in all the land, and who are also making a most practical and successful use of their talents as bread-winners in the field of professional and industrial life. I take great pride in what the women of Colorado have accomplished in this direction, and my word of welcome is made the more emphatic by the consciousness I have that you, our honored and distinguished guests, will truly appreciate their endeavors and their successes.

Associations like these are not only valuable for the work they do but for the quickening of the esprit de corps. Here we are at full liberty to idealize our profession. Looking, then, at the various agencies which are influential for good in the world, we must place the teachers in the highest position of honor. As public servants they have done more for the country than presidents, or senators, or representatives, more than the financial managers of great corporations, more than any who contribute to our political and material welfare, for day by day and year by year they have been training, molding, and developing the immortal lives of those who are bound to us in God-given mysteries and eternal affections. With the world in view they have looked into the future far as human eye can see, and they have set in motion powers whose dynamic energies will not cease even when the heavens be no more. They have initiated possibilities of companionship and helpful experiences which will fill our lives with hope and cause them to abound in realized anticipations. They have submitted to painful anxieties and carried weighty responsibilities in order that others may see of the travail of their souls and be satisfied. They have heard complaints, been humiliated by aspersions, and sometimes confounded by awful depths of ignorance, but they have maintained their dignity and fulfilled their duty, independent of the gross stupidities of a fractious and foolish criticism. They have evolved order out of chaotic imaginations, reduced to symmetry uncouth habits, compelled respectful attention to lawful authority, awakened dull souls out of sleep, controlled the vanities and self-conceits of the quick-witted, rebuked the idle and untruthful, praised the industrious and honorable, and out of manifold discords they have brought a well-pleasing and harmonious rhythm.

It is thus that the profession you represent is estimated in the minds of thoughtful and understanding men and women. It is to make this picture real in all respects that the women of my state are ready to lend and give their influence and their newly acquired power. As representing them, unworthily it may be, but with truth of heart and sincerity of purpose, I bid you, men and women of the National Educational Association, thrice welcome.

RESPONSES.

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, COLUMBIA COLLEGE, NEW YORK CITY, PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION.

It is with sincere pleasure that I accept, on behalf of this vast body of teachers, the cordial expressions of welcome and good will with which you have greeted us. Our annual meetings are constantly increasing sources of pleasure and of profit to us, and we come together at this time on the crest of the continent to renew our old friendships, to make new ones, and to counsel together, as best we may, in behalf of the great human interests that society has committed to our care. Never in our history as an association have we been more heartily welcomed, never have more complete and efficient arrangements been made for our care, and never have we assembled in a city and a state that offered more to interest and to instruct us. We come from every nook and corner of this great Union and from Canada, and if any state or territory is wholly unrepresented, that fact has escaped my attention.

To many of us these vast plains and towering mountains are new revelations of the wonders of nature, and on every side there abound evidences of the marvelous ingenuity and power of man. The Centennial State has attracted us like a magnet, and it is believed that the largest attendance at any previous meeting of our body will be exceeded here. We anticipate a meeting of unusual value, both to ourselves and to the educational interests of our common country, and we are of one mind in assuring you that nothing that Denver and Colorado could do to promote our comfort and our welfare has been left undone. No representative of Colorado can truthfully say, "Silver and gold have I none," but such as you have you have certainly given us with ample generosity. On behalf of the National Educational Association, I tender you hearty thanks for this warm reception, and accept, Mr. Chairman, this gavel from your hands, and declare the sessions now formally opened.

IRWIN SHEPARD, WINONA, MINN., SECRETARY OF THE ASSOCIATION.

Seven years ago we passed through your city three thousand strong, following your honored superintendent, then president, Aaron Gove, to the Pacific coast, to that great and memorable meeting at San Francisco. We stopped on our way to enjoy for a time-all too

short your beautiful city and its scenic surroundings, and while we tarried we hoped that the association would soon be called to meet in Denver. The call has come, and we are here. Your cordial welcomes, so eloquently spoken, find in our hearts a glad response which words can but feebly express. At our state meetings at Christmas time, we received by telegraph greetings from the chairman of your executive committee which said to the teachers of New England: "Come in July and see our snow-capped peaks, that show a thousand welcome face in a thousand hours;" to the Pacific coast: "The crest of the continent to the Golden Gate-greeting. Come in July." Montana and Idaho received the message: "Mountains to the mountains -greeting. Come in July." The teachers of the South were invited to "Come from the land of ever-blooming flowers to see the wonders wrought in the heart of the great American Desert." While all over this broad land the welcome ran, to "Come and rest among

The hills

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun-the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between."

Ever since, we have read in the daily press and in the "Official Bulletin," of the large preparations which were making for our entertainment and comfort, not only in Denver but throughout the entire State of Colorado. To-day all the pleasant hopes which your forerunning welcomes had aroused are more than fulfilled in the eloquent words to which we have listened, in the cordial hand-clasp, in the spoken greetings, and in the thoughtful, courteous attentions by which we have been surrounded since the moment of our arrival.

