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ADDRESSES OF WELCOME. 
ad 
shanks that now their faces and their voices are to be familiar to us, to 
give us an inspiration, here and now, which shall be with us as a jovous 
memory and a help for evermore. 
Never before was interest in educational things so widespread within 
the borders of our own land. The last two decades have been creative 
decades in the work of education. Even in the South, which so long 
lagged behind the North and the West, what a change there has been 
since the war! Out of the very depths of a misery and a poverty which 
we in the North cannot begin to understand, they too have taken up these 
oreat ideas of public education, and have taxed themselves, with a gener- 
osity which we cannot but admire, for the education both of the white 
and the black. (Applause.) 
It was not long since that I had a conversation with a gentleman who 
has done more than almost any other for the promotion of education in 
she South ; a prolonged ‘conversation, running until midnight, discussing 
she practical and difficult problems of the South with a pathos and an 
earnestness which I shall never forget. At the close of the hours I said 
0 him : What remedy have you for these terrible problems with which 
jou are confronted there ?” He arose, with an expression of anguish, 
shrough which yet there was a ray of hope in his face, and with a fervor 
and an earnestness which I shall never forget, stamping his foot upon the 
oor, said : ¢“It is very dark ; we can hardly see an arm’s length before 
as; but one thing I know: it must be eternally right to educate the 
negro, to educate and Christianize the negro.” (Applause.) | 
In no subject has there been greater advancement made in the last two 
decades than in education : how it has been studied historically ; how it 
has been studied psychologically ; how it has been studied experimentally. 
Scientific education has been really created in the United States within 
fhe last thirty years. The changes in the college methods of education 
have been so great within thirty years as to be described by no other 
name, justly, except that of revolution. Now all the larger colleges and 
aniversities are bending their energy to the cultivation of graduate work, 
that we may achieve something that may truly be called university work 
in our larger and stronger institutions. And now I hope, as we have come 
here, we shall get many results from this meeting. 
Never was there a programme, I believe, prepared with such care and 
with such promise as that into which our distinguished friend, Dr. 
Harris, has thrown his genius and his labor. (Applause.) Where, if ever, 
aas there been such an assemblage of men and women distinguished by 
experience and study, to instruct us in the discussion of the subjects of that 
programme ? And I hope that among all the other results that we shall 
gain we'shall gain this one, viz.: to feel the common consciousness of unity 
among all the grades and ranks of teachers from the highest to the low- 
est. Let us feel that our work is one work. We have wrought too much