.
IPeabotip education JTunU.
Proceedings of the Trustees
AT THEIR
THIRTY-FOURTH MEETING,
New York,
25 September, 1895.
I
''■
'
PEABODY EDUCATION FUND.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES
AT THEIR
THIRTY-FOURTH MEETING,
New York, 25 September, 1895.
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE GENERAL AGENT,
Hon. J. L. M. CURRY.
CAMBRIDGE:
UNIVERSITY PRESS: JOHX WILSON AND SON.
1895.
?':
J?y
TRUSTEES
OF THE
PEABODY EDUCATION FUND.
THE BOARD AS ORIGINALLY APPOINTED
BY MR. PEABODY.
*Hon. Robert C. Winthrop Massachusetts.
*Hon. Hamilton Fish New York.
*Right Rev. Charles P. McIlvaine . . Ohio.
*General U. S. Grant United States Army.
*Admiral D. G. Farragut United States Navy.
*Hon. William C. Rives Virginia.
*Hon. John H. Clifford Massachusetts.
*Hon. William Aiken South Carolina.
Hon. William M. Evarts New York.
*Hon. William A. Graham A'orth Carolina.
*Charles Maca lester, Esq Pennsylvania.
*George W. Riggs, Esq Washington.
*Samuel Wetmore, Esq New York.
*Ed\vard A. Bradford, Esq. (resigned) . Louisiana.
*George N. Eaton, Esq Maryland.
George Peabody Russell, Esq. (resigned) Massachusetts.
'/pUSTEES OF THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND.
{Continued.)
'/ >,'■ vacancies created by death or resignation have been filled
\,y the election of: —
»li',u. Samuel Watson Tennessee.
•j i>,ti. A. H. H. Stuart (resigned) . . . Virginia.
•( Jeneral Richard Taylor Louisiana.
•S .r,." on- General Joseph K. Barnes, U.S.A. Washington.
•< ..'f- Justice Morrison R. Watte . . . Washington.
Right Rev. Henry B. Whipple .... Minnesota.
Hon. Henry R.Jackson (resigned) . . . Georgia.
Colonel Theodore Lyman (resigned) . . Massachusetts.
•Ex-President Rutherford B. Hayes . . Ohio.
•Hon. Thomas C. Manning Louisiana.
* Anthony J. Drexel, Esq Pennsylvania.
Hon. Samuel A. Green Massachusetts.
Hon. James D. Porter Tennessee.
J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq New York.
President Grover Cleveland Washington.
Hon. -William A. Courtenay South Carolina.
•Hon. Charles Devens Massachusetts.
•Hon Randall L. Gibson Louisiana.
Chief-Justice Melville W. Fuller . . . Washington.
Hon. William Wirt Henry Virginia.
Hon. Henderson M. Somerville . . . Alabama.
Hon. William C. Endicott Massachusetts.
Hon Joseph H. Choate New York.
"(,t ) ,t \\". Childs. Esq Pennsylvania.
Hun. Charles E. Fenner Louisiana.
Damki C. Gilman, LL.D Maryland.
Hon. George Peabody Wetmore . . . Rhode Lsland.
Hon. John Lowell Massachusetts.
Hon J. L. M. Curry, Honorary Member and General Agent,
A'o. 173G A I Street, Washington J). C.
[To whom communications are to be addressed.]
^
PROCEEDINGS
OF
THE TRUSTEES OF THE PEABODY
EDUCATION FUND.
THIRTY-FOURTH MEETING OF THE TRUSTEES.
New York, September 25, 1895.
The Trustees met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel
this day, at 12 o'clock, noon.
There were present : Mr. Evarts, the First Vice-
Chairman, and Messrs. Whipple, Green, Porter,
Morgan, Courtenay, Fuller, Henry, Choate,
Fenner, and Gilman ; and Dr. Curry, the General
Agent.
The records of the last meeting: were read and
accepted, when a prayer was offered by Bishop
Whipple; after which Mr. Evarts addressed the
Board as follows : —
We meet, gentlemen of the Board, this year in the last
week of September, a week in advance of our usual day of
meeting in the first week of October, to accommodate a
public engagement of two of our members, Bishop Whipple
and Treasurer Pierpont Morgan, which calls them to a
distant part of the country in their necessary attendance
6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [OCT.
upon the Triennial General Convention of the Episcopal
Church.
The operations of the Board in the administration of
the charitable endowment of Mr. Peabody have been con-
ducted with the usual regularity, activity and prosperity
during the year under the wise and circumspect direction
of them by our General Agent, Dr. Curry. The details of
this administration will be laid before you by Dr. Curry,
and it is believed that few, if any, changes in the policy
and system of the operations of the Board will be needed
during the coming year. The wise benevolence of Mr.
Peabody in laying out the scheme of administration of the
affairs of the Board under the watchful and sagacious eye
of Mr. Winthrop, the chairman designated by Mr. Peabody
and our only chairman to this day, has made it just and
prudent for the Board to repose complete confidence in
this conduct of its affairs from the beginning.
We have frequently had occasion at our successive
annual re-assembling to lament the death of a valued and
beloved associate, but at this time we miss from our meet-
ing the Chairman, who has almost without interruption
presided over our deliberations. Last year in his declin-
ing health he failed to be present with us, but supplied his
absence by a full and eloquent message displaying at once
his undiminished zeal in the noble work of benevolence in
which we were enlisted and the unimpaired faculties which
he always brought to the service of the Board at its sessions
and throughout the year.
We have always felt that Mr. Peabody's great purposes
in the beneficent endowment which he founded, had he
not had at his command the wise counsels of his friend Mr.
Winthrop in laying out the comprehensive plan of his
great charity and shaping its work to practical and fruitful
results, might have missed much of what has so amply
1 895 •] 0F THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 7
illustrated and justified the wisdom of his design. In the
long period which has brought us nearly to the completed
term of thirty years, which Mr. Peabody had assigned as
the necessary duration of our Trust, we have felt in Mr.
Winthrop's constant watch over the working of this
charity the living spirit of the Founder in Mr. Win-
throp's management of our affairs as well as his own
inspirations.
In the long years of active life, of public spirit and
public labors, which filled up so fully his daily interests,
there was none during the last thirty years in which Mr.
Winthrop felt a more solicitous and sedulous concern than
in carrying out to its utmost sphere of beneficence the
Peabody Endowment.
His very many and quite various positions of public dis-
tinction and public usefulness are recorded in the annals
of the State and the Nation, and have been celebrated in
praise by many eloquent tongues. This is not the place
to rehearse these praises nor to select from them special
instances of the esteem and admiration with which his
countrymen have always regarded him. His whole life
from early manhood was marked by notable topics and
associations which have been elevated, and his enlightened
oratory gave its constant service to the support of good
opinions and good institutions. We inscribe upon the
pages of the minutes of this annual meeting our esteem,
our homage, our affection, and our deep sense of our
bereavement suffered in his death.
At the conclusion of Mr. Evarts's remarks, on
motion it was voted that Chief-Justice Fuller,
Mr. Courtenay, and Mr. Choate be a Committee
to prepare a minute for the records in relation
to Mr. WiNTHRor.
8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES. [Oct., 1895.
Mr. Evarts was chosen Chairman of the Board,
and Chief-Justice Fuller First Vice-Chairman, in
place of Mr. Evarts; and Bishop Whipple was
re-chosen Second Vice-Chairman.
On motion of Dr. Green, the Hon. John Lowell,
of Boston, was unanimously chosen a Trustee to fill
the vacancy caused by the death of Mr. Winthrop.
Dr. Curry, the General Agent, presented his
Report, which was accepted, and ordered to be
printed as usual.
REPORT OF HON. J. L. M. CURRY,
General Agent.
To the Trustees of the Peabody Education Fund :
It has not seemed fit, since my connection with the
Fund as the chief administrative officer, that the death of
a Trustee should be made the occasion of a personal
tribute to his memory or worth ; but our last affliction
is so peculiar, comes so close to all of us, affects the
Board so vitally in membership and policy, as to justify a
departure from the usual silence.
My personal relations and intercourse with Mr. Winthrop
were so intimate that it is hard to accustom myself to the
great privation. In my cherished possession are hundreds
of letters written by him on various subjects, from which it
would not be difficult to form a portraiture of his character,
and of what concerned, most constantly and deeply, his
thoughts and wishes. His life and eminent attainments
made him touch society, our country, and humanity at
so many points, and his ability was so great and his
influence so marked, that no man of recent days was
more fully a representative of the whole country, or drew
the different sections more lovingly into bonds of peace
and fraternity.
Because possessed of a combination of rarest qualities,
Mr. Winthrop was often chosen to preside at business
meetings and festive banquets, and over legislative bodies.
For sixteen years he was President of the Massachusetts
Bible Society ; for thirty years, of the Massachusetts
IO PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
Historical Society ; for twenty-five years, of the Boston
Provident Association ; for eleven years, of the Children's
Hospital ; for ten years, of the Trustees of the Episcopal
Theological School at Cambridge, Mass.; for three years
he was Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Repre-
sentatives, and for two years also of the Federal House of
Representatives. He was an ideal presiding officer; and
Mr. Peabody, with his excellent knowledge of men, desig-
nated him as Chairman of this body. For twenty-seven
years he acted as such, discharging the duties with
unabated interest ; and all recall how carefully he pre-
arranged everything, with admirable taste and for the
wisest consideration of the matters of the Trust. As
early as 1870 he began that remarkable series of introduc-
tory addresses, forecasting the action of the session, which
are models of purest English. He understood exactly
what he ought to do as the head of the Trust, and how
to do it. The Hon. William Everett, in the Harvard
Magazine, truthfully says : " That ceremony which con-
sists in conducting with elegance, precision, and dignity
whatever has to be done before others, with due respect
to tradition and due regard to every person and thing
concerned, and takes full account of time, place, and man-
ner, assumed in his hands a positive and individual char-
acter, utterly refuting such nonsense as that America is
no place for gentlemen."
While personal dignity, equal courtesy, and faultless
propriety marked his whole demeanor in the Chair, every-
thing was subordinated to the objects and ends of the Trust
with whose genesis he was associated as counsellor and
friend. Having advised in the preparation — if he did not
write the substance — of the letter of gift, he suggested
the appointment of the Southern Trustees (Rives, Aiken,
Graham, and Bradford), and possibly of others. Liberal
1895-] 0F THE TEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 1 1
benefactions have been made for founding or endowing
institutions of learning ; but Mr. Peabody, with true phi-
lanthropy and sagacious love of country and institutions,
sought to supply the needs of those most destitute of
educational means and privileges. As Mr. Winthrop
shared in this desire for the education of the masses, I
ask permission to write of him in that connection, leaving
to others to narrate the social, religious, political, historical,
and literary aspects of a life so full of instruction, and to
hold him up before the youth of the land as a " lover of
his Commonwealth, his country, his race, and his God,"
as the model citizen, patriot, statesman, orator, and
philanthropist.
From his entrance into public life, in the Massachusetts
House of Representatives, to its close in the Senate of the
United States, Mr. Winthrop was the wise and unceasing
friend of universal education. He entered the Boston
Latin School in 181 8, and cherished with pleasure the
remembrance that he was a " medal boy ;" and in 1856,
when he delivered the oration at the dedication of the
statue of Franklin, which he himself had suggested, he
wore the medal of h:s youthful success. He ever after-
wards took pride in the public schools of Boston, was one
of the earliest promoters of her Public Library, and made
to it the first donation of books. On the 14th of January,
1837, in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, it
was ordered that the Committee on Education consider
the expediency of providing bylaw for the better education
of teachers. In April, Mr. Winthrop for the Committee
reported a Bill which passed; and thus Massachusetts,
nearly sixty years ago, was the pioneer State in estab-
lishing Normal Schools. Identified with the first establish-
ment of special schools for the training of teachers, his
interest never abated, his convictions became clearer and
12 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
stronger ; and through the whole history of our great
Peabody Normal College at Nashville, Tenn., he has been
its watchful friend, its generous helper, and to the last of
his days evinced a most paternal solicitude for its well-
being. The establishment of Normal Schools in Texas,
Louisiana, Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia, and other
States, had his support ; and he never relaxed his constant
supervision. Nothing in my frequent letters more inter-
ested him than the accounts given of the success of these
teacher-training institutions. The more minute the infor-
mation furnished, the more he was pleased, as he took the
liveliest interest even in remote places and obscure persons.
The school in South Carolina naturally elicited much of
his sympathy, and few things in his life were more grati-
fying to him than the attachment of his name to the
"Winthrop Normal College." With sensitive vigilance he
guarded the honor of Mr. Peabody and the personnel of
the Board. Repeatedly he called attention to the repudia-
tion of the bonds held by us on Florida and Mississippi,
and always insisted that the double debt of honor should
be discharged by the defaulting States.
Mr. Winthrop was an ardent advocate of the elevation
of the lately emancipated race ; and all the efforts of the
General Agent to have the negroes made, proportionately
with the white people, the beneficiaries of school privileges
called forth his encouragement and praise. When the
Trustees in 1879 presented to Congress and the country
that state paper of unequalled excellence in behalf of
government aid for the education of the negroes, he was
in fullest sympathy with the wise recommendation and the
unanswerable argument. " Slavery," he said, " is but half
abolished, emancipation is but half completed, while mil-
lions of freemen with votes in their hands are left without
education." When national aid for the prevention and
1895] OF THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. j 3
removal of illiteracy broadened into a more general scheme,
while he disapproved of some of the features he gave his
adherence to the object and the means, and deprecated the
hostility of Congress and the apparent indifference of men
and of parties to a most perilous menace to our free
institutions. A government managed in whole or in part
by illiterate people is " a government of one-sided and
shallow experience."
When the death of our illustrious Chairman occurred,
schools and colleges and the press paid generous and grate-
ful tribute to his memory. The action of the Peabody
Normal College is herewith submitted.
On the 18th of February, 1895, occurred the centennial
of Mr. Peabody's birth. The occasion was seized by many
schools in the South for testifying gratitude to their unex-
ampled benefactor, to acquaint the school children with
prominent events in his life, and to kindle a fresh enthusi-
asm in behalf of popular education. The day was duly
celebrated in many places ; appropriate addresses were
made, and the ceremonies were considered successful and
useful. While many were active in recognition of the one
hundredth anniversary, Col. Thomas D. Boyd, of the
Louisiana Normal School, was especially prominent, and
addressed a circular to the school officers of the South,
asking concurrent action. A programme was sent out,
suggesting a sketch of the life and services of George
Peabody, a sketch also of the work being done in the South
by the Peabody Education Fund, and some patriotic songs.
This, with modifications, was observed in several States.
The celebration was not confined to the South, but had ob-
servance as well in Baltimore, London, and Massachusetts.
The committee at Peabody, Mass., received among their con-
gratulatory telegrams one from Queen Victoria, as follows :
14 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
" On this, the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of George
Peabody, the grateful remembrance of him and his noble and
munificent deeds of charity in this country is fresh in my heart
and that of my people."
The Duke of Devonshire telegraphed also : —
" The Chairman and Trustees of the Peabody Donation Fund
desire to associate themselves with the committee formed to com-
memorate the birth of Mr. George Peabody, and offer their sincere
respect on the occasion."
Letters of inquiry addressed to the General Agent
showed a great lack of information about the life of Mr.
Peabody and the work done by the Trustees of the Fund.
A pamphlet containing some of the best addresses of the
centennial occasion has been suggested as meeting this
want ; but perhaps the volume in manuscript, referred at
the last meeting to a committee for examination, may
serve better to give an accurate knowledge of the leading
events of Mr. Peabody's life and of the great work
achieved by the Fund.
Several years ago, the General Agent urged upon the
Legislatures of the several Southern States to combine in
the erection of a bronze statue of Mr. Peabody, to be
placed as a memorial of their gratitude in the Hall of the
House of Representatives in Washington ; and he pro-
poses to continue his effort to that end.
It is interesting to mark and record the milestones of
our progress since the first meeting in 1867; and it must
be gratifying to the administrators of this Trust to review
this progress and recall the fact that the Peabody Educa-
tion Fund has been a most potential agency in producing
a marvellous Educational revolution. In 1867 a well or-
ganized system of free schools did not exist in a single
1895] OF THE PEABODV EDUCATION FUND. 15
Southern State. Now, every one has imbedded in organic
and statute law and in public opinion the machinery of
public Education, and the Schools are becoming adequate
to the needs of all the children, irrespective of race or color.
In 1870-71 the pupils enrolled in public schools in the
Southern States, excluding Missouri, Kentucky, and Mary-
land, numbered 1,033,1 13. In 1891-92, the enrolment was
3,619,025, of whom 1,352,816 were colored children. The
receipts of school moneys from taxation in all the South-
ern States in the year 1870-71 were $9,026,815.00 and
in 1891-92,516,004,269.00. The Commissioner of Educa-
tion estimated, last year, that the Southern States must
have expended for the education of the negroes nearly
$75,000,000.00. Our first gifts were to schools and towns
and cities, to educational journals and agents, for the
purpose of creating a sentiment in favor of free educa-
tion supported by public taxation. The second step was
to induce the States to organize public-school systems
and make them a part of the organic life of the com-
monwealths, as much so as either of the three regular
civil departments. When these systems became a " fixed
fact," there was a gradual withdrawal of grants for local
schools, and a concentration of the income upon schools
and institutes for training teachers. Perhaps, along the
line of educational work which the Trustees have steadily
pursued, the last stage has been reached, and the Fund
should hereafter be exclusively used in establishing on
permanent foundations and perfecting Normal Schools
for both races. Thus we may best promote the success
of Common Schools — the hope of the land — and at the
same time erect, in " every one of the States " (for each
of which Mr. Peabody expressed " the same sympathy ")
an enduring and fruit-bearing monument to the Founder,
and keep the high purpose "of aiding the States, and
1 6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
placing our great country foremost, not only in power,
but in the intelligence and wisdom of her citizens.'' It
is very manifest, from the cautious phraseology of Mr.
Peabody's two letters of gift, that he had in contempla-
tion such an annual use and such a final distribution of
the Fund as should perfect the systems of education of
the different Southern States. He had clearly in his
mind, not a preponderant expenditure for one State, but
a diffusion of benefits among all, so as to aid them " in
their own exertions to diffuse the blessings of education
and morality." By means of adequate aid to permanent
Normal Schools, Mr. Peabody will be identified, not with
one locality, but with all the Southern States ; and each,
in an institution for training teachers, would be doing a
perpetual good, and be keeping alive in the minds and
hearts of the people a fragrant memorial of his patriotic
and unexampled munificence.
Superintendence of schools is of such vital importance
that various expedients have been devised to secure it.
Inspectors, examiners, superintendents, and commissions,
general or special, have been appointed to supervise the
administration of laws and schools, to suggest improve-
ments, and to key up to the highest excellence. As the
central State authority is alone able to view the entire
field, with its needs and available forces, all the States
have appointed Superintendents to gather statistics, to col-
lect information respecting the condition and efficiency of
the public schools and other means of popular education,
and to publish knowledge concerning the best system of
studies and the best method of instruction, in order that
the best education which public schools may be made to
impart may be secured to all children who depend upon
them for instruction. As each State establishes, main-
tains, and regulates its own system, various duties are
1895] OF THE TEABODY EDUCATION FUND. \J
assigned ; but in all, the Superintendents are charged with
the general administration of the public schools, and are
executive officers as well as inspectors. As no college or
university can succeed without a head invested with
power and responsibility, so these officers are now univer-
sally accepted as an indispensable part in any well-regu-
lated school system. Any one who has carefully observed
the origin and growth of free schools in the South will
cheerfully ascribe their success to the zeal, ability, and
self-denying labors of the Superintendents. Mr. Peabody,
in his second letter of gift. June 29, 1869, begged to take
the opportunity of thanking, with all his heart, the people
of the South for the cordial spirit with which they had
received the Trust, and for the energetic efforts which
they had made, in co-operation with the Trustees, for car-
rying out the plans which had been proposed for the dif-
fusion of the blessings of education in their respective
States. Brought into close official relations with the State
Superintendents, acting through them, relying largely on
their discretion and wisdom in recommendations to the
Board, I am glad to acknowledge their voluntary and use-
ful labors, and to thank them for the ready co-operation
they have given in all efforts to raise the standard of
teaching and to elevate the character of the schools. It
has, however, been my duty to bring to your attention
that one of the sorest evils connected with the general
superintendence has been the frequent changes in the
office, the mischievous rule of rotation, and the depend-
ence of the tenure of the office upon the varying com-
plexion of parties. I have to report changes this year in
Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Arkansas.
Closely connected with State superintendence is super-
intendence in counties; and it is to be regretted that
legislators, unfamiliar with the practical workings of sys-
2
1 8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
terns of public education, sometimes from false notions of
economy, or misapprehension of the utility and real duties
of such officers, dispense with them, or harmfully handicap
them in their work. These officers are appointed to do
for counties what Superintendents do for cities; and as
one of the gravest problems connected with free education
at the South is the means of improving the schools in the
country, where population is sparse and the burdens of
taxation fall heaviest, these officers have been found to be
most helpful in meeting the difficulties of the situation.
The duties of school supervision properly discharged bear
beneficially upon the whole work of public education, and
have resulted in bettering the teaching, the courses of
study, the methods of instruction and discipline, the school
attendance, and the substantial progress of the pupils.
Between them and the teachers and district officers there
should be a close and cordially co-operative connection.
The best men in character and qualifications should be
chosen as supervisors.
This most important link of county superintendency
concerns the education of nearly ninety per cent of all the
people in the land, and therefore should not be lightly con-
sidered or injudiciously tampered with by voters or legisla-
tors. A Superintendent who understands his business, and
has the spirit and honesty to perform it, must observe and
test the fitness of teachers, and award certificates of license
only to the competent. He must know how to grade and
classify a school, and should look after the grading and
classification of the pupils. He should study the schools,
and see how the general educational spirit of the neigh-
borhood is affected by the teacher. He should enlighten
communities on the subject of education in its various bear-
ings, and work up a sustaining sentiment. He should be
able to hold Teachers' Institutes, secure proper conductors
1895.] OF THE TEABODY EDUCATION FUND. jg
and instructors, inspire teachers with a desire to improve,
and draw out profitable discussions on practical points con-
nected with the schoolroom. No agency connected with
the school system is more economical than county super-
vision, or yields a larger profit on so small an expenditure ;
and the judgment of the most experienced educators is,
that, with an efficient county superintendent, the rural
schools can be improved at least fifty per cent the first
year in his work. A Superintendent should be clothed
with responsibility and authority, and have no connection
with party intrigues and machinations. His duties, rightly
understood and performed, are delicate and trying. The
removal of an incompetent teacher is so unpleasant that
the temptation is to tolerate, to endure, at the expense of
the school and to the damage of the children. Almost
any one, however lacking in essential qualifications for his
work, can provoke opposition to an officer who wisely and
courageously discharges a disagreeable task. To develop
and maintain a proper teaching-force is one of the chief
difficulties in an educational system. A progressive lead-
ership is indispensable; but that leadership should be
sympathetic towards teachers, and should be vigorously
sustained by the public and the appointing power.
The Trustees have shown, in an unmistakable manner,
their convictions as to the need of an intelligent and liber-
ally educated teaching profession, and as to the salutary
influence upon the people's schools of well-trained teach-
ers, with high intellectual and moral culture. Hence, lib-
eral co-operative aid has continuously been pressed upon
the States to establish Normal Schools, or has been freely
given to these schools when established. The Peabody
Normal College at Nashville, Tenn., has been our pride
and joy, and has received a large portion of our annual
income. The expenditure has justified itself in many
20 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [OCT.
ways. Under the judicious management of the able presi-
dent, sustained by the trustees of the University, the State
Board of Education, a harmonious faculty, and a concur-
ring press, there has been a steady and permanent growth
of the institution. Nearly every year has been marked by
essential improvements. The course of study has been
enriched and extended ; more rigid requirements for ad-
mission have been fixed, and in the award of scholarships
preference has been given to students who have enjoyed
the advantages of the College at their own expense, and
given proof of their fitness for the vocation of teaching;
new branches of study and compulsory physical training
have been introduced, and suitable buildings erected ; an
observation Model School for the study of the best methods
has been put in successful operation ; and such agencies
of rational instruction as library, laboratories, museum, art
collection, etc., have been founded or increased. As a
consequence, there has been a steady advance in the grade
of work done by the College, and the type of scholarship
has been perceptibly raised. It is now with us an accepted
principle, that a professional school for pedagogy must rest
upon the foundation of thorough general culture, and that
this necessary preliminary training, if postponed until after
admission to a Normal School, necessitates " limitations
which prove obstacles to general culture" and to a profit-
able use of the advantages offered. A German writer says,
" It is ridiculous to expect of young people to solve difficult
psychological and pedagogical problems, when they still
wrestle with grammatical and rhetorical rules." If a Nor-
mal School undertakes to prepare its students for their
profession, to teach the science of pedagogics and the art
of teaching, it obviously can accomplish this task best if
the general education of the students has to a degree
been completed before matriculation. " If a separation
1895] OF THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 2I
between general preparation and professional training be
made, the work in the Normal School would be more uni-
fied, and its effect upon mind and heart more intense."
Those who have had best opportunities to judge cheer-
fully concede, that, as a result of the work of our College
and the diffusion of its graduates throughout the South,
the level of professional training has been considerably
raised during the last ten years. These improved teachers
are the leaven of the public schools and academies,
creating a higher standard for licensing teachers and of
methods of instruction; and thus, with the elevation
of teachers, the development of public education goes
along pari passu. It would not be difficult to trace
many of the reforms in organization, classification, and
teaching, and a healthier educational opinion, to these
teachers ; and hence it follows that Normal Schools more
directly and favorably influence the life of the people than
do other schools.
Since 1877, the College has graduated, from Alabama,
90 students ; from Arkansas, 70 ; from Florida, 24 ; from
Georgia, 149; from Kentucky, 5; from Louisiana, 47;
from Mississippi, 46 ; from North Carolina, 92 ; from
South Carolina, 58 ; from Tennessee, 336 ; from Texas,
88 ; from Virginia, 89 ; and from West Virginia, 48. Ten-
nessee increased its appropriation to the College to
$20,000; but a part of this is for a chair of American
History. The report of Dr. Payne, "a man," says a lead-
ing journal, " recognized on both sides of the Atlantic as
an authority on education," herewith appended, gives all
the necessary details concerning last year's work.
VIRGINIA.
Copious extracts are given from the excellent report of
the Hon. John E. Massey : —
22 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
" To the usual and direct appropriation from the Peabody Fund
must be added eighteen scholarships in the Normal College at
Nashville. Nine of these being vacant, examinations were held at
six places. Twenty applicants entered the contest. The scholar-
ships have not deteriorated in the estimation of our young men
and women. A progressive principal writes : ' Our Board desires
to employ graduates of our High School who have also graduated
at Nashville.' I avail myself of every opportunity to encourage
the employment of graduates of the Peabody Normal College in
our public schools. One of them, after less than a year's work in
a district school, was recently promoted to a vacancy in the High
School of Richmond city.
