for the discussion of questions of education. And if there be a body within the limits of this great nation whose hearts should feel warm to every portion of the country, who should love the people of this grand republic, it is this association of teachers. And so it should be, that those who have to teach the youth of our land should teach them with broad and liberal views and with warm and cordial hearts—with hearts that beat with sympathy for the cause of education and progress in every part of this great republic.

THE TREASURER OF THE ASSOCIATION.

I am no orator as Brutus is, for the reason that for the past four or five years I have been so busy looking after the filthy lucre for the Association that I have not had time to cultivate the graces of oratory.

It has been my fortune more or less for thirty years to attend these meetings. We have been welcomed in a great many places: in Wisconsin in '85, Kansas in '86, Chicago in '87, where we received an exceedingly warm wel come; over the mountains in '88, where we owned the State to all intents and purposes; and last year in Nashville, Tennessee; and as the result of these visits the Association has come to believe with the politician, that there is no North,

South, East, or West. Everywhere it has found the warm welcomes, blue skies and gracious words which you have so cordially extended to us to-day.

I do not think the city of St. Paul will have to increase its police force owing to our coming, but I cannot say so much for the city's commissary department. Teachers are like Cassius, they have a lean and hungry look[Here the gavel fell.]

W. T. HARRIS, UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION.

The nation that proclaims itself a government of all the people by all the people, a government of universal freedom, is necessarily founded on virtue and intelligence. Virtue and intelligence are not a product of nature, but of education, moral and intellectual. Education of all citizens in schools is therefore a supreme concern in this nation. In response, therefore, to the kind words of welcome that have just now been extended to the National Educational Association, the several States and the nation have a feeling of satisfaction. To you of Minnesota, the guardians of the northern marches of this great republic, the nation extends its congratulations for your wise and thoughtful provision for public education. You have laid solid the basis of your system in primary schools, and you have crowned the lofty structure by a State University whose spiritual eminence is visible to all parts of the land. These delegates, who come hither from all parts of the Union, will find inspiration and strength. The greatest thought which we as a people have yet formed is the idea of promoting self-help. Freedom means self-help. The only help that it is safe for one man to give another is that help which promotes selfhelp. This is the only safe help, either on the part of the individual, or the city, or the State, or the nation, that may be given. Any other gift may prove an evil in disguise.

In your generous proffer of education without money and without price to all within your borders, and of all grades of education from the infant school to the university, our delegates from all parts of this land recognize the soundest of political principles. Education is first of all the business of the individual himself. It is in the next place the business of the family. Every member of the family is interested in the education of every other member of the family. But likewise the social community, each and every member of it, is interested in the education of all individuals. Education is also an interest of the nation, and every State and every section of this great republic is interested in the prosperity of the schools in every other State and section.

There is, indeed, no perfect safety except on this broad basis of education in virtue and intelligence. Without it the average temperament of our common government will be lowered by demagogism, which always thrives where there is lack of virtue and lack of intelligence. The two pillars of school education are good behavior and intellectual training. The good school by its discipline secures obedience to order and habitual respect for the rights of others—regularity, punctuality, silence, industry, truth-telling, courtesy, a

kindly fellow-feeling for others- these are the elements of good behavior as found in school. The school is not a substitute for the church, nor can the church perform the functions of the school without loss of efficiency in its own field. But the good school in its insistence on right behavior and the training of the intelligence does its part to build up the church and give us decent and respectable members of society, and law-abiding and peace-loving citizens. Therefore all sections of the Union should rejoice to see the annual educational gathering as full of grand purpose and aiming at achieving so glorious a goal.

E. B. M'ELROY, STATE SUPERINTENDENT, OREGON.

With all respect to your honored President, I did not come as a substitute for the Superintendent of Public Instruction in California. I came first and foremost to represent the State of Oregon very largely, and only this. The Pacific Northwest, as I understand the topic, is represented by the States of California, Oregon, Washington, and Montana, and the Territories of Idaho and Utah. This is a great field. Some one has truly said that we have no North, no South; but we have a grand Pacific Northwest, and we fully expect that we will be peopled, through the influence of this great Association very largely, by the intelligent and industrial people of the other four points of the compass. One other thing: not only the 2,500 teachers, but the 100,000 children of Oregon in our public schools, and likewise thousands of our most intelligent citizens and the leaders of our local association, extend to you, the officers and members of this the grandest association on earth, an invitation to hold your meeting in 1894 in the city of Portland. At that time we will give you a warm welcome, from the warm hearts of 100,000 people, and at the capital of our State. We thank all these honorable gentlemen for what they have said; we appreciate all they have told us. We have come two thousand miles or more to make this three-minute speech, and we would not hesitate for a moment to make a minute-and-a-half speech for the benefit of this Association under like circumstances.

PRESIDENT HOMER B. SPRAGUE, NORTH DAKOTA.*

Mr. President, you have asked me to respond in behalf of the Northwest. What is the Northwest? At the beginning of our national career, a hundred years ago, it might possibly have extended as far as what is now the city of Buffalo. Buffalo! significant name! Twenty-five years passed, and the region so designated had perhaps come to include Cleveland, Indianapolis, or Detroit; fifty years, and Chicago and Milwaukee were on its outer fringe; twenty-five years more, and within its limits the great twin cities were just born. The Northwest of to-day is the central region of the continent. Bisect North America by a parallel, again by a meridian: these lines cross, I think, in the valley of the Red River of the North.

What shall I say of education in this new Northwest? I cannot, in this

*Ordered printed, in the unavoidable absence of the speaker.