ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 
THE CHAIRMAN'S OPENING ADDRESS. 
BY GEN. JOHN EATON, EX-COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION. 
Ladies and Gentlemen :~—~In the performance of the duty assigned me 
at this hour, you will not thank me if by extended remarks I delay the 
feast of wisdom gathered here from the four quarters of the educational 
world for your enjoyment. We are to address ourselves to elementary 
aducation. 
Any department of education is too important to be belittled by com- 
parison. We disparage none, but we must not fail to estimate at its true 
value that assigned us for our attention. All worthy education appeals 
to the sublimest considerations. How tremendous the consequence of 
any formative touch of man’s nature, physical, mental, or moral ! 
All that may be said of education in general, bears upon elementary 
instruction, including, as it does, that which is imparted in the first eight 
years of school attendance, or in the ages from six to fourteen. All other 
divisions of educational work must be limited to a number less than the 
whole. They may deal with data more profound, complex, and difficult, 
and lead the student farther into specialties, trades, arts. sciences. or 
philosophy. 
But elementary education, though not occupied with the highest 
ceaches of subjects taught, must direct their beginnings. How manifold 
are these sources of the profoundest currents of thought encountered in 
later life | In the child are all the elements of the future man, Besides, 
she mind is less self-directed, and more dependent upon the teacher. 
Here the teacher must not only be master of his subjects, as elsewhere, he 
must have the power to simplify and adapt them. Moreover, there is no 
limitation to the number due to elementary instruction less than the total 
of child life ; it should be for all mankind. Here all must start; through 
this door all must enter their specialties of toil of brain or hand. Even 
she blind, deaf, dumb, and feeble-minded—the exceptional by nature—are 
not excepted here. There must be adaptations to them. Here all roads 
are one ; no child is too perfect or too defective to enter. Beyond, the 
paths are many, and open to choice, and less numbers travel them. 
Much is said of the effect of the “start upon the finish.” The marks- 
man must get a ‘‘ good ready,” or expect to hit wide of the mark. The 
higher the object, the more distant the star to be reached by the eye,