Set the boy to catch a trout, and he is livelier than the fish itself. Set him to solve a problem in interest, and no frame of mind can be more listless than his, or apprehension more dull. Attempt to teach him the rules and laws that govern projectiles, and his mind seems to be as vacant as eternal space; but in the play-ground he can bat with a precision that alarms one, and can catch a hot ball with a dexterity that can only be acquired by one who loves the game.

I set it as a problem for. the teachers to solve, how we can transfer to the school-room the same aptitude and enthusiasm that are always found in the play-ground. It can be done, and ought to be; but I have no time on this occasion to express my views upon the method of doing it.

When this is done, our young men and women will go out into the world masters of the knowledge they have acquired. They will become cultivated in acquiring it; they can make use of it in the struggle of life.

We can learn something of the uncivilized races in this respect. When our young men go out into the world, they have learned but little that they need for actual warfare in the battle for existence. Almost everything is to be learned anew, practically in the place of theoretically.

The young Sioux warrior steps into the ranks of the braves of his tribe, fully trained in all the

arts of Indian warfare. He can ride, he can shoot, he can endure hunger and torture, his eye is keen and his hand cunning. He has learned the theory and practice of all his arts at the same time. Let our boys and girls do the same.

The Australian does not hurl his boomerang by the rules of any system taught him in school; yet he knows the power of his weapon, and can calculate its return to his hand with more accuracy than our boys can compute interest or measure the contents of a cask.

The savage learns everything practically; civilized man learns too much theoretically and too little practically. I would not follow the savage; I would modify the civilized man.

A problem for teachers, to so combine the theoretical and practical as to cultivate, educate, and equip the coming American citizen.

But it is not my place to attempt to instruct those who know about all these matters far better than I do. As a parent and a citizen, I have desired to call attention briefly and crudely to some matters that seem to me worth considering.

The philosophy of teaching, its high aims and correct methods, I leave to be discussed by those abler than myself. I beg the pardon of cultivated men and women teachers, critics for appearing before you with so little preparation; but I was unwilling to decline to be amongst you.

B

hoped to meet here the one beloved by us all, and was willing to do what I could; but that my time has been so much occupied must be my apology for my seeming disregard of your good opinion.

I am glad to be called upon to greet you, upon your entrance into our State, in this county of Franklin for within its borders, not many miles from here, I spent three of the happiest and most industrious years of my life, in teaching; and in this audience are some whom I made lifelong friends while endeavoring to give them a helping hand up learning's steps. The dreams and hopes of those days may never have been accomplished, but they have given color to my life.

Again, in behalf of our Green Mountain State, I welcome you to its borders.

The president, W. A. Mowry, replied briefly as follows:

Permit me, for myself and for all the members of this Institute, to return you thanks for your kindly greeting and your earnest welcome. The advice you have given us will well repay us for clambering up these weary hills. I am a teacher as you have been, and I am a father as you are, and I know full well how my ideas concerning education, like yours, have been gradually modified; hence I earnestly commend your advice to the serious attention of all teachers of children.

As to the present gathering, never were such complete, earnest, and persistent efforts made for our ac commodation; yet we are withal tinged with a sadness

to-day which strikes deep down into the hearts of every one present. Never, I believe, has a President of the United States attended a meeting of this organization. Once before it was hoped that a President would attend ; but the wish was never consummated. This year we looked forward to the fufilment of the long-deferred hope, and believed that we should see and have with us President Garfield, the teacher President, the chief magistrate of these fifty million people, accompanied as he was to be by the governors of New England and the members of his Cabinet. We had hoped to listen to words of wisdom from those high in official position, and should have especially welcomed our beloved President among us. He had left the White House to commence the very journey which would have brought him here After visiting Long Branch and his Alma Mater, Williams College, he was to come here with Mrs. Garfield and the children and the families of his secretaries. But, alas! that is all changed. Yet our grief at not meeting him is nothing compared with the pall which hangs over this country far and wide, this terrible Fourth of July. But thank God, friends, he still lives; and I trust that these prayers, which are everywhere offered to our Heavenly Father for the preservation of his life, will be answered favorably; but we must add reverently, God knows best, let his Divine will be done.

to us.

LECTURE III.

THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM AND ITS RELATIONS TO BUSINESS life.

By W. A. Mowry, A. M., President of tHE ASSOCIATION.

DUCATION is a broad word: it is wider

than the schools, deeper than the curriculum of studies, and higher than childhood and youth. It is not confined to the schools: it begins with the first dawning of the infantile intellect, and it is finished, if at all, in the heavenly world. In its scope it includes all the studies of the school and the college; all the trades and the industries; the editor's sanctum and the historian's study; the poet's favorite glen, where genius most inspires and nature thrills; the artist's studio; the monk's cloister; the field of carnage; the mart of trade; the nations' great highways upon the briny deep; the office of the statesman and the diplomatist; the platform of the orator; the pulpit of the preacher. Infancy, youth, manhood, and age, all alike belong to the realm of education.

With what phrases shall it be defined? How