No one who scrutinizes the plan and already realized results of Clark University is likely to doubt that the university has a magnificent future before it, and has come into being in the providence of God to signalize, if not to create, a new epoch in the history of American education. There need be no fear that it is to compete with existing institutions. It simply supplements them, and ought to become by its reflex influence a great stimulus to them. The specialists in this country and abroad are welcoming it with open arms. The fact that it has no undergraduate department will draw instructors to it who could not otherwise be obtained. It has money and brains back of it. Located in the heart of New England, it finds at its start an atmosphere congenial to growth. It is not burdened by any of the traditions which hamper many foreign universities, and it is untrammeled by governmental interference of any sort. In view of these facts may we not echo the words of the National Zeitung, a leading daily of Berlin, which closes a highly commendatory editorial on Clark University with these words: "Every one who has science at heart can greet this no less than magnificent undertaking only with joy and admiration, with a hearty vivat, crescat, floreat."

NATