state which have furnished and will continue to furnish adequate means for academic instruction, and preparation for the various professions. I seriously question the propriety and wisdom of the State to enter into competition with these private institutions of higher learning. These institutions have pioneered, blazed the way, and popularized higher education and have kept pace with the demands of a great and progressive people. Every true and thoughtful American deplores the fact that in this democratic republic there is being developed an aristocracy of caste and an aristocracy of capital, and the tendency now is toward an aristocracy of culture. The centralization of all the educational forces in one great towering institution tends towards the development of an aristocracy of culture, and is not in harmony with the genius of our civil and political institutions.

I, therefore, would have five State Normal schools located within easy reach and the vitalizing touch of all our people. I stand in a twofold sense where the President of the General Association stood two years ago when he said: "I give utterance to the hope that the pedagogical chair now being established in our Ohio State University may receive such development as will ultimately bring it into a pedagogical school, equal in resources and equipment and rank to any of the schools of law or medicine." I would have this department constitute the fifth and central pedagogical school of the State and have it of a higher grade than the other training schools. But professional training schools is not the first and most important remedy for our country school problem. Training and skill without system and supervision will avail but little.

That

COUNTY SUPERVISION.

our country schools should have supervision no thoughtful school man will deny. Earnest and repeated efforts were made to secure county supervision during the two decades from 1865 to 1885, but without success. We compromised in 1890 and asked for the Workman Law. Six years of trial has shown its weakness, the greatest of which is its permissive character, its "Boards of Education may." A second weakness is the size of its educational unit. Even if we could have held it intact, the report of the Committee on Condition of Education indicated that its supervision feature in four years was very slow and that the fifth year "the ratio of increase in supervision was actually diminishing." Without multiplying words, this law in its relations to supervision, judged by the results of the whole state is a failure. This same report proves however that wherever supervision has been fairly tried the results have been very beneficial, greatly increasing the efficiency of the rural schools.

The greatest objection urged against county supervision is the size of its educational unit; but in the light of the results of the Workman the Law, and growing effectiveof county supervision in our sister states this objection is losing ground, and I believe that a fair and impartial investigation of the results of county supervision would unify the school men of Ohio in its favor.

ness

A STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION.

I again stand where the President of the General Association stood two years ago when he advocated the establishment of a permanent Educational Commission, as a means to "bring to

bear right influences upon the solution of these questions." I surmise that he drew his inspiration from and based his convictions on the Massachusetts State Board of Education. I base mine on the State Board of Education of Indiana, its history and influence as an educational agent. I find that the first Board was created in 1852, and consisted of the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the Governor, Secretary, Treasurer, Auditor, and AttorneyGeneral; that this board remained merely a board of State officers "but little interested in and conversant with educational affairs and exerting no appreciable influence, till 1865, when the membership was constituted as at present" consisting of the Governor of the State, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, two University Presidents, the President of the State Normal Schools, and three Superintendents of the three largest city schools. This Board, a board made up of professional educators since 1865, a board independent of politics, "has been a valuable agent" in the educational progress of Indiana, and a valuable agent at the weakest point of its educational system its country schools.

County supervision was established in 1873, eight years after the creation of this board, and from the information obtained this State Board of Education was the potent agent that brought about State Normal Schools, County Supervision, State Boards of Education, these are the three organized agencies that have been successfully employed in other states to improve the rural schools, and why should they not work out the same and even greater results in Ohio? The logical order of their establishment should be, State Board of Education, County Supervision, State Normal Schools.

This is the question that should command our time and attention. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves, that we are underlings." For a quarter of a century we have bowed to our Cæsar, our socalled individualism and diffusive policy of our people. I quote from the President's address of this department of two years ago. "Individualism has indeed been the key of our schools. Our policy has been quite diffusive. Our schools have been exceedingly democratic. We have unswervingly adhered to the principle of local control. Each community has been a law unto itself. . . . And the educational reformer in Ohio who seeks to change the character and thought and purposes of our people must early learn to reckon with his host or fail most dismally."

