of industrialism and makes wealth possible. The toiler depends upon education for progress and development, and so does every other class if, indeed, that class hopes to survive.

A nation without battleships, but with an enlightened people, is well fortified and need entertain no fear, for the blessings and advantages that accrue from a great common education easily take care of such minor considerations as a means of physical defense. Give us our institutions for practical learning, as we are inevitably welded together, the masters of science, philosophy, and the art of government, and we are strong beyond all comprehension.

Again I extend to you San Francisco's heartiest welcome. Come within our gates and there abide. We appreciate your presence and will make it our successful endeavor to demonstrate that fact to you while you are among us.

I thank you.

III. BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER, PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, CAL.

The American public school confronts today an utterly different task from that implied in the purposes which first gave it birth. It was called into being to serve the uses of a reasonably homogeneous people-homogeneous in language and traditions-under a strong predominance of AngloSaxon blood and spirit. The sources of Anglo-Saxon immigration have long since been choked and the Anglo-Saxon stock in the new world becomes less and less productive with the years. It is a dying and vanishing race. Within the last decade the scale has abruptly tipped, in the count of population, from the old inhabitant to the newcomer. In our chief American city scarcely one in ten is old American, and even in old New Haven but one child in five in the public schools is of native parentage. In Boston the balance has already shifted from the Puritan to the newcomer. The old United States as it existed before the Civil War is hurrying off the scene, and a new people mixed of many European bloods, most of which had little or no share in the original occupation, is coming to possess the land, and give inevitably a new meaning to the name American-a new meaning inevitably, so far as it refers to blood and bone and even to type and temperament, but what of ideas and ideals? Can or cannot the precious heritage of social liberty and equal opportunity which long struggle and sacrifice have associated with the word Americanism be safely transferred along with the name from the old possessors to the new? The time is short, the inheritors are legion, the possession vanishes from the hand of him who understandeth not, like a tender perfume from the unsealed jar.

Whether the transfer can be made, that is the new problem which confronts us as a people; and the solution of this problem constitutes the new task which the unfoldings of these later years have revealed and assigned.

to the American public school. The splendid institutions of enlightenment -schools, libraries, museums, institutes of art and instruction, which the sons of the Boston Puritans created for themselves and their children, have already been assigned-by a power that knew better why they builded than they themselves knew-to the task of assimilating into the American community the children of those whom Europe neglected and oppressed. Such too may well be the destiny of that whole system of institutions shaped to the betterment of society with which the old Americans as forerunners endowed this land. They may be a vanishing race, but if an estate which they, beyond the ordinary measure of men, were potent to create shall have served for the betterment of mankind in the hands even of heirs by adoption, they will have done their work and justified their existence. This is no new thing in the ways of the world and the fates of the races of man. The Myceneans inspired in the later-coming Greeks the zeal for building and art, and the Etruscans laid foundations upon which the Latins learned to build the Eternal City by which in the process of the years wave after wave of invading barbarism has been absorbed into civilization.

The most potent instrument by which the school operates to mold the diverse elements of population into a people capable of nationality is the maintenance of a common standard of speech. Difference of race loses, in the presence of unity of speech, its divisive power. Nationality all over the world tends more and more to shape itself on social intercourse as determined by language. The power to make oral use of the English tongue simply, directly, exactly, is a fundamental equipment for good citizenship and effective living. The establishment of this use thruout the nation is a fundamental guaranty of that uniformity of intercourse among its citizens which provides a basis for the permanent commonwealth. It is the plain and correct use of language that we ask the schools to teach and not to neglect it in the pursuit of the artificialities of rhetoric and the aesthetics of literature.

American does not mean Anglo-Saxon, nor is it at all a word of race. We are a nation by virtue of our common speech, and more than that, by virtue of certain instincts, faiths, and predilections which we group under the term Americanism, and these are some of them: to judge men as individuals and not as members of a class or by the possession of goods; to abhor fixed and wooden standards in the judgment of flesh and blood and to try to see things as the other fellow sees them; to shift often the perspective lest little things gain bigness by being too near the eye; to resent the exaction of the uttermost farthing; to count on human brotherhood despite the race lines; to be interested in everything human; to be hospitable toward innovation and change; to have constant faith in betterment and belief that all which lives improves; to trust many things to right themselves; to have more confidence in the law that is within than

in the exercise of force; to allow a man free opportunity for unfolding his life; and to give all men of whatever class or wealth equal standing before the law. We are ludicrous optimists; we tolerate all sorts of laxities; we are humbugged and deluded; we suffer from lack of training; we waste our materials fearfully: but we are charitable toward the diversities of human character and equipment, and with all our losses prefer to give men their freedom rather than make them machines.

This is Americanism. It is the religion of a land where all the races. of Europe are mingling their bloods and tempers to bring into being the new occidental man and set him to face the man of the East. And here today, where half the world looks out thru its farthermost gate toward the other world-half, that power which has in its hands the fate of the peoples has assembled and seated itself in council-the American public school.

IV.

R. B. HALE, VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE PANAMA-PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL
EXPOSITION COMPANY

Members of the National Education Association:

On behalf of the president and board of directors of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition Company, and the people of the West, I am pleased to say a word of welcome to the members of the National Education Association.

Our work in promoting an exposition, in a sense, supplements the efforts of our educators. While you carry forward a great comprehensive plan on a national scale, our work is international in scope. We are bringing within the borders of the United States examples of the world's achievements in art, science, and invention, ancient and modern, that they may be compared side by side and explained in an intelligent manner to all seekers after knowledge.

From the time of the first great fair in London, in 1851, down to the present, expositions have advanced along progressive lines until today they have become scientific. Experts have been developed in every branch of exposition building. Foreign governments have come to recognize the advantages derived from really great expositions, and are specializing in their efforts to attract the world's attention. The Far East is also awakening along these lines, as is evidenced by Japan's determination to hold a world's exposition in 1917.

The modern exposition exemplifies the secret of the true scholar. "Every man is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him." The people of every nation do some one thing better than the people of any other nation. Each has its own peculiarities; each excels in something. All coming together, displaying their arts and wares in one city, will afford a wonderful opportunity for educational advantages. This in itself will justify all the exposition will cost in time and effort. Never in recorded

history has the world made such material progress as during the last few years. Doctor Peabody has well said:

A world's fair is an epitome of the world's progress; a history and a prophecy. The latest discoveries, the newest inventions, the triumphs in art, in science, in education, in the solution of social and even religious problems, are here arrayed. Here stand the most effective dynamo; the swiftest locomotive; the telescope piercing the remotest heavens; the most productive printing press; the most destructive artillery; machines that spin, weave, set type, thresh grain, mine coal, drill rock, fashion railway cars; the artist's dream on canvas or in marble, in clustering column or aspiring dome, in woven fabric or decorated vase; the flower's effulgence or the fruit's alluring blush; all products of the soil, the mine, the sea; whatever testifies to the industry, the skill, the creative and almost divine power of human thought when stimulated to its most earnest endeavors. Thus, at each latest exposition doth Mother Earth make a new inventory of her acquisitions. Thus does she erect at each station in her march toward the stars a monument inscribed with a record of her victories.

RESPONSE TO ADDRESSES OF WELCOME

ROBERT J. ALEY, PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF MAINE, ORONO, ME. Madam President, Governor Johnson, Mayor McCarthy, President Wheeler' Ladies and Gentlemen:

I esteem it a very great honor to respond to the welcome so generously given. The welcome itself has the true and genuine ring of the West. I am glad to respond to it, because I believe you mean it.

Personally, I represent the most eastern higher institution of learning in the United States. Officially, I speak in the name of half a million teachers scattered from Eastport to Cape Mendocino and from Portal to Key West. I speak, also, in behalf of 18,500,000 school children who daily gather for instruction in 262,000 school buildings. I speak in behalf of a body of men and women who receive annually $220,000,000 in salary, an amount nearly $65,000,000 in excess of that paid for pensions and $14,000,ooo short of that required to maintain our army and navy upon a peace basis. I speak, therefore, for a most important constituency.

No city or state has ever entertained a convention which will reach in a direct way so many people. Every teacher in the land is here in spirit. Every one of them will know something of our deliberations. There is not a child in any school in America but what will be touched in some way by the results of these meetings. Thru the children the influence of this meeting will reach every home in the land. In view of these things, your state and city welcome a body of men and women who have the destiny of the Republic in their control.

I am most proud to receive your words of welcome, because they are given to a great institution—the school. When the first settlers came to America they were not slow to organize a town meeting, build a church, and open a school. In the first of these institutions there have been many

disputes and some failures, in the second many schisms and heart-breaking controversies, but in the third, the school, there has been widespread interest and general agreement. To it the people have been loyal in theory and practice. For it they have sacrificed much, and upon it they have spent freely their money. The school is a great common institution and is essential to the welfare, even to the perpetuity of the Republic. A monarchy may get on with an ignorant citizenship, but in a Republic where every man is a king and every woman a queen, all must know.

The success of our government in its municipal, state, and federal activities bears high testimony to the intelligence of our citizenship.

The school preserves the common knowledge which civilization has found necessary and useful, and passes it on to the succeeding generation. The school utilizes the new additions to human knowledge and prepares them for instruction. The school, by its organization, its system, its requirements in punctuality and order, trains the youth of the land in these most essential virtues. The school is the greatest moral force at work among our people.

So long as one is dissatisfied with his achievements and present position, there is hope for him. One of the greatest functions of the school is to fill youth with a holy unrest. The school turns back the cover of knowledge and causes it to challenge the beholder. It gives a glimpse of the unknown and urges exploration. It was unrest and dissatisfaction that brought the Argonauts across the desert and around the Horn to this land of golden opportunities. The school that performs its duty well makes Argonauts of the boys and girls who enjoy its privileges.

The great developments and scientific achievements of recent years depend upon obedience to law. The making of a needle or a battleship depends at every step upon strict obedience to law. If the law of the needle or the battleship is violated in any part of the process, the result is a poor needle or a worthless battleship. The growing of the prize ear of corn is in obedience to law. If you do not believe this, ask Clore, the corn king of America, who has spent twenty-five years in ascertaining corn law. The school is doing great work today in bringing the children of America to an appreciation of law as the most fundamental thing in life. Where it succeeds in establishing faith in law and a consuming desire to know law and obey it, its product goes out to bless and to serve.

In conclusion, let me assure you that the teachers of this Republic, the children, who are its future hope, and the school itself-the greatest institution we have-accept with pleasure the welcome so generously given.