whatever may be the administrative form of government, the legislation will be based on the will of the people.

When we follow the current of history as we may follow a river to its source, we find that underneath this government are the ethnic forces that moulded and fashioned the Germanic and AngloSaxon race, so liberty-loving that even Rome in all the power of its imperialism never could wholly bring the people beyond the Alps into subjection and make them a component part of the Empire. It is the race that emancipated itself from the pontifical hierarchy; the race that has given liberty and the new civilization to the world.

The new civilization, which moves on through the development of the forces of nature, recog nizes the truth that life is more than meat, and the body more than raiment. In no other age, in no other country, has man, as an intellectual and moral being, been held at so high a value as at the present time and in this country.

It is this recognition of the worth of human beings that arches all the future with radiant light. Men are no longer mere food for powder, - the many created to do the bidding of the few. The new civilization not only recognizes the right of every human being to make the most of himself, but regards it the duty of society to aid him. In no other country is there such recognition of this obli

gation as in this land of ours. Here the common school, the high school, the college, the university, the liberal arts, special instruction, public libraries free to rich and poor, are the institutions that give regal power and lease of life.

Education for all is the ideal of the nation. Out of this universal education comes self-reliance. The common school lifts a fatherless boy till he becomes the chief magistrate of the nation. The bullet of the assassin strikes him down, and all the world feels the blow. Never as at this moment was there such a heart-beat of humanity as for James A. Garfield; not because he has risen from the lowly walks of life to be the chief magistrate of the nation, but because this nation above all others represents the progress and the aspirations and longings of the whole human race.

Amid the smoke and flame of Gettysburg, America announced to the wondering nations. that thenceforth we were to be, not a confederacy, but a nation, one and indivisible; that men irrespective of lineage, race, or previous condition, through all coming time, were to have all the rights, privileges, and opportunities of citizenship on this continent. The banner of our country is the emblem of the world's best hopes. With the garnered wealth of all the ages- what men have lived for, died for- to help us on, with resources never bestowed upon any other people, we stand

face to face to-day with China. Manifestly, in God's providence, it is to be part of our work to give a Christian civilization to the 400,000,000 of that empire.

Equally is it manifest that through the colored race, we are to do our part in planting the Dark Continent with school-houses, belt it with railroads, and rear the Cross upon its plains.

Animated by the grandest ideal, in the closing decades of this century our country begins its mighty march down the far-reaching ages.

LECTURE VI.

EDUCATION AT THE SOUTH.

By J. L. M. Curry.

AVING been introduced as the successor of Dr. Sears, I may be permitted to say that to succeed such a man is an honor that any one, however exalted his position or great his qualifications, might well covet. He was the fullest man I ever knew. Although he filled numerous positions, requiring varied accomplishments, such as preacher, author, teacher, superintendent, and agent, he did all most successfully.

It is embarrassing to remember that his last literary effort, almost the last work of any kind which he did, was the preparation for this "American Institute of Instruction" of the paper on Fifty Years of Educational Progress"; which, for genial humor, lucidness of style, graphic detail, sound philosophy, and far-reaching views, will rank among the masterpieces of American educational literature. Prior to that, his last and noblest work was given to the true reconstruction of the South, to the development of the brain power of the country which is among the chief gifts that God bestows

This subject is somewhat misleading. Education is education, whether at the South or at the North. No Mason and Dixon's line runs through the individual or the aggregate human mind of this country. Persons of like ages and surroundings have the same educational necessities. The subject was doubtless given me because of the exceptional circumstances that belong to or environ, the South, and thus modify the general question.

I am sick ad nauseam of the unceasing allusions to the war; and yet, with us at the South as with you at the North, it is somewhat like the Flood, a standard of date, an epoch. As we speak of ante-diluvian and post-diluvian, so we speak of antebellum and post-bellum. Allow me to say that before the war the South had private schools, academies, and colleges, the last often misnamed universities. For the higher education of young women, as much was done at the South as at the North, if not more. Much misapprehension exists on this general subject of "Education in the South." In proportion to population, taking man for man, negroes excluded from the calculation, the South sustained a larger number of colleges, with more professors and more students, and at a greater annual cost, than was done in any other section of the Union. The same was true of academies and private schools.

According to the