It has been my personal privilege during the past months, and especially during the past ten days, to note the work of your local executive committees, and through their zeal, their largeness of plan, and efficiency of execution, to measure the hospitality of your people.

This is not alone a visit to Denver for social pleasure and physical recreation, but for intellectual and professional re-creation as well. We have gathered to consider the most important questions which concern the people of this great nation, namely, the complete and the right education of the children of all the people. Nearly every phase of this great problem has been presented to you. Most prominent among the topics of the general program, and occupying the central place around which all others cluster, you will find this topic, "The Duty and Opportunity of the Schools in Promoting Patriotism and Good Citizenship."

The Grand Army of the Republic once saved our country from disunion and gave it to posterity united more firmly than ever and forever free. This grand army of the past has nearly finished its

work, and, looking about for a most fitting place whereon to set the banner they love and for the organization best suited to perpetuate the freedom they won, have planted "the flag," forever to remain, on the common school house; and have intrusted to the common school teachers of the country-that Grand Army of the Future Republicthe task, not only of preserving the spirit of '76 and '61 but of creating that new and still loftier patriotism which teaches, that, noble as it may be to die for one's country, it is still nobler to live for one's country.

You will also note by the program that the departments open with the kindergarten, and, running through the entire range of all the various grades of school organization, return in an all-embracing circle to the point of starting in the Department of Child Study, thus beginning and ending with the child.

Again we thank you for your cordial welcome, and in turn welcome you to join with us in our convention deliberations, concerning how we may best educate this child which has been set in our midst.

COL. FRANCIS W. PARKER, PRINCIPAL OF COOK COUNTY NORMAL SCHOOL, ENGLEWOOD, ILL.

Mr. Chairman and Fellow Teachers:

It is indeed a great honor to represent in any way the teachers of this great nation.

Ladies and gentlemen, never on earthly footstool was camped such an army; not in the Crusades, under the banner of the Holy Cross; not by Alexander, Cæsar, or Napoleon, was there ever marshalled such an army, so potent for good as this which is within your borders to-day-this army, the army that battles with the sword of the spirit for the freedom of the human race. The common school system of America is the most divine institution that ever sprang from the heart of man, inspired by the eternal God. It means life and character to every child under the flag, yea, under the shining sun. This army comes to camp here on this high ground. I am glad Denver has always taken such "high ground." We come to receive your generous wealth. We behold your clean streets-we of Chicago where woman has at last taken the broom. We come from the far distant New England, from Maine, from Massachusetts, and I may say that all Massachusetts teachers have fallen in love with nature, such as it appears in your mountains. We come from the Northern States, from the glorious land of the palm and the pine, and from the Mother of Presidents; from the great states that bear the mighty Mississippi to the sea; from all over this broad land, binding with

its fertile acres and manifold interests the states of this great Union into one; from the Pacific coast, and from the Golden Gate, that land of bounteous gifts and limitless generosity; from the newest of the states, Utah-God bless her and bring her into this great Union, for she is a rainbow of promise. We clasp hands-no longer over the bloody chasm, for that is closed forever by the influence of the teacher and the common school, and over its tomb has arisen again, in a new resurrection, the spirit of the life of the Master. We clasp hands under the old flag, and swear fealty again to the interests of this great republic. With all the progress, and with all the signs of the progress, that we bring to you, there is a new spirit coming; the common school system has witnessed its organization, the work of mighty men and women, and now it is moving on in a spirit of study and research. It has taken from the old world all it could get, and that is nuch. It has received from Germany its philosophy and psychology and its methods, but there is one thing we never can get from any. where on the face of this earth, and that is an educational system adapted to the evolution of pure democracy. The future public school is to solve this question, and the ideal school is to be the ideal community. The child is not in school for knowledge. He is there to live, and to put his life, nurtured in the school, into the community. This question is to be solved in the public schools of America.

EX-GOV. W. J. NORTHEN, ATLANTA, GA.

His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor of Colorado; His Honor the Mayor of Denver; Mrs. Peavey, the Superintendent of Education of this State; Ladies and Gentlemen of the Association:

Like the distinguished gentleman who has immediately preceded me, I have been puzzling my brain somewhat, since I reached this city, to determine why the president of this association did me the honor to invite me to represent the teachers of the South upon this occasion.

I am not now a teacher. The only answer that I have been able to make to the inquiry is, that the president desired to present to the convention a man who could be induced by the allurements of political office and its doubtful compensations to abandon the loftiest profession known among civilized men.

In confirmation of my opinion of your calling, I was more than pleased, Mr. President, when I reached Kansas City yesterday, to read an editorial in a leading paper, from which I quote something like this: "The teacher constitutes an important element of our