'■ At the last session of the Legislature, an appropriation of
twenty-five hundred dollars was made for maintaining Teachers'
Institutes fur the year 1893-1894, and a like amount for the year
1894-1895. This appropriation is not adequate to the demands
of the work, and I shall apply for an increase.
" Following the scheme outlined in my last report, the second
year's course of instruction was placed in the hands of the teach-
ers several months in advance of the opening of the Institutes.
Teachers were thus fully apprised of the character of work to be
done, as well as better prepared to digest the instruction given.
By this step the practical value of Institutes has been greatly
enhanced, and the teachers have been awakened to the importance
of continuous professional study. Two difficulties were encoun-
tered ; namely, (1) Failure to secure the attendance of all
teachers in attendance last year ; and (2), Inability of teachers to
purchase the books recommended. The first difficulty was par-
tially overcome by a brief review of the first year's course of
instruction, if in the judgment of the conductor the number of
new teachers made this expedient. It was found that the course
prescribed for the second year was admirably adapted to the needs
of teachers in attendance.
"The Bedford Institute (School of Methods) opened June 24,
and continued four weeks ; the summer session of the Virginia
Normal and Collegiate Institute (Petersburg) opened June 17,
and continued five weeks ; the Institutes at Abingdon, Charlottes-
ville, Farmville, Hampton, and Alexandria opened July 2, and
1895] 0F THE I'EABODY EDUCATION FUND. 23
continued four weeks. The session of each Institute embraced
twenty full school-days of actual teaching. Each Institute was
divided into four sections ; and the outline course of instruction
and the programme of daily exercises prescribed by the State
Department were followed. The programme provided for five
and a half working-hours each day. Two subjects were assigned
to each instructor, and one to each conductor ; a portion of each
conductor's time was devoted to supervision.
" The enrolment for the year — white teachers. 1209; colored,
546 — is the largest ever reported in the State, — a very gratifying
evidence of the spirit of our teachers. Their expenses — board and
transportation — must have exceeded ten thousand dollars. When
I consider the scanty salaries of teachers and the limited period of
their employment (about five months in county schools), I think
their effort for improvement is truly heroic. A series of special
lectures and evening entertainments given at each Institute were
highly profitable, and served to bring the Institutes into closer
sympathy with the citizens. The average daily attendance for the
year was better than ever before. This is attributed to the fact that
I authorized county superintendents to renew for one year the
certificates of teachers who attended every class of any one of
the Institutes for the full period of four weeks, and diligently
pursued the work prescribed. Teachers were studious, teachable,
and enthusiastic. Instructors were faithful, efficient, and sympa-
thetic. Towns in which Institutes were held this year appropriated
about twelve hundred dollars for incidental expenses. I am well
satisfied with the result of this year's work — the best of my
administration.
" The annual State appropriation for the support of the State
Female Normal School is fifteen thousand dollars. The school
continues to improve in the direction of normal work. The total
enrolment for the session was 280, an increase of nearly thirty per
cent over the previous year. The indications are that the next
session will be equally prosperous. The property recently acquired
is being remodelled for a practice school.
"The Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute closed its twelfth
school year June 17, 1895. The total number of pupils enrolled
was 321 — males, 179; females, 152 — representing eighty-four
24 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
counties and cities. In addition, the Summer Normal School held
at the Institute enrolled 213. The Normal and Collegiate Insti-
tute grows in public favor, and under excellent management is
securing good results. The State yearly appropriates fifteen thou-
sand dollars for the support of this institution. The Peabody
appropriation is the main support of the Model School.
" It is difficult to ascertain the exact amount expended for the
education of the negro in this State. A careful approximation,
however, places the total amount at four hundred and forty thousand
dollars per year. This includes all public money, State and local.
"The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute enrolled
during the past session 951 ; 579 were boarders, 138 were Indians.
In his report of July 16, 1895, President Frissell, after speaking
of the increase in the requirements for admission to the academic
department, continues : ' With the improvement and multiplication
of the public schools of the State, better opportunities than have
been possible before have been offered to colored youth. Fail-
ure on the part of a young colored man or woman in Virginia,
to-day, to obtain the rudiments of an English education at the
age of eighteen bespeaks lack of ambition on his part and that
of his parents. . . . With the improved condition of the colored
people, more of the burden of educating their children ought
to be thrown on the shoulders of the parents. Some progress
has been made during the past school year towards unifying
and correlating the work of the School. We have a varied mate-
rial to deal with, and the School is attempting a great deal. We are
trying to teach people how to live, and the education in the school-
room as well as the shop has very definite ends. A marked
feature of the academic work during the past few years has been
the prominence given to practice teaching. Considerable advance
has been made in the Department of Agriculture ; besides the
practical every-day training, regular instruction has been given on
the theory of farming. There is every reason to hope that it will
be possible to keep the colored people of the South on the land,
if only they can learn the best methods of farming. The Hampton
School ought to devote much energy to fitting young people to be en-
thusiastic apostles of agriculture ; for the salvation of the Indian and
Negro depends upon their owning land and cultivating it properly.'
1895] OF THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 25
" Including tlie appropriation to the State Male Normal School of
the College of William and Mary, the State annually appropriates
forty-five thousand dollars for Normal Schools.
" County superintendents report decided improvement in the
teaching force, the result of the work of the Summer Institutes,
Normal Schools, and uniform examinations for teachers' certificates.
The school system continues to grow. I regret that the revenue
does not increase in like proportion. For some years, the Legis-
lature has made an appropriation of two hundred thousand dollars
for school purposes from the general revenue of the State. The
growth of the schools demands that this appropriation be increased,
and I shall recommend that county boards of supervisors be
allowed by law to increase county and district school levies. I
look to this source for such an increase in revenue as will meet
the growing demands of the schools.
" In recognition of the munificence of George Peabody, the
centennial of the birth of the great philanthropist was celebrated
in many public schools and other educational institutions in
Virginia. The observance of the day (February 18, 1895) in
Richmond and other cities was specially impressive. At a meeting
held in Richmond, measures were taken to collect a fund for the
erection, at Washington, of a suitable memorial. On the opening
of the schools in the fall, I shall bring the subject to the attention
of other Southern State Superintendents, and solicit their earnest
co-operation in collecting funds for the purpose. The movement
begun in Virginia will, without doubt, be heartily seconded by the
Superintendents of all the States benefited by the munificence of
George Peabody. I shall recommend that the 1 8th of February
of each year be observed as " Peabody Day " by all the schools
of the State.
" I am now considering the advisability of organizing only two
Institutes next summer, one for white and another for colored
teachers, centrally located ; each to include an academic depart-
ment of eight weeks, and a professional department of four
weeks ; the course of instruction for the third year to be given
with special attention to primary methods ; an ample corps of
experts to be engaged for the faculty of each Institute, and
accommodations to be provided for fifteen hundred white and a
26 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
thousand colored teachers. I desire also to hold a convention of
county and city Superintendents for one week, and a meeting of
school trustees for two or three days, to consider the practical
problems arising in the administration of the system, and to hear
discourses on school organization, management, etc., by the best
talent that can be engaged. Furthermore, I should like to have a
meeting of the State Teachers' Association, inviting representa-
tives of the different universities, colleges, leading private schools,
etc., to be present and participate. To make this plan effective,
at least two thousand dollars from the Peabody Fund will be
needed (to be applied exclusively to the pay of instructors), and
an address at each Institute by the General Agent. Can you not
supply these needs? Please accept our assurances of gratitude
for your liberal recognition of Virginia's educational needs."
NORTH CAROLINA.
From the Report of the Hon. J. C. Scarborough, and
from other sources, interesting facts have been gathered.
As early as i8?6, an effort was made to carry out the
mandate of the Constitution in regard to a State system of
schools. Archibald D. Murphey was to North Carolina,
in the great cause of education, what Jefferson was to
Virginia and Mann to Massachusetts. He submitted an
elaborate report in favor of a gradation of schools, reg-
ularly supporting one another, — from the one in which
the first rudiments of education are taught, to that in
which the highest branches of the sciences are cultivated.
No action being taken on this report, Mr. Murphey, in
1817, after visiting New England and Europe, and making
a careful study of their school systems, submitted a volumi-
nous paper providing for a system of education from the
primary school to the university. In 1825, the Legislature
created the " Literary Fund " for the support of common
schools. To this fund were given the net proceeds of the
sale of all the swamp lands of the State, three-fourths
1 895.] OF THE TEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 27
of all poll taxes, and all fines, forfeitures, and penalties,
together with all taxes levied by the State or counties for
this purpose. In 1839, counties were divided into school
districts, and elections were ordered to ascertain public
sentiment, — on the condition that if the sentiment were
favorable, superintendents should be appointed to establish
and supervise schools in such counties. The Act further
provided for the payment of forty dollars to each school
district, when a like amount was contributed by the people
and a suitable building was provided. In 1840, nineteen
counties received school money under the Act. In 1850,
a Superintendent of Common Schools was authorized, and
Calvin H. Wiley was appointed. He remained in office a
number of years, doing most valuable service, with great
zeal and ability. The census of 1850 shows 100,591
attending school. In 1855 the average school term was
four months, and there were three thousand school-houses
in the State. In 1856 the Superintendent reports attend-
ance at colleges at one thousand ; at academies, nine
thousand ; at common schools, thirteen thousand. In 1863,
amid the convulsions of war, defective returns show not
less than fifty thousand children at school. While Dr.
Wiley was receiving reports from schools and tabulating
statements of their condition, he looked out of his office
window and saw the front ranks of General Sherman's
army marching up the street.
For four years the public schools were closed. The
Constitution of 1868 is the foundation of the present
school system. In 1 871, by unanimous vote, a school law
was passed, thus declaring by legislation " that all op-
position to the public school system embodied in the
Constitution of 186S was withdrawn, and the broad and
liberal doctrine was accepted that the State must educate
its children." In 1S77, tne Legislature appropriated two
28 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
thousand dollars a year for two years for the establishment
of a colored Normal School at Fayetteville. Subsequently,
five other Normal Schools were established for colored
people. For the support of the six, the State gives nine
thousand dollars annually ; and this year they enrolled
nine hundred and nine pupils. The country colored schools
are supplied from them with teachers reasonably well
equipped in the branches taught in the public schools.
In 1891, the State Normal and Industrial School was
opened at Greensboro, under the energetic and able
administration of Dr. Charles D. Alclver. It has had
wonderful success. At the last session, under eighteen
teachers, besides the assistance of teachers and special
lecturers, there were four hundred and five students, and
at the same time about seven hundred applicants for
admission. The State makes an annual appropriation of
$12,500, and lately gave an additional sum of $5,000 per
year for two years for sanitary and building purposes.
Beginning in 1 87 1- 1872, with the tax of six and two-
thirds cents on the one hundred dollars' worth of property,
t^e general school tax has been increased until it now
amounts to eighteen cents on the one hundred dollars, and
the fund has grown from $177,498 in 1871 to $751,608
in 1894. This sum, however, is totally inadequate, giving
schools outside of the towns only sixty days in the year.
The Constitution of 1868 adopted the township system of
local taxation for public schools. The new Constitution
swept away this excellent provision; but friends of educa-
tion, seeing how impossible it is to build up an efficient
school system on the sole basis of general State taxation,
are seeking to revive the principle of local taxation. The
last Legislature, responding to their appeal, passed a law
making it possible for forty out of the ninety-six counties
of the State to tax themselves for the education of their
1895] 0F THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 29
children, so as to give rural schools some of the advantages
now enjoyed by the city schools.1 Other amendments
were made to the school law which do not promise equally
good results. The selection of text-books was taken from
the State Board of Education and intrusted to the county
commissioners. County superintendents and county boards
of education were abolished, and county Institute work
was destroyed by repealing all laws allowing county boards
of education to make appropriations for that purpose.
SOUTH CAROLINA.
The Hon. W. D. Mayfield reports: —
" The Winthrop College did a good work this year ; it had an
enrolment of fifty-eight pupils, making an aggregate enrolment of
four hundred and fifteen pupils since its opening in October, 1886.
The institution has sent out one hundred and ninety-six graduates.
The reputation of this College is such that its graduates almost
universally find immediate employment, which of itself is com-
mendation enough of the class of work done.
" The Winthrop Training-School has been merged and developed
by Act of the Legislature into the Winthrop Normal and Industrial
College; it has been removed from Columbia to Rock Hill, and
about two hundred thousand dollars have already been spent,
exclusive of the labor of about one hundred convicts furnished by
the State, in the erection, completion, and equipment of the
buildings, and it will take fully fifty thousand dollars more to com-
plete them as intended. The College buildings are fast approach-
in? completion. Prof. D. B. Johnson has been elected President
of the' College, and is now on the grounds supervising the finishing
touches, and all is being done that can be done to have every-
1 It is no doubt true that the interest in public-school education mani-
fested everywhere throughout the State is attributable, in part at least, to
the efforts of towns to help themselves independent of outside aid. ... No
State in the Union raises so much for schools by local taxation per capita,
while the entire amount raised by local taxation is exceeded by only four
States. — Mass. Rep., 1894, p. 15S.
30 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
thing ready for the opening of the College, which takes place
October 15. The main building is one of the largest and finest
school-buildings in the South, and is well arranged for the pur-
poses for which it is intended to be used, well lighted with
electricity, and well ventilated. The recitation-rooms are large,
and furnished with the most modern school desks, teachers' desks,
and chairs, and real slate blackboards. The rooms for teaching
cooking and domestic economy, sewing, dress-making and milli-
nery, stenography, telegraphy, typewriting, and book-keeping,
chemistry and biology, free-hand and industrial drawing and art,
music, vocal and instrumental, are all amply and appropriately
furnished. The College has a complete system of water-works,
which it owns and operates, and a complete fire-protection
system. The campus contains thirty acres, with a number of
shade-trees on it, and is now being prepared to be set in grass,
flowers, and ornamental evergreens. A farm of three hundred
acres, situated one mile away, is owned by the College. Here it is
proposed to grow vegetables of all kinds, have meadows for hay
and pasture for cows, furnish milk, make butter, cheese, etc., for
the College. Sufficient accommodations are now completed for
three hundred girls in the College buildings, and others can be
cared for at private houses. The total cost to those quartered in
the College buildings for board, lights, heat, and washing will not
exceed $8.50 per month for the nine months.
" The year's work in Teachers' Institutes has been most satis-
factory, and in the opinion of all who have had an opportunity to
judge and have expressed themselves it is the best ever done in
the State. The Greenville Institute ran four weeks ; Laurens, three ;
Spartanburg and the others, one week each. The attendance has been
remarkably good, and the instruction was received with an enthu-
siastic spirit. I am trying to change, and in a measure have
succeeded, from a one week institute to a three or four weeks
summer-school, with regular prescribed courses.
" The work in the Normal Department of Claflin University has
had two ends in view, — a thorough knowledge of the funda-
mental branches taught in the common schools, and a knowledge
of the best methods to be employed in teaching these branches.
While in this department the common branches of study are
I895-] 0F THE TEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 31
taught, it is recognized that the department must do a work not
done in the other departments : it must fit young men and women
for the work of teaching in the schools of the State. In the dis-
tinctive professional work of the department, instruction has been
given in Psychology, the Art of Teaching, School Economy, and
the History of Education. That the students may gain the art of
teaching, they have had the opportunity of observing good teach-
ing and of practising teaching under criticism. The Professor of
Pedagogy has taught classes of children in their presence, and
under his supervision they have been required to make frequent
visits to the different grades in the English schools for the purpose
of noting and studying the methods used. They have then met in
the recitation-room, and, in the presence of the Professor, dis-
cussed and passed criticism upon what they had observed. In the
presence of the Professor, also, each member of the class has
been accustomed to teach the lesson of the day to the other
members. In order to make this department still more efficient,
another year has been added to the course of study, making it four
years."
GEORGIA.
The new State School Commissioner, the Hon. G. R.
Glenn, reports that the Legislature made an appropriation
of twenty thousand dollars for two years — ten thousand
dollars per annum, — for the establishment of a Normal
School for whites at Athens. The trustees of the Uni-
versity gave what is known as the " Old Rock College," and
the building has been remodelled and adapted for the pur-
poses of the school. The school, with a faculty of six
teachers, was opened on the 17th of April, and seventy-
two pupils have been enrolled, coming mostly from the
public schools of the State. The school at Milledgeville
sustains its high reputation, and sends out annually
twenty-five or thirty girls, who go for the most part into
the village and rural schools as teachers. Chancellor
Payne visited the school and delivered several lectures to
teachers and pupils, and he writes in most complimentary
32 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
terms of the work done. " I hope," says the Commissioner,
" to see in time a school for colored teachers ; and I am
glad to say that our people are becoming more and more
inclined to aid the colored people in providing better schools
for their children and better means of education for the
teachers. I am sorry I cannot now give you accurately the
amount of money we are spending upon the colored people
in Georgia, but it is in the neighborhood of four hundred
thousand dollars per annum."
The State appropriates for Teachers' Institutes a little less
than four thousand dollars, and on this small appropriation
the annual Institutes have been conducted only one week.
" I am glad," says the Commissioner, " to say that our
people all over the State are taking more interest in
educational affairs. I have made already in the State
something like one hundred and twenty five addresses on
education. I have visited personally more than seventy-
five counties, and have met with a cordial greeting and an
attentive and interested hearing wherever I have been,
and I shall push with all my might the great educational
reform."
WEST VIRGINIA
was the first Southern State to establish a Common School
system, providing education for both races at public
expense. In 1863, when in the Constitution was incorpo-
rated an imperative obligation for the establishment of a
thorough and efficient system of free schools, the outlook
was not very hopeful ; for illiteracy was widespread, and
educational facilities were meagre. During the last thirty-
two years, the progress has been so remarkable that Dr.
Mayo says, " All conditions and circumstances taken into
consideration, it may without exaggeration be asserted that
no American State, within three decades, has so distin-
guished itself by the zealous, intelligent, and progressive
1895] OF THE PEAI30DY EDUCATION FUND. 33
spirit of its people in the great cause of universal educa-
tion as West Virginia."
The Superintendent, Hon. Virgil A. Lewis, writes: —
" As you are aware, we have fifty-five counties, in each of which
the law requires an Institute of five days to be held. These Insti-
tutes have been held in a large number of the counties, and from
the reports I find that rapid progress is being made. Comparing
these reports with those received last year, it appears that the
attendance has been 3,935, — a gain over last year of 302. In the
entire State last year the attendance was 7,956 ; so that if the
increase in the attendance is maintained in the counties not yet
reported, the total attendance will be about 8,500, — which will
certainly be a splendid record for the teachers of the ' Little
Mountain State,' for which your generosity has done so much.
" The State appropriates one thousand dollars per annum for
Institute work, which, with what is received from the Peabody
Fund, gives an average of about fifty-four dollars to each
county. Because of this small sum, and the difficulty of reaching
many of the interior counties, the work has been done the present
year largely by local instructors, the fund not being sufficiently
large to warrant the employment of instructors from other States,
— something I hope to be able to do next year, so that our home
men may have the advantage of contact with the live and pro-
gressive men of other States. Several counties have, by resolutions,
asked for two weeks' Institutes next year. I most earnestly wish
that you and your associates could see the work done for West
Virginia in the last quarter of a century. When I think of it, I am
ready to exclaim, ' All honor to the men who have made this
training possible ! '
'• At the last session of the Legislature the appropriation for the
State Normal Schools was increased, so that we now have an
annual appropriation of nineteen thousand two hundred dollars.
This increase greatly relieved the pressure upon the Peabody
appropriation, and enabled us to defray the expenses of the Insti-
tute work of the year. Notwithstanding the business depression,
the Normal School work has been very successful ; and I am
warranted in saying, that, because of the adoption of a uniform
course of study, the results are more satisfactory than those of any
3
34 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
previous year. Including the sixty-five colored students in the
West Virginia Colored Institute, we had during the spring term in
the six Normal Schools of the State nine hundred and twelve
students, a large majority of whom were under normal training.
" That you may obtain a general knowledge of our public school
work, I add the following, which is compiled from the latest data :
" In 1894 West Virginia had 380 Magisterial Districts, which
are divided into 5,453 sub school-districts. In these districts there
were 5.302 school-houses, of which 706 were log, 4,456 frame, and
140 brick or stone ; 2,497 containing improved desks ; 2,750 with
apparatus; and 7.521 volumes in school libraries. The value of
school property, including furniture and supplies, was $3,120,927.
There were 202,361 white youth between six and sixteen years of
age, and 8,761 colored youth between six and sixteen years of
age; 69,044 white and 2,604. colored youth between six and
twenty-one years of age, — 271,405 white, and 1 1,365 colored youth
enumerated in the State for the year 1894. Of these youths,
211,630 white and 7,rS8 colored were enrolled in the public
schools of the State, and the average daily attendance was
135,381. The average age of the pupils was eleven years. There
were employed to teach these pupils 5.909 white and 206 colored
teachers, who received (according to their grades of certificates)
from S34.ro to $20.45 per month for an average school session of
five months. For the support of the schools of the State, this
Department received, for the year 1894, $382,945.44 as the State
School Fund. The receipts for the Teachers' Fund, derived from
local or district levies, were $1,180,367.30, and for building pur-
poses, accruing from district or local levies, $726,999, — a total of
$2,290,311.74. The disbursements were $1,616,944.48, — a per
capita expenditure of $11.74 for ' average daily attendance.' and
$5.56 for ' enumeration.' The valuation of all property subject
to taxation in West Virginia in 1S94 was $220,007,517."
LOUISIANA.
The Hon. A. D. Lafargue reports: —
" There has been much educational activity in the State during
the last year. The president of the Normal School and other per-
sons have thrown themselves with much viaror into school work, —
'O
I895-] OF THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 7c
not only for the promotion of the interest of the Normal School,
but also for the much needed improvement of school work gener-
ally in the State. A State Chautauqua, continuing five weeks, was
organized, with a skilled faculty and a course of study so arranged
that drill-work and review are provided for along all lines. Five
Peabody summer normal schools were also held by authority of
the State Institute Board ; and a full, carefully prepared, and valu-
able outline of work for \he first-year course was published in
advance and distributed among teachers. The Acts of the Legis-
lature relative to the Normal School required the faculty to hold
Teachers' Institutes during the vacation ; and to those Institutes
is due in a large measure an increased interest in public education
throughout the State. The last Legislature sought to systematize
these Institutes, requiring that they be held at least twenty weeks,
under the direction of a State Institute conductor, the President
of the Normal School, and the Superintendent of Education.
Under the new law a Teachers' Institute of one week's duration
has been held in each Parish, and the graphic account of them in
the ' School Review ' shows that they were highly enjoyed and
beneficial to the teachers.
" The State Normal School has now been in existence ten years,
and has graduated one hundred and sixty-seven persons, — one
hundred and four of whom were engaged in teaching during the
current school year. As an evidence of the success of these
graduates of both sexes, schools are now better graded, attendance
at the Normal School has been increased, and there is a growing
demand for normal-trained teachers. There were three hundred
and fifty-nine pupils this year, under the instruction of fourteen
teachers. Originally the session was for six months, and the
course of study was limited to two years ; now the session lasts
eight months, and the course of study covers a period of four
years. In addition to the regular Practice School, a Model
School was established at the beginning of the year. It is de-
signed to be a model for the ungraded country schools, and to
give the students practice in organizing and teaching such schools.
The experiment has been quite successful. Attendance at the
Normal School has grown from one hundred and forty-eight in
18SS to the present number. The State appropriation for the
School was $13,750."
36 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
TENNESSEE.
The Superintendent, Hon. S. S. Gilbreath, reports as
follows : —
" Institutes were held in Knoxville, Chattanooga, Nashville,
Hartsville, Jackson, and Union City. The Institute at Knoxville
continued three weeks. The total enrolment was two hundred and
eight, representing eight counties. Teachers were also present
from seven States. From Professor Wharton's report I take the
following: 'The attendance was regular, the interest manifestly
deep and sincere, and on the whole it might be called an enthusi-
astic Institute. . . . The Institute had the sympathy and moral
support of the educational mass of the community in which it was
held, and this fact speaks well in its favor.'
" The Institute at Chattanooga continued four weeks, and
the average was one hundred and thirty-five. The teachers
showed their appreciation by punctuality and by earnest and faith-
ful work. Two afternoons of the third week and three of the last
were devoted to a rigid examination of applicants for promotion
from the primary to the secondary course. Twenty-five teachers
succeeded in passing this examination.
" The Institute at Nashville continued three weeks. The total
enrolment was one hundred and forty-five teachers, and the
average daily attendance eighty-five — a much larger attendance
than has ever been had in any State Institute in Tennessee. While
a large majority of the teachers were from Davidson County, there
were still a goodly number from other counties, and there were
several even from other States. The interest and spirit prevailing
throughout the entire session were of the finest kind and extremely
gratifying.
" The Institute held at Hartsville continued one week. Owing
to the shortness of funds, the Institute could not be continued
longer. The enrolment of teachers was about sixty-five.
"The Institute held in the city of Jackson continued four
weeks. Notwithstanding the circulars were not issued until ten
days before the time to open the Institute, the enrolment was two
hundred and forty-six teachers, while the daily attendance averaged
1895] OF THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 37
one hundred and ninety-two. Every county in West Tennessee
was represented, and several counties sent large delegations. From
the report of the Faculty we note the following : ' We believe this
Institute has demonstrated the practicability of the plan and the
wisdom of the Agent of the Peabody Board and the State Superin-
tendent in establishing them. Great good is being done. The
people of Jackson appreciate the importance of this Institute.
The local Board is ready to render every possible assistance and
encouragement. They meet all expenses incurred in arranging
buildings, furnishing janitor, etc. At the close of the Institute
rigid examinations were held in all the branches taught. Seventeen
teachers succeeded in passing the secondary course of study.
Sixty-nine were promoted to the Senior Class.'
" The Institute held at Union City continued four weeks. There
were in attendance two hundred and three teachers, and from the
very opening it was a complete success. The primary course of
study in the syllabus for Peabody State Institutes was adopted
and closely followed. At the close of the Institute there was held
a three-days' examination. Of the sixty-five applicants for certifi-
cates only fifteen were successful, which demonstrates that the
examination was rigid. From the Superintendent's report I take
the following : ' Already these Institutes are making themselves
felt, and it will require but a few years, I imagine, under the four-
weeks system, as inaugurated under the wise judgment of Dr.
Curry, until our entire country will present one solid phalanx
of well-equipped teachers, and the entire system be but one
continuous graded school.'
" Colored Institutes were held on the same date as those for
white teachers, with one exception, and were under the supervision
of the conductors of the white Institutes. The work in these
Institutes was left in the main part to local colored teachers, who
were best fitted to give the instructions required. While the
attendance was not large, considerable interest was manifested, and
it is believed that good was accomplished.
" In addition to the regular appropriation of fifteen thousand
dollars annually for the support of the Peabody Normal College
at Nashville, and the appropriation of one thousand five hundred
dollars for the support of the Peabody Normal Institutes, the
38 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
Legislature of Tennessee established at the Peabody Normal
College the ' Chair of American History,' and appropriated for
the maintenance of the same the sum of five thousand dollars,
any part of which not used for the purposes stated to be used for
the general expenses of the College. On the nomination of
Chancellor Payne, YV. R. Garrett, Ph. D., of Nashville, was elected
to that important position by the State Board of Education. Dr.
Payne recommended that one thousand dollars per annum be set
aside for books, manuscripts, etc., and five hundred dollars per
annum on account of Robertson Letters — these two items being in
connection with American history. The Board acquiesced in the
recommendation, agreeing, however, that any part of the above
sum not used for the purposes stated might be used for the general
expenses of the College in addition to the four hundred and fifty
dollars not specially appropriated by the Board.
" I beg to say that the success of the Peabody Normal Institutes,
so ably planned by yourself, and doing so much for the teachers of the
State, is largely due to the aid received from the Peabody Fund.
These Institutes, continuing in session from four to eight weeks, as
suggested by yourself, are calculated to do more good and to be
more extensively felt in the elevation of the teaching force than
those of shorter duration ; and it is my earnest desire that we may
be enabled to carry on a number of such Institutes next year.
Permit me to thank you and the honorable body you represent, in
the name of the people of Tennessee, for your valuable assistance."
ARKANSAS.
From an interesting Report of the Hon. Junius Jordan,
the State Superintendent, some facts are derived : —
" The State, at the last session of its Legislature, appropriated
ten thousand dollars per annum for two years, for establish-
ing a county normal school of one month's duration in each
county of the State. Some of these normal schools were so
crowded, I used a part of the Peabody Fund to supplement the
State fund. The law allowed only one instructor to each normal
school, to be paid from the State fund. The rural schools have
1 895.] OF THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 39
been more benefited than ever before, and there have been
awakened a thorough educational enthusiasm and zeal in every
county. Each community where the normal schools were held
took an earnest interest in the work. The reports and resolutions
from all the counties showed an indorsement of the work and of
the system far beyond my expectations. It was an experiment ;
but so positive and practical Jiave been the results that those who
heretofore opposed .the normal work now give it their hearty
support. Our reports show that seventy-five per cent of the
teachers attended the normal schools, and they ask for a longer
term of normal work next year. I hope, with assistance from the
Peabody Fund, to have a five-weeks term hereafter, and in addition
to carry on a State normal school for nine months.
" The Jonesboro Normal School was organized with a force of
three teachers ; but, owing to a lack of patronage caused by local
troubles, I discontinued the work of two teachers the second term,
and used the services of the principal alone for the remainder of
the time. The school worked through with twenty-five very
interesting, hard-working, and promising teachers. The Prescott
Normal School was continued two months under the management
of Prof. W. C Parham and two assistants. Seventy-two teachers
attended, and the work was of the same high grade as at Jones-
boro, embracing thorough academic and college training.
" Nine thousand nine hundred dollars were appropriated by the
last Legislature for the Negro Normal School at Pine Bluff. Seven
thousand two hundred dollars of this amount were for teachers'
salaries. The State expenditure for this year for Negro county
normal schools was $1,445."
MISSISSIPPI.
The faithful and able Superintendent, Hon. J. R. Preston,
sends a valuable Report, every word of which is worthy of
publication. Some extracts are given which will show the
masterly work accomplished by an officer whose retirement
from the superintendence of the schools is a calamity : —
" For a period of four weeks each, four Normal Institutes for
both races were held at Aberdeen, Brookhaven, Meridian, and the
4<D PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [OCT.
University, and at Tougaloo, Greenville, Sardis, and West Point,
with an enrolment of 1129 white teachers and 479 colored. The
percentage of white enrolment was 25^ and of colored, 15^.
In the State are 230,000 white children of educational age, and
336.000 colored ; seventy-two per cent of white attend school,
and sixty per cent of colored.
" The work done at the Institutes was of a higher type and
better quality than heretofore. Some of the best talent in the land
was included in the Faculties, and the teachers appreciated and
availed themselves industriously of their rare privileges. The
University Normal, with Professor Wickliffe Rose, of the Peabody
Normal College, as director, was a marked success. He was aided
by able assistants. A notable feature of the University Normal
was the presence of Dr. Harris, the Commissioner of the National
Bureau of Education. He delivered four lectures, discussing
inimitably the foundation principles of educational philosophy.
Director Rose, in his Report, says : ' We have endeavored during
the present session to make instruction the primary aim, and to
reduce mere entertainment to a minimum. Large classes and
public halls have been avoided. Most of the work has been done
in small sections, and it has in spirit approached the work of the
class-room. We have studiously avoided that degree of emotional
excitement which is antagonistic to a high type of intellectual
activity. In short, we have tried to approach, as nearly as circum-
stances would permit, the conditions, spirit, and work of the real
school. Work of good type has been done, and there has devel-
oped here within the four weeks a widespread demand for work of
higher order next year. To meet this demand there should be
organized and established at the University a number of depart-
ment summer-courses, in which the work should not differ
materially from that of real university class-room exercises. The
work of the ordinary summer normal schools should be done
elsewhere, so that students in these courses here may be left free
from the disturbance of too large numbers and the distractions of
other work. These courses should be supported by the State, on
the ground that the most economical investment of money for
education is that expended in developing teaching ability and
directive power of this higher type. This work could thus be
" ■ -
£$2 •*:■•-•""
1895] OF THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 41
made the head of the Institutes in the State, and could be
articulated with the higher work of the University.'
" Aberdeen has the best public school-building in the State.
With a population less than four thousand, the city has built and
thoroughly equipped a school-house which cost thirty thousand
dollars. Superintendent Phillips, of Birmingham, Ala., conducted
here one of the best normal schools ever held in the State.
Besides other competent instructors, Dr. E. E. White was a
member of the Faculty, and delivered twelve lectures on psychology
and moral training. His presence and able presentation of these
subjects were an inspiration to all. Teachers and citizens crowded
the hall at every lecture. The interest and appreciation were
unabated to the last.
" At Brookhaven, Mr. W. H. Ker, of Natchez, held the fourth
white normal school and conducted it to a successful termination.
The conditions for the model school were favorable, and actual
model class-work was done in the first, second, and third grades,
pupils being selected from the grades of the previous year in the
public schools of the town. Class-management and methods of
instruction were exemplified, and the teachers presented model
work with which to compare their own. Great good was accom-
plished, and this work was highly appreciated. Heretofore our
model classes have consisted only of beginners ; this year the work
was extended so as to embrace first, second, and third grade
instruction. The normal school had a faculty of strong practical
instructors, all home material, except one.
" Four colored normal schools were held, at points most acces-
sible to the teachers. The Faculties consisted of white instructors
selected from among our best teachers. The directors speak in
high terms of the zeal and enthusiasm of the teachers, and of their
persistent efforts to improve their scholarship. Within ten years
the number of first-grade colored teachers has risen from two
hundred and thirty-eight to six hundred and six, so that now more
than twenty per cent of those employed in colored schools hold
first-grade licenses. At one of the Institutes, out of nineteen
teachers, eighteen were college graduates. The colored schools
are of course in a hopeful stage of development. The colleges
for colored youth were full this year, and the public schools had an
increase of fifty-five hundred in average attendance.
42 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
" In addition to these eight summer Normal Institutes, a con-
ductors' school was held at the University, in charge of Dr. Payne,
of Nashville. In this school is given special instruction to the
conductors of County Institutes, who are required by the Board of
Education to attend the full session. From the ablest teachers in
the State twenty-eight conductors were selected by the Board of
Education, under whose direction the County Institutes are held.
The conductors are sent forth to the counties in pairs, one to
hold the institute for each race. These conductors' schools have
proven one of our strongest levers in uplifting the teachers of the
State. From thirty-five to fifty teachers attend the schools
annually, and the stimulus to professional study has been
marvellous.
" The past three years are conspicuous in the development of
the teachers of the State. The lyceums established last year in
most of the counties have brought teachers together for professional
study. In many counties there are libraries of works on teaching
for the free use of the public-school teachers. It is a mild state-
ment to say that the teachers have studied more professional
literature within the past three years than in the twenty years
preceding. These blessings are the direct result of the Peabody
Fund, without which all this progress would have been impossible.
The Peabody scholarships at Nashville are eagerly sought after, and
we had last year twenty-three students, all the vacancies this year
being taken by students who have paid their own way one year in
the College.
" The department of pedagogy established two years since at
the University enrolled more than thirty students the past session.
The general demand for trained teachers led the trustees in June,
1895, to establish a department of pedagogy in the Industrial
Institute and College — an institution located at Columbus and
maintained by the State for the education of young women. Three-
fourths of the pupils of this schoo) become teachers ; hence this new
department will be a strong factor in supplying trained teachers.
" Through the general educational revival resulting from the
Peabody summer normal schools the country schools have received
a mighty impulse, evidenced by an increase last year of twelve
thousand in average attendance. The town and city schools were
1895] OF THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 43
all full ; the high-schools, denominational colleges, and State
institutions closed in June with increased enrolments. The
counties last year expended $5,100 on Institutes, and the cost will
be about the same this year. The Peabody normal schools cost
$5,400. The State paid last year for the education of the negroes
$440,583, and has averaged this amount for the past twenty-four
years — which aggregates for negro education more than ten and
one half millions. We have kept a steady march forward on all
educational lines, despite the industrial depression ; and the
records show an increase of twenty thousand dollars the last year
in public school revenues.
" It is a grateful task thus to report progress in all substantial
matters pertaining to the sacred trust which the people of this
Commonwealth confided to my care a decade ago. Honor and
praise are due the noble band of teachers through whose zeal,
fidelity, and superb spirit these achievements were made.
" This Report closes my official connection with you as agent of
the Peabody Fund. In behalf of all citizens of the State, I beg
that you will convey to the Trustees our grateful appreciation of
the beneficence that has come through their generous aid to the
children of this Commonwealth. Your courteous treatment and
kind counsel have often strengthened my purposes ; and for these
I tender you my cordial personal thanks. Wishing you many
more years of service in the noble cause to which you have
devoted your life, etc."
TEXAS.
The Hon. J. M. Carlisle, Superintendent of Education,
sends a full and interesting Report : —
" I am pleased to call your attention to the notable increase
made by the Legislature at its late session in our State ad valorem
school tax. Heretofore, the rate has been twelve and one-half
cents on the one hundred dollars. It was fixed at twenty cents on
the one hundred dollars for the current year, and at eighteen cents
for the years that are to follow. Twenty cents on the one hundred
dollars is the maximum rate permitted by the Constitution ; and
the friends of the public schools were quite earnest in their efforts
to have the rate fixed permanently at that maximum. It is
44 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
encouraging to note that our Governor boldly recommended the
adoption of the maximum in his regular message to the Legislature,
and that in a special message he urged it in the strongest terms. I
do not feel at liberty to omit this mention of the Governor's
friendly interest in the public schools as shown in this matter of
taxation — a subject upon which almost all public men are particu-
larly timid. The increase for the present year is sixty per cent of
the former rate, and the increase for subsequent years is forty-four
per cent of the former rate. The estimated increase of funds from
taxation for this year is $625,000, and for subsequent years the
increase is estimated at $450,000. I doubt whether any Southern
State can make a better showing of educational progress and in
the growth of popular interest.
" The State Board of Education has just made the apportion-
ment of school funds for the next scholastic year. The scholas-
tic population is as follows: White children, 547,570 ; colored
children, 171,079, — total, 718,649. The apportionment was
fixed at $3.50 per cap. and results as follows: For white child-
ren, $1,915,495; for colored children, $598,776.50 — total
$2,514,271.50.. This apportionment was made after providing for
the payment of $547,690.50 yet due on the apportionment for
the current year. The total estimated receipts of our available
school-fund for next year are, therefore, $3,061,962.02.
" At the opening of the year, the outlook for summer normal
work was most discouraging. But the depressing effects of the
financial stringency that continues to affect all parts of our com-
munity were in a measure overcome, interest in the work was
revived, and now a careful review of the work done convinces me
that the results are better and more permanent than the results of
any former year.
" The School of Methods held at Dallas for three weeks was
the most brilliant and successful school for professional improve-
ment of teachers ever held in this State. The Faculty — of which
Dr. O. H. Cooper, of Galveston, was principal — included much
of the best school talent of Texas. The attendance was large, the
enrolment reaching two hundred and eighty-five. The teachers in
attendance and the instructors in charge of the work were all full
of interest and enthusiasm. Fifty-five summer Normal Institutes
1895] OF THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. ac
for white teachers and eighteen for colored teachers were organized.
The number has been larger than heretofore, and about three
thousand teachers attended.
" No one informed upon the subject of the needs of our teach-
ers doubts the value of these Normal Institutes. From them is
drawn the inspiration for much of the best work that is done in
our schools. In them are thrown out the hints and suggestions
that are rapidly giving many of our schools their most progressive
and enterprising teachers.
"The Sam Houston Normal Institute closed in June the most
prosperous session in its history. The enrolment reached five
hundred and forty-nine, the highest record yet made. Too much
cannot be said in praise of the judicious management of this
institution by the distinguished principal, Prof. H. C. Pritchett.
His long experience and his natural capacities fit him perfectly for
the position he occupies ; and in no other one particular is Texas
more fortunate than in having him at the head of her State Normal
School. Perhaps in no single respect has public opinion in this
State undergone a more marked change than in respect to the
State Normal. This is the result of rare talent and tact used in
the management of the institution, and of the solid and enduring
work done for the teachers and schools of Texas by the experienced
Faculty.
" The State University is enjoying a prosperity and a growth most
gratifying to the friends of higher education. The leading mem-
bers of the Faculty are making intelligent efforts to put themselves
in touch with the teachers of the common schools, and to bring
the University into close relations with all the efficient high-schools
of the State.
" The Agricultural and Mechanical College, under the direction
of Ex-Governor Ross, continues to grow in popularity. A number
of young men had to be turned away on account of a lack of
room.
" The Prairie View College for colored teachers continues to
prosper. This institution is doing a work of great importance in
educating teachers for our colored schools. Liberal appropriations
were made for the college by the last Legislature, and its sphere of
usefulness will be enlarged from year to year.
46 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
" I believe that the white people of this State are thoroughly and
heartily in favor of educating the colored people. Our Constitu-
tion requires ' impartial provisions ' to be made for the education
of both white and colored children, and our statutes require each
school district to maintain its white and colored school for the
same annual term. There is, so far as I know, no disposition upon
the part of any considerable number of our people to change the
liberal policy so long pursued in reference to the education of the
colored people. I am pleased to add that I do not think it can be
questioned that the negro is becoming educated. The colored
teachers especially are rapidly becoming an educated class. This
is the best hope of the negro race.
" Upon the whole, a review of the educational conditions of this
State gives us great reason to feel encouraged. There are, of
course, discouraging features, but that the cause of popular educa-
tion is gaining ground may be distinctly perceived. With feelings
of profound gratitude to the Peabody Board of Trustees and to
the able General Agent for the great benefits that have during
so many years come to our schools through this Fund, I am, etc."
ALABAMA.
The new Superintendent, Hon. John O. Turner, sends
a full and satisfactory report, from which I gather some
interesting information. The State has four Normal
Schools for white pupils, and two for colored. It aids
also the Tuskegee School by an annual gift of three thou-
sand dollars. At the last session of the Legislature, a
girl's Industrial School was established.
"At the Troy Normal College there were 504 students, of
whom 236 were in the normal department. Fourteen teachers
were employed, and twenty-three were graduated. There is one
feature connected with this school which makes it superior to any
of its class in the State. This is the extension course of Peabody
Summer School of Pedagogy, which has enrolled more than one
hundred students. About eighty per cent of the male graduates
and fifty per cent of the female continue to teach. Dr. Eldridge
■
1S95] OF THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 47
is an untiring and painstaking worker. The entire Faculty is com-
posed of teachers of ability and energy. The prospects of the
College were never brighter. Its influence for good is being felt
throughout this and other States. The Legislature, in recognition
of the management and conduct of the College, increased the
appropriation from two thousand to four thousand dollars.
" Florence Normal College enrolled 346 students, including 257
in the normal department, and 57 in the 'model' training depart-
ment. Nine teachers were employed, and twenty-two persons
graduated. The State appropriates $7,500. The prospects for
the coming year are very flattering. Practically, all of the normal
graduates teach. A careful estimate, covering all graduates,
showed that they averaged over three years each in teaching.
President Powers is a gentleman- of scholarly attainments, and as
an educator is the peer of any man in Alabama of his age.
" The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute enrolled 97S stu-
dents, of whom 512 were in the normal department. Sixty teachers
are employed, and one hundred and ninety persons were graduated.
Everything points to a fuller school next year, and the work will be
greatly improved. Ninety per cent of the graduates teach and do
educational work. I was present at the closing exercises in May,
and I do not believe, considering all the circumstances, that the
school has an equal in the Union. It is a little world in itself.
Twenty-four industries are carried on and taught. Students were
enrolled from twenty-five States and Territories. The merits and
worth of President Washington are recognized wherever he is
known. His name stands out as one of the most prominent of
his race in the world. He has been chosen as the representative
of his race at the Atlanta Exposition.
"The Montgomery Normal School enrolled 87S pupils, with
542 normal students and twenty teachers. The State appropriates
annually $7,500. The students who take the regular normal
course take high positions as teachers. Principal Paterson is one
of the best school men in the State, and has done more to put the
negro on a high plane, both in morals and education, than any one
man in the State. His work is systematic, methodic, and thorough ;
and to his faithful services the progress of negro education in
Alabama is largely due. His school will rank with the very best in
48 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
the land, and is an honor, not only to the colored people, but to
the State and to the cause of education everywhere. With the
many other good schools for the colored children under the
auspices of the churches, together with the facilities offered in
the public schools, the problem of negro education will soon be
solved in Alabama."
Owing to the diminished income placed at my disposal,
no grant was made to the State for Institutes. This is not
much to be regretted, as the State law is not marked by
much liberality. By Act of February 28, 1887, the Legis-
lature required the Superintendent to hold an Institute for
a term of one week or more in each Congressional district,
and appropriated five hundred dollars annually — provided
there was no unapportioned and unexpended balance in
the treasury; and provided further that the sum paid
for Institutes should not exceed the amount paid by the
Trustees of the Peabody Education Fund.
FLORIDA.
Chancellor Payne visited the State during the winter,
and made five addresses before the State Teachers' Associa-
tion at Orlando. " The session lasted from December 31
to January 4. Six hundred teachers were in attendance,
and I think the audience was as intelligent as any I ever
addressed."
The Superintendent, Hon. W. U. Sheats, did not send in
his report in time to be included with the others, because
the schools had not closed. Six summer schools were
held but the results were not satisfactory. "The public
school system is daily taking deeper hold upon the affec-
tions of the whole people and is making rapid advance-
ment in all directions, which is largely due to the fact that
our schools are being constantly supplied with a better
grade of teachers, which you are helping us to provide."
1895] OF THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 49
Distribution of Income since October 1, 1894.
Alabama.
Florence Normal $1,400.00
Troy " 1,200.00
Tuskegee " 600.00
Montgomery Normal 800.00
$4,000.00
Florida.
Teachers' Institutes 1,000.00
Georgia.
Milledgeville Normal 2,000.00
Louisiana.
Natchitoches Normal $1,500.00
>o
2,400.00
Institutes 900.00
Mississippi.
Institutes 3.000.00
North Carolina.
Elizabeth City Public School $250.00
Greensboro Normal 2 000.00
Colored Normals 1,000.00
3.250.00
South Carolina.
Winthrop Normal College $2,000.00
Claflin University 1,500.00
Beaufort Public School 300.00
3,800.00
Tennessee.
Institutes 1,200.00
Texas.
Sam Houston Normal $2,500.00
Prairie View 500.00
Institutes 500.00
3.500.00
4
£jO PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [OCT.
Virginia.
Hampton Normal $1,300.00
Farmville " 1 ,000.00
Petersburg " 300.00
Institutes 1,400.00
$4,000.00
Arkansas.
Normal Schools 2,350.00
West Virginia.
Normal Schools $700.00
Institutes 1,550.00
2,250.00
Peabody Normal College.
Salaries $13,300.00
Alumni Catalogue 300.00
Scholarships.
Alabama $1,897.78
Arkansas 2,102.40
Florida i,°99-55
Georgia 2,262.46
Louisiana 1,477-53
Mississippi 1,532.26
North Carolina 2,642.50
South Carolina i,563-°3
Tennessee 3>552-87
Texas 2,541.90
Virginia 2,I5445
West Virginia 1,305.00
$24,131.73
Returned to Treasurer 5l8-27
Total Scholarship account .... 24,650.00
38,250.00
Total $71,000.00
J. L. M. CURRY,
General Agent.
Washington, D. C, Sept. 25, 1895.
1895] 0F THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 5 1
Dr. Curry also offered President Payne's Re-
port, which was accepted, and will be found in the
Appendix.
Mr. Morgan, the Treasurer, made his Report;
but as there have been during the year no material
changes in the investments, it is not here given.
Mr. Morgan's account was referred to Mr. Henry
and Judge Fenner as an Auditing Committee;
and to them also was referred the account of Dr.
Curry, the General Agent.
On motion of Mr. Morgan, it was —
Voted, That the investments of capital belonging to the
Trust made during the past year by the Treasurer, with
the approval of the Finance Committee, be ratified and
confirmed.
Voted, That the Treasurer be authorized to purchase for
the capital account $20,000 Bonds secured by furniture
in the Gerlach House, on which this Trust holds the First
Mortgage, if, at the time, such sum be available for invest-
ment, and such purchase be approved by the Finance
Committee.
Bishop Whipple, in behalf of the Special Com-
mittee appointed at the last Annual Meeting to
visit the. Normal College at Nashville, asked for
further time in which to make their report, which
was granted.
The Standing Committees were then appointed
as follows : —
Executive Committee : Chief-Justice Fuller, Hon. Wil-
liam A. Courtenay, Hon. William C. Endicott, Daniel
52 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
C. Gilman, LL.D., Hon. Charles E. Fenner, with the
Chairman, Mr. Evarts, ex officio.
Finance Committee: Hon. William M. Evarts, President
Cleveland, Hon. William Wirt Henry, Hon. Joseph
H. Choate, Hon. George Peabody Wetmore. with the
Treasurer, Mr. Morgan, ex officio.
The Chairman was authorized to fill any vacancy
that might occur in these Committees.
Mr. Henry, for the Auditing Committee, reported
that the accounts of Mr. Morgan, the Treasurer,
and of Dr. Curry, the General Agent, were found
to be correct and properly vouched ; which Report
was accepted.
Chief -Justice Fuller reported the following
Tribute to the memory of Mr. Winthrop, which
he said had been prepared by Mr. Choate ; and
it was unanimously accepted : —
The Trustees of the Peabody Education Fund, convened
at their annual meeting for the year 1895, desire to put on
record their profound regret at the death, since their last
meeting, of their distinguished president, the Honorable
Robert C. Winthrop, and their high appreciation of his
great qualities of mind and heart, which were never exhib-
ited to greater advantage than in his long and zealous
devotion to the interests and affairs of the Trust as its
chief executive officer during the whole period that has
elapsed since its foundation.
His renowned career in the public service of his country
and in the noblest pursuits of private life may well be
reserved for a suitable biographer, but his relations to
this Trust were so peculiar and of such transcendent im-
1 895.] OF THE PEABODY EDUCATION. FUND. 53
portance to its welfare, that we may well pause in our
deliberations to recall them. He was a warm personal
friend of Mr. Peabody before the establishment of the
Trust, and while that friendship and his great public and
private repute might account for his original selection by
our founder as a trustee, Mr. Peabody's designation of him
as the permanent president of the Trust is to be ascribed
to his thorough knowledge of the man, and of his fitness,
by his long and frequent occupation of a similar position
in other institutions, for guiding, controlling, and devel-
oping the affairs of the great charity which his generous
heart intended this Trust to be. His wide and thorough
knowledge of the whole country, to whose service he had
given a large portion of his active life, and especially of the
needs of the Southern people, among whom Mr. Peabody
designed to distribute his bounty for the purposes of edu-
cation, his admirable tact and skill in dealing with educa-
tional and charitable problems, naturally pointed him out
to Mr. Peabody as the most competent adviser that he
could call to his aid in the constitution of the Trust, and
the proper person to preside over its future. And so in
his original letter, in which he declared the general objects
of the Trust to be " the promotion and encouragement
of intellectual, moral, and industrial education among the
young of the more destitute portions of the Southern and
Southwestern States of our Union," while leaving the
details and organization of the Trust wholly to the trus-
tees, he requested that the chairman might be Mr. Win-
throp, to whom he referred as " the distinguished and
valued friend to whom I am so much indebted for cor-
dial sympathy, careful consideration, and wise counsel in
this matter."
The result, during a presidency of twenty-seven succes-
sive years, has fully justified the selection. It may be
54 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [OCT.
said, with truth and moderation, that the great success
of Mr. Peabody's intentions for the amelioration of the
destitution and sufferings of the Southern people by edu-
cation has been largely due to the ceaseless and vigilant
devotion of Mr. Winthrop, during these twenty-seven
years, to the business of the Trust. Not a school was
aided but after careful consideration of its merits by him.
Not a dollar was expended without his serious considera-
tion of the utility of the outlay in the direction intended
by Mr. Peabody.
His lofty character, his courteous bearing, his uniform
kindness in all his dealings with the trustees over whom
he presided, endeared him to each member of the Trust
as a warm personal friend, and the light which his expe-
rience and knowledge shed upon every question that arose
for deliberation always made the task of his associates an
easy one. We felt that whatever Mr. Winthrop approved,
after the study and reflection which he insisted upon giving
to every measure projected, must, of course, be right. It
was a very great thing for an institution like this to be
presided over by such a man, who for a quarter of a cen-
tury was willing to give to its continual service the best
powers with which he was endowed.
The Winthrop Training School in South Carolina, which,
by Act of the Legislature of that State, has been trans-
formed and developed into the Winthrop Normal and In-
dustrial College, will stand as a permanent memorial of
the great service rendered to the country by Mr. Winthrop
in the exercise of his duties as our president. That such
an institution of learning, fostered by this Trust, and sus-
tained by the aid of the State of South Carolina, whose
interests are so much involved in the advancement of
education in the South, should have received his name,
was always a great source of pride and satisfaction to
1895] OF THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 55
him ; but his interest in it on that account did not sur-
pass the deep-seated concern and solicitude which he
always felt for the success of all the institutions scattered
through the Southern States, which were made the object
of our founder's bounty.
His work in carrying out the proud and noble designs
of Mr. Peabody was but a fitting sequel to the earnest
interest which throughout his prolonged public career he
had manifested for the welfare of the people of the South-
ern States ; and it was no small satisfaction to him that
incidentally Mr. Peabody's bounty relieved, to some ex-
tent, that emancipated race which for centuries had been
deprived by law of all possibility of education. As an
object lesson, the beneficial results of gifts to such schools
as Hampton and Tuskegee made good his own words
when he said : " Slavery is but half abolished, emancipa-
tion is but half completed, while millions of freemen with
votes in their hands are left without education." What-
ever speculations may be indulged in as to the future of
that race in America, this sentiment of Mr. Winthrop's
will ever remain the only safe guide for public or private
treatment of the vast and complicated subject; and his
wise utterances, the result always of careful study and
reflection, as they appear in the published Proceedings of
the Trust since its foundation, will always serve as a val-
uable contribution to the advancement of education in the
South among both races.
We shall ever look back upon our association with Mr.
Winthrop in the Trust as a rare privilege and a great
honor, and can only hope to approximate in the conduct
of its affairs to his fidelity and his wisdom.
Melville W. Fuller.
William A. Courtenay.
Joseph H. Choate.
56 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES [Oct.
Bishop Whipple made a motion that the sum of
$500 — if in the judgment of the Executive Com-
mittee it is practicable — be appropriated for the
purchase of books for the Normal College at Nash-
ville, the same to be expended under the direction
of President Payne, which was duly passed.
On motion of Dr. Green it was —
Voted, That a special appropriation of $500 be made to
Dr. Payne for the ensuing year, in addition to his regular
salary.
The Hon. J. L. M. Curry was unanimously re-
chosen General Agent.
Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan was re-elected Treas-
urer, and a sum not exceeding $750 appropriated
for clerical assistance ; and Dr. Samuel A. Green
was re-elected Secretary.
On motion of Mr. Henry it was —
Voted, That the Committee appointed at the last Annual
Meeting to consider the expediency of publishing Dr.
Curry's account of the Peabody Education Fund be con-
tinued, substituting the name of Mr. Evarts, the Chair-
man, for that of Mr. Winthrop.
On motion of Mr. Morgan, it was —
Resolved, That in view of the authority given by the
Founder to liquidate the Peabody Trust and to distribute
the principal at the discretion of the Trustees, on or after
the expiration of thirty years ;
Resolved, That a Committee of three, together with the
Chairman, the First Vice-Chairman, and the General
1895] 0F THE PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. 57
Agent, be appointed to consider the whole question, and to
report its conclusion at the next Meeting of the Trustees.
Whereupon the following members were named :
Governor Porter, Mr. Henry, and Mr. Choate.
The subject of a statue to Mr. Peabody was in-
formally brought up, when it was unanimously —
Voted, That this Board has heard with deep satisfaction
the report that it is proposed by some of the Southern
States, which are the recipients of Mr. Peabody's bounty,
to erect in the city of Washington a statue to his
memory.
It was also voted that the next meeting of
the Trustees be held in New York, on the first
Wednesday of October, 1896, with a discretionary
authority to the Chairman, with the advice and
consent of the Executive Committee, to make
any change of time and place which may seem
desirable.
The Annual Meeting of the Trustees was then
dissolved.
SAMUEL A. GREEN,
Secretary.
Under the Act of Incorporation of "The Trustees of the Pea-
body Education Fund," obtained from the State of New York at the
beginning of the Trust, Mr. Wmthrop was made Chairman of the
Corporation; and Governor Fish and Bishop Mcllvaine were made
Vice-Chairmen. For that reason they held permanent positions, and
hitherto in the choosing of officer; the entry in the records has had
reference to the fact by specifyi-g those "subject to election." Of
these three gentlemen Mr. Winthrop was the last survivor, and here-
after the expression will not be used.
APPENDIX.
To Hon. J. L. M. CURRY, General Agent :
I have the honor of transmitting through you, to the Trustees
of the Peabody Education Fund, my Eighth Annual Report as
President of the Peabody Normal College.
Our annual catalogue shows an aggregate enrolment of five
hundred and twenty-eight students — a gain of twenty over the
enrolment of the preceding year. This gain is really larger than
it appears, for the enrolment just stated does not include the
Freshman Class of about sixty, which, for the first time in the
history of the college, is this year catalogued in the Winthrop High
School. This transference of students is one of the measures
taken for the purpose of raising the grade of the school. Besides,
the elimination 'of this class makes possible one uniform standard
of admission for all students, whether scholarship or non-scholar-
ship.
Our Commencement on May 29 was an occasion of great
interest. Probably no class of equal size was ever graduated from
any other educational institution in the South. An aggregate of
one hundred and seventy-six degrees was conferred, as follows :
Licentiate of Instruction, one hundred and twenty-five ; Bachelor
of Letters, nine ; Bachelor of Science, nine ; Bachelor of Arts,
twenty-eight ; Master of Letters, two ; Master of Arts, three.
Honorary degrees were conferred as follows : On Miss Lizzie L.
Bloomstein, of the Peabody Normal College, Master of Arts ; on
Professor Edward C. Benson, of Kenyon College, Doctor of Laws ;
on Chancellor Robert B. Fulton, of the University of Mississippi,
Doctor of Laws ; on President J. Harris Chappell, of the Normal
and Industrial College of Georgia, Doctor cf Philosophy.
On February 18, the centennial of George Peabody's birth was
celebrated with appropriate and impressive exercises. A biograph-
60 PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. [Oct.
ical sketch of Mr. Peabody was read by Miss Bloomstein ; a
history of the Peabody Education Fund was given by Professor
Bourland ; and lessons from Mr. Peabody 's life formed the theme
of an address by the President.
Though Mr. Winthrop's death occurred on November 16, it was
thought best to defer the memorial services in his honor till a date
near the anniversary of his birth; and so, on May 15, in the
chapel, a Memorial Address was delivered by Dr. A. D. Mayo, of
Boston.
At the close of the preceding year, Mrs. Mary E. Cheney, of
the department of vocal music, was granted a year's leave of
absence for study in Europe ; and her place has been supplied by
Miss Lula O. Andrews, a graduate of the College. Mrs. Cheney's
leave of absence has been extended for another year, and Miss
Andrews will continue her services during the coming year.
Very unexpectedly, and to the general regret, Mrs. Mary E. W.
Jones, Director of the Ewing Gymnasium for young women,
resigned her position late in the last vacation, and Miss Venie J.
Lee, an alumna of the College, was elected to the vacancy. By
long and superior service, Mrs. Jones earned the hearty confidence
and respect of successive classes of students, and the high stand-
ing of our Gymnasium throughout the country is due in large
measure to her fidelity and skill.
The liberal treatment of the College by the General Assembly
of Tennessee at its recent session is a matter of warm congratu-
lation. The two committees on education had made a thorough
inspection of the College, both as to its business methods and its
scheme of instruction ; and the result of their report was not only
a continuance of the yearly appropriation of fifteen thousand
dollars by a nearly unanimous vote in both Houses, but an
additional sum of five thousand dollars annually for a chair of
American History in the Peabody Normal College. At a recent
meeting of the State Board this trust was accepted, the chair was
established, and this new professorship was given to Dr. W. R.
Garrett, formerly State Superintendent of Instruction in Tennessee.
While the growth of the College in numbers, under standards of
admission that have been rising from year to year, is a source of
just congratulation, I count the steady development of the inner
IS95-] REPORT OF PRESIDENT W. H. PAYNE. 6 1
life of the College as a fact of surpassing importance. The pro-
fessional side of our work is pushed just far enough to create a
wholesome and inspiring esprit de corps, but not to such an
extreme as to defeat the culture-aims of the school. For a teacher,
liberal scholarship is the standard professional equipment ; and
method, to be helpful in a high degree, should be held subordinate
to this higher professional aim. In this adjustment of method to
. scholarship, I think we have found the middle way of safety ; and
the success of our students in actual school administration confirms
me in the belief that the general policy of the College is essentially
sound. In the working out of this policy, our library has been an
agent of the highest value ; and it is not too much to say that the
school has been transformed through the agency of good books.
While the effect of the reading habit on our own students has been
so beneficent, how shall we compute the influence, near and
remote, on the countless schools into which this generous contagion
is transmitted by the little army of recruits that is yearly sent into
the teaching profession ?
Among the more urgent needs of the College, I beg leave to
mention the following : —
In our scheme of instruction, our greatest weakness is in the
department of Physics, where we have neither laboratory nor
apparatus, and where the instruction is given by one teacher,
already overcharged with work — our Professor of Chemistry.
These two departments cover such vast fields of their own that
they should be intrusted to distinct professorships. Some of our
classes are abnormally large, and a larger number of teachers is
needed in order that our students may spend their time to a
reasonable advantage. For our morning reunions, and still more
for our lectures, concerts, and Commencement services, our chapel
has become very inadequate, and a larger assembly-room is an
urgent need.
There will be transmitted to you by my secretary a documen-
tary history of our graduates, so far as I have been able to obtain
it, after the most faithful and persistent efforts. This record is
still very incomplete, and I shall do all that can be done by cor-
respondence during the coming year to complete this curriculum
vita:.
62 PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. [Oct.
I owe you personally, and through you the Board of Trust,
sincere thanks for leave of absence to visit England and Scotland
during the coming fall.
Very respectfully,
William H. Payne,
President.
Nashville, Tenn., July 22, 1895.
EXTRACTS FROM AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BY HON. J. L.
M. CURRY, IN RESPONSE TO AN INVITATION OF THE
GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF SOUTH CAROLINA, DEC. 13, 1894.
Senators and Representatives :
It has been said that among the best gifts of Providence to a
nation are great and good men, who act as its leaders and guides,
who leave their mark upon their age, who give a new direction
to affairs, who introduce a course of events which come down
from generation to generation, pouring their blessings upon man-
kind. Public men are the character and conscience of a people.
Respect for the worth of men and women is the measure of pro-
gress in civilization. On the 16th of November, 1S94, passed
away one of America'^ purest and noblest men, one of the last
links which bound the present with the better days of the Re-
public. For South Carolina he cherished a great affection, and
sought to rekindle and keep alive the memories and fraternity of
the Revolutionary period, when Massachusetts and South Carolina
were struggling together for the establishment of our free insti-
tutions. Deeply touched and very grateful was he that South
Carolina honored him so highly, by attaching his name in perpe-
tuity to one of her most beneficent institutions of learning. The
watchword of his life was the worship of truth and devotion to
the Union. He saw clearly that " whoever would work toward
national unity must work on educational lines." We may well
pause to drop a tear over the grave of the author, orator, philan-
thropist, patriot, statesman, Christian gentleman. Governor Till-
man said last May, at the laying of the corner-stone of the College
at Rock Hill : " On one thing the people of South Carolina are
1895O ADDRESS OF HON. J. L. M. CURRY. 63
certainly agreed, — in their love for Robert C. Winthrop and the
new College that bears his name."
I have said that he was a Christian statesman. Christianity
and Democracy have revolutionized the ideas and institutions of
the world in reference to man, his rights, privileges, and duties.
The arrival of Democracy, says Benjamin Kidd, is the fact of our
time which overshadows all other facts ; and this arrival is the
result of the ethical movement in which qualities and attributes
find the completest expression ever reached in the history of the
human race. Kings and clergy, as having superior access to God
and command of the Divine prerogatives, have been relegated to
the background. Man's attainment to an enjoyment of privi-
leges and possibilities depends on the development of latent,
original, God-given powers. Families, churches, and States recog-
nize and provide for the unfolding of these capacities. " Educa-
tion, a debt due from present to future generations," was the
idea and motive which permeated Mr. Peabody's munificence,
and the sentiment is the legend for the official seal of the Pea-
body Education Fund. Free schools for the whole people should
be the motive and aim of every enlightened legislator. South
Carolina incorporates the duty into her organic law. There can
be no more legitimate tax on property than furnishing the means
of universal education ; for this involves self-preservation. The
great mass of the people are doomed inevitably to ignorance,
unless the State undertake their improvement. Our highest
material, moral, and political interests need all the capabilities of
all the citizens ; and then there will be none too much to meet
life's responsibilities and duties. As the people are sovereign,
free schools are needed for all of them. We recognize no such
class as an elect few. It is desirable that citizens should read the
laws they are to obey. A governor once put his edicts above the
heads of the people ; we sometimes, practically, do the same by
keeping the people in ignorance. When all must make laws as
well as obey, it is essential that they should be educated. The
more generally diffused the education, the better the laws ; the
better are they understood and the better obeyed. The highest
civilization demands intelligent understanding of the laws and
prompt, patriotic, cheerful obedience.
64 PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. [Oct.
When schools are established, what will perfect them? The
first need is sufficient money, to be obtained through State and
local revenues. In no instance should this money be appropri-
ated for sectarian purposes. In England, since the Free Edu-
cation Act, there has been a determined effort to quarter denomi-
national schools upon the rates. In the United States a
persistent effort is made to subsidize from general revenues certain
sectarian schools in States and among the Indians. During the
nine years — 1886-1894 — our Government gave for education of
the Indians $4,277,940, and of this appropriation one church
received $2,738,571. The remainder was distributed among
fifteen various schools and organizations. Another requirement is
efficient local and State supervision, divorced from party politics,
and controlled by civil service principles. If education be of
universal and vital concern, it needs for its administration the
highest capacity. The system of common schools reached its
pre-eminent usefulness in Massachusetts under the administration
of such remarkable men as Mann, Sears, and Dickinson. Pupils
should be graded so as to economize time, utilize teaching
talent, and secure systematic progress. At last, all depends on
good teaching, and children, with all their possibilities, deserve the
best. There is often a criminal waste of time, talent, opportuni-
ties, and money, because of incompetent teachers. There is
sometimes a distressingly small return for money and labor ex-
pended upon schools. It is not well-organized school systems,
nor excellent text-books, nor systematic courses of study, nor
wise supervision, however important, that make the good schools ;
it is the teacher, not mechanical in method and the slave of some
superficial notion of the object and the process of the work, but
a thorough master of the profession, widely knowledged and cul-
tured, able to interest the pupils, to develop the highest power
and efficiency. A good teacher will make a good school, in spite
of a thousand hindrances. One able to awaken sluggish intel-
lect, give a mental impulse running through after life, who
understands child nature, the laws of mental acquisition and
development, whose mind has been expanded and enriched by
a liberal education, who has accurate scholarship and a love for
sound learning, who can awaken enthusiasm, mould character,
I895-] ADDRESS OF HON. J. L. M. CURRY. 65
develop by healthful aspirations, inspire to do duty faithfully, —
will have a good school. Andrew D. White called Dr. Wayland
the greatest man who has ever stood in the college presidency ; and
such men as Mark Hopkins, M. B. Anderson, Doctors McGuffy
and Broadus, show the value of high qualifications in teachers.
In our public schools are thousands of men and women doing
heroic work noiselessly and without ostentation, who deserve all
the praise which is lavished upon less useful laborers in other
departments. As the State has undertaken the work of educa-
tion, it is under highest obligations to have the best schools,
which means the best teachers.
How shall South Carolina meet these imperative obligations?
Your schools average 4.7 months; but no schools should have a
term shorter than eight months, and the teachers, well paid,
should be selected impartially, after thorough and honest exami-
nation. All should have unquestioned moral character, sobriety,
aptitude for the work, desire and ability to improve. It has been
suggested that if only one law were written above the door of
every American school-room, it ought to be, No man or woman
shall enter here as teacher whose life is not a good model for the
young to copy. The experience of most enlightened countries
has shown that these teachers should be trained in normal schools ;
and by normal schools I do not mean an academy with deceptive
name and catalogue, and the slightest infusion of pedagogic
work. Teaching is an art, based on rationally determined prin-
ciples. The child grows, and runs up the psychic scale in a cer-
tain order. The mind has laws, and there is no true discipline
except in conformity to and application of these laws. Acquaint-
ance with and application of these laws come not by nature, not
spontaneously, but by study and practice. The real teacher should
be familiar with the history, the philosophy, and the methods of
education. He will best acquire and accomplish the technical and
professional work if he have a well-balanced mind, fine tastes, and
" the faculty of judgment, strengthened by the mastery of prin-
ciples, more than by the acquisition of information." We have
professional schools for the lawyer, the doctor, the engineer ; why
not for the teacher? His ability to teach should not be picked up
at hap-hazard, by painful experience, and with the sacrifice of the
children. A sign-board near my residence reads, " Horses shod
5
66 PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. [Oct.
according to humane principles of equine nature." It conveys
a true principle, and suggests that children should be instructed
according to the true principles of mental science.
President Eliot, in one of his excellent papers, enunciates six
essential constituents of all worthy education : —
i. Training the organs of sense. Through accurate observa-
tion we get all kinds of knowledge and experience. The child
sees the forms of letters, hears the sound of letters and words, and
discriminates between hot and cold, black and white, etc. All
ordinary knowledge for practical purposes, and language as well,
are derived mainly through the senses.
2. Practice in comparing and grouping different sensations, and
drawing inferences.
3. Accurate record in memory or in written form.
4. Training the memory ; and practice in holding in the mind
the record of observations, groupings, and comparisons.
5. Training in the power of expression, in clear, concise ex-
position, logical setting forth of a process of reasoning.
6. Inculcation of the supreme ideals through which the human
race is uplifted and ennobled. Before the pupil should be put the
loftiest ideals of beauty, honor, patriotism, duty, obedience, love.
Teachers are greatly helped by Teachers' Institutes, when those
who assemble get the wisdom and experience of many minds on
the difficult problems of the profession. The work should be
practical, systematic, logical, continuous from year to year ; and
a course of professional reading should be prescribed, so as to
increase the intelligence and culture of the profession.
We very often lose sight of the true end of education : it is, or
should be, effective power in action, doing what the uneducated
cannot do, putting acquisition into practice, developing and
strengthening faculties for real every-day life. The only sure test
is the ability to do more and better work than could be done
without it. The average man or woman with it should be stronger,
more successful, more useful, than the average man or woman
without it. It is the human being with an increase of power which
makes one more than equal to a mere man. It is not so much
what is imparted, but what is inwrought ; not what is put in, but
what is got out. It is not so much what we know as what we are
and can do for productive ends. The object of Christianity is to
1S95.] ADDRESS OF HON. J. L. M. CURRY. 67
make good men and good women here on earth. The object of
education is to make useful men and women, good citizens. And
here comes in the need of manual training, which is not to fit for
special trades, but to teach the rudiments of mechanics, — those
common principles which underlie all work. The pupil can acquire
manual dexterity, familiarize himself with tools and materials, be
instructed in the science without a knowledge of which good work
cannot be done. The object of this industrial instruction is to
develop the executive side of nature, so that the pupil shall do as
well as think. This introduction of manual training into schools
has been found to be very helpful to intellectual progress. Gentle-
men need not reject it as something chimerical and Utopian ; it is
not an innovation ; the experiment is not doubtful ; it has been
tried repeatedly ; it is comparatively inexpensive, and has been
•and is now in very successful operation. It is not wise statesman-
ship, nor even good common sense, to forego for many years what
other peoples are now enjoying the advantages of. In a quarter
of a century, trade-schools, technical schools, manual training, the
kindergarten, will have nearly universal adoption. Why, during
this period, should a State rob her children of these immense
benefits?
As population increases, the struggle to maintain wages becomes
more severe, the pressure being the hardest upon the unskilled,
and less severe on each higher rank of laborers. Ever}' possible
facility for education should be put within the reach of laboring
men, to increase their efficiency, to raise the standard of life, and
to augment the proportion between the skilled and the unskilled.
Dr. Harris, our wisest and most philosophical educator, says :
" Education emancipates the laborer from the deadening effects of
repetition and habit, the monotony of mere mechanical toil, and
opens to him a vista of new inventions and more useful combi-
nations." Our industrial age increases the demand for educated
directive power. Business combinations, companies for trade,
transportation, insurance, banking, manufacturing, and mining,
demand, as essential conditions of success, intelligent directive
power. Production is augmented by skill. An indispensable con-
dition of economic prosperity is a large per capita production of
wealth. Socialism, as taught by some extremists, would sacrifice
production to accomplish distribution, and means annihilation of
68 PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. [Oct., 1895.
private capital, management by the State of all industries, of pro-
duction and distribution, when government would be the sole
farmer, common-carrier, banker, manufacturer, storekeeper ; and all
these would be turned into civil servants, and be under the control
and in the pay of the State, or of a party.
States may have ideals as well as individuals, and embody the
noblest elements of advanced civilization. Agriculture, manu-
factures, mining, mechanical arts, give prosperity when allied with
and controlled by thrift, skill, intelligence, and honesty ; but what
is imperishable is the growth and product of developed mind.
Greece and Rome live in their buildings, statuary, history, orators,
and poems. Pliny said, "To enlarge the bounds of Roman
thought is nobler than to extend the limits of Roman power."
The founders of the great English universities, centuries ago,
builded wiser than they knew, and opened perennial fountains of
knowledge and truth, from which have unceasingly flowed fructi-
fying streams. All modern material improvements are the out-
growth of scientific principles applied to practical life. If you
would legislate for the increased prosperity and glory of South
Carolina, be sure not to forget that this is the outcome of the
infinite capacities of children. Hamilton said there was nothing
great in the universe but man, and nothing great in man but
mind. "No serious thinker," says Drummond, " can succeed in
lessening to his own mind the infinite distance between the mind
of man and everything in nature." Fiske says, " On earth there
will never be a higher creation than man." Evolutionists say that
the series of animals comes to an end in man ; that he is at once
the crown and master and the rationale of creation. What you
know and admire in South Carolina is what has been done by
cultivated men and women. What other country can show such a
roll of immortal worthies as your Pinckneys and Rutledges ; your
Marion, Sumter, and Pickens; your Harper, Johnson, O'Neill;
your Fuller and Thornwell ; your McDuffie and Hayne, Legare
and Petigru ; and, towering above all, the great unrivalled
American Aristotle, John C. Calhoun?
1895] REMARKS BY DR. SAMUEL A. GREEN. 69
REMARKS MADE BY DR. SAMUEL A. GREEN BEFORE
THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, BOSTON,
DECEMBER 13, 1894.
When death conies to a man full of years and full of honors,
who has led a spotless life, and whose bodily frame has become
enfeebled by the infirmities of age, his departure is not an event
for sorrow, but rather an occasion for devout gratitude that he was
spared during so many years. The noble example of such a man
is as lasting as the countless ages of time, and is never lost, for the
continuity of life keeps up the thread of connection. Of this type
of manhood Mr. Winthrop was an eminent instance ; and he illus-
trated in his own character so many sides of a distinguished career
that it is somewhat embarrassing to select that particular setting in
which he shone the most, as he was so brilliant in them all. The
world at large knew him under the manifold aspect of a ripe
scholar, a wise statesman, a finished orator, and a Christian phi-
lanthropist ; but at this time I shall speak of his work solely in
connection with the Peabody Education Fund, that noble trust
founded to promote the cause of popular education in certain
States of the American Union. To the casual or careless ob-
server it might seem that labors in this rough and uninviting field
were beneath the attention and dignity of a man who had filled so
many high offices, but this view of the case would be superficial.
When George Peabody was putting into definite shape the long-
cherished plan to distribute in his native land a large share of his
princely fortune in token of his gratitude for the many blessings
that had been showered upon him, Mr. Winthrop was the first
person with whom he held long and confidential relations on the
subject For months before the letter of gift was written to the
Board of Trustees, he had been in close correspondence with Mr.
Winthrop in regard to the matter ; and for the successful begin-
ning of his great benefaction it was fortunate that Mr. Peabody
had the advice of such a counsellor, which on the one side was
freely given, and on the other as readily accepted. At an early
day an Act of Incorporation was obtained from the Legislature
•JO PEABODY EDUCATION FUND. [Oct.
of the State of New York, under which his almoners were created
a body by the name and title of " The Trustees of the Peabody
Education Fund." By this Act Mr. Winthrop was made perma-
nent Chairman of the Board ; and it is needless to say that the
duties of an office were never better or more conscientiously per-
formed. His care and forethought were seen equally in the larger
affairs of the Trust, and in the details of its minutest business.
No subject ever came up for consideration which did not receive
his most thoughtful attention, and his counsels always carried
great weight. Outside of the domestic circle, his loss will be
felt nowhere to a greater degree than among the members of
that corporation, who looked to him for practical suggestions.
When Mr. Peabody's gift was made, the Southern States were
staggering under many burdens, both financial and political, re-
sulting from the effects of the Civil War ; and the cause of popular
education was met everywhere by obstacles that were then con-
sidered almost insuperable. Public schools were unknown in
those States ; and, with the sparse population of the neighbor-
hood, it was very difficult to introduce a plan which would lead
up to such a system. Entangled with the question was the pres-
ence of a large class of unfortunate beings, thoroughly lacking in
all kinds of mental training, for which they themselves in no way
were responsible ; and this element complicated a free solution
of the problem.
At that time, without some aid and encouragement from the
outside world, it is very uncertain what course of action would
have been taken in order to ward off the evils. The fact was
recognized, however, that popular education was the proper rem-
edy for the troubles ; and Mr. Peabody's benefaction, coming in
the nick of time, turned the scale in the right direction. The
number of schools and colleges at the South helped from the in-
come of the Education Fund in former years was very large ; but
at the present time the distribution is confined to institutions of
a high grade, or is used to supply courses of instruction and lec-
tures among teachers in the several States. The testimony of
the various Superintendents of Education in those States has
always been strong and unanimous in regard to the practical
help thus given.
I895-] REMARKS BY DR. SAMUEL A. GREEN. 71
In the autumn of 1886 a Training School for Teachers, under
the charge of Professor David B. Johnson, was established at
Columbia, South Carolina, which was named after Mr. Winthrop,
in recognition of his eminent services in behalf of the cause of
popular education at the South. In December, 1887, the school
was incorporated by an Act of the General Assembly, and from
-that time till the present it has continued to grow in the number
of its students and in general prosperity. To-day it stands one
of the largest and most successful institutions in any part of the
country for the training of young women as teachers. A touching
tribute to the memory of Mr. Winthrop, on the part of the officers
and students, is shown in their custom of keeping the anniversary
of his birth as a holiday, and of celebrating the event in a manner
befitting the occasion. This school, now known as the Winthrop
Normal and Industrial College of South Carolina, has far outgrown
its original limits ; and at the present time a large and commo-
dious structure is in process of building at Rock Hill, of which
the corner-stone was laid with appropriate ceremonies on the
last birthday of Mr. Winthrop.
In his Annual Report, made at the end of 1893, President
Johnson recalls the fact that this institution, now in the way of
becoming so conspicuous and destined to such high ends, was
originally organized without State recognition through financial
help from the Peabody Education Fund.
It may be worthy of note, also, that Mr. Winthrop's last formal
production of a literary character was an address prepared for the
Annual Meeting of the Trustees of the Education Fund in New
York, on October 4, when he expected to be present and to
deliver it himself, but owing to the infirmities of age was unable
to attend. The paper, written only a few weeks before his death,
was read at the meeting, and showed on the part of the writer no
signs of mental weakness ; and it was marked by all that felicity
of expression and vigor of style which so peculiarly belonged to
him on such occasions.
In many prominent walks of life Mr. Winthrop's efforts have
long been conspicuous, but in the humbler fields of usefulness
his labors have been equally important, and in after-years they
will place his name high up on the roll of those men who have
72
PEABODY EDUCATION FUND.
[Oct., 1895.
served mankind in their day and generation, and have reached
distinction through their philanthropic work. The foresight of a
statesman is clearly shown throughout Mr. Peabody's great
scheme, which did more than legislation could have done to
close up the rifts caused by many a deadly struggle between
brothers of the same household, friends of the same neighbor-
hood, and citizens of a common country. For these delicate
touches the London banker was indebted to the sagacity of the
gentleman who by his presence so often graced the meetings in
this room. Statecraft will save when doubt will destroy.
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