These declarations fairly illustrate the sentiments expressed by Ohio educators for a quarter of a century, and should be iterated and re-iterated, and held in mind when we come to "reckon with our host;" but here we have stopped, bowed submissively to the idol of diffusive individualism, and bewailed our fate. I do not mean to say that nothing has been accomplished to improve our schools; many improvements have been made; but if the indomitable energy, unflagging interest, and wise policy that characterized our Commissioner of Common Schools the last six years, had been re-enforced by the organized agencies named above, tenfold more would have been accomplished for our rural schools. Even if his energetic and vigorous policy were continued, it would require three generations to secure supervision of all

our rural schools, under the permissive Workman Law. This inference is based on the report of the Committee on the Condition of Education. I find fault with our attitude toward this socalled diffusive character of our people. I do not believe that there was or is any more diffusiveness or individualism in our people than in the people of Pennsylvania and Indiana. Who ever heard of a more diffusive individualism than is found in the Pennsylvania Dutchman, a large factor in the population of this state? The educational policy of Indiana was diffusive and "exceedingly democratic" prior to 1873. It is not so now and we know something of the vast improvement made in her rural schools since that time.

We have worshipped too long and too devoutly at the shrine of this idol of individualism, we have compromised our convictions and yielded too long to this "exceedingly democratic" god, to the great detriment of Our rural

schools.

Our judgment has been swayed too long by the false notion that before we can have legislation on this subject there must be a very strong, general, almost universal public sentiment favorable to such legislation.

LAW A SCHOOLMASTER.

We have largely ignored the fact that law is a schoolmaster. We have forgotten the philosophy of the Jewish economy. The philosophy of the educational power of wise legislation has received but little attention. Man is largely a creature of education and was created a subject of law. A disposition to reverence the authority back of law was implanted in his nature. Reason and conscience take readily to good laws. And since man is so easily swayed by the mere incidents of life which are totally void of all authority as teachers, how much more will he be

I am aware that this is objected to as putting the cause for the effect, "that an education comprehending the principles and duties to be embodied in the law, must go before the enactment of such law." I answer that the objection is based on a false assumption, stands opposed to sound philosophy, and contradicts the history of the most salutary legislation of the world.

I pause long enough to cite one illustration. In that most critical period of our history at the close of the Revoltionary War, the people adopted a system of fundamental principles in a form entitled, The Articles of Confederation. It was soon discovered that this system was inadequate to meet the conditions and exigencies of the new Union. There were statesmen of the Madison and Hamilton type who saw the defects and at once began to prepare the public mind for a change. A convention was called to convene at Annapolis in 1786, to take measures to remedy the defects of the Confederation. Not enough interest was manifested to secure a quorum at this convention. Steps were taken, however, to secure another convention to meet in 1787 at Philadelphia. You are familiar with the history of this Constitutional Convention. I want to remind you of a few facts connected with this history. After four months' contest and toil, the Constitution was completed and submitted to the States for their ratifications. The issues were great and the conflict fierce in the work

of the Constitutional Convention, but the conflict grew fiercer now as the forum of discussion was transferred from Independence Hall to the people. The people discovered that the Convention had exceeded its authority, had set aside the Articles of Confederation and formulated a document based on new principles. The people, "exceedingly democratic," discovered that this diffusive policy was superseded by a policy of centralization. The new law met with great opposition and for reasons that were deeply seated. The people had just achieved their independence at a . tremendous sacrifice of blood and treasure, had just been liberated from a great centralized power, and had therefore a deep-seated antipathy to all external power. The leaders of the new Constitution, having discovered this general opposition, began a campaign of education. Hamilton, Jay, and Madison kept their pens busy for three months writing eloquent and logical arguments favorable to the adoption of the new Constitution. The day for the conventions arrived, and in the leading States a majority of the delegates were at first opposed to the new policy. The fate of the Constitution was in great doubt in these States because the delegates thought that the centralized power in the Constitution would be destructive of their liberties. And nothing but great leadership and wise management led to the ratification of the new policy. To cut a long story short it is the verdict of our political history that a majority of our people were opposed to the adoption of our present federal policy of centralization, and in the eloquent words of J Q. Adams, "The Constitution was extorted from the grinding necessities of a reluctant people."

Here is legislation far in advance of the people. The Constitution embodied principles and policies above and beyond

the masses. The new law became a school-master, and in the course of time the people were schooled up to the principles involved in the new policy. Please note that the spirit of the people was exceedingly democratic, that the antipathy to the new policy was deeply seated, that the transformation was accomplished in a very short period of time, and that the reason and conscience of the people. took readily to good laws.

If the history of legislation were carefully studied by the school men of Ohio, I believe that we would materially modify the philosophy of our educational policy in relation to our rural schools.

Again, the opposition to advanced legislation urges that "In a form of government like ours, all classes must be represented in the law. If by this is meant that the interests of all are to be recognized in legislation, it does not stand as an objection to my position, but if it is understood to mean that the views and preferences of all classes are to find expression in the laws of the land, it is a blind attack on the fundamental principles of good government, and a flat contradiction of the history of all wise legislation.”

I realize the fact that the first permanent settlers of a State impress themselves and their character on the future, but I also realize the fact that after influences may be brought to bear that will materially modify that character. I am also sensible of the fact that one of the greatest problems of our modern civilization is to make a fitting adjustment between the State and individual liberty. I also believe in the freedom of human will, and in the exercise of the greatest degree of personal liberty consistent with the highest welfare of our civilization. But the extensive failure on the part of mankind to appreciate and utilize the highest possibilities of life, and the strong tendency to hold on to the old, and the subserviency to local

FAVORABLE CONDITIONS AT HAND.

But it may be asked, Are the conditions favorable enough now to warrant us in urging the establishment of these three organized agencies? We have tried and failed. We tried at Bull Run and failed. We won at Appomattox. We tried diplomacy with Spain and failed. We achieved a brilliant and signal victory at Manila.

Conditions are more favorable now than ever before. The public school men are in politics to-day. They were not fifteen years ago. County supervision in some of our neighboring States was new fifteen years ago, and its beneficial results questioned. Not so to-day. We have the testimony that township supervision under the Workman Law where tried under favorable circumstances has greatly improved our country schools. That feature of the Boxwell Law which requires pupils to be put to the test of a county examination has produced and will continue to produce results which will furnish forcible and telling logic in favor of better things for our rural schools. The results of these examinations show in marked con trast with the results of the same grade of pupils in our graded and supervised schools, the great superiority of the latter. I have this testimony from a county examiner and A Grammar teacher and principal of an eight-room school, in one of the best counties in Northwestern Ohio: "There were 123 applicants for honors under the Boxwell Law, and only three of this number could have passed the examination of our A Grammar grade." This too in a county where the length of its term of school is eight and

well Law is one of the many elements preparing the way for wiser legislation. Again it will not be difficult to correct a misconception on the part of our law makers, an error that has deterred them from giving consideration to our educational problems. They remember or have read that at Philadelphia, Paris and Chicago, Ohio ranked high in its school exhibits.

They do not know or have forgotten that the graded and supervised schools of Ohio furnished these exhibits and thus saved the reputation of the State. You and I can take these men to almost any town or city in the State and show them the best schools in the world, and within three miles the poorest schools under the stars. The time has come, too, when the logic of events renders it easy to show our leaders in political thought that "For every pound that you save in education," in the language of Lord Macaulay, "you will spend five in prosecutions, in prisons, and in penal settlements," and that educated labor is cheaper than uneducated, that ignorance dooms a people to poverty. These and other facts that might be cited indicate that conditions are favorable to the enactment of wise legislation in Ohio. Then, too, a State Board of Education, one whose composition would be such that with its professional arm, it could collect facts showing the urgent need of centralizing legislation, and with its political arm press this urgent necessity upon the consideration of our lawmakers, would become a potent school master in creating favorable conditions. Such a State Board would not only become a "John the Baptist" of the advent of county supervision as it did in Indiana, but would become a potent factor in all the educational problems of Ohio.

In reply to a letter of inquiry as to the practical effect of their State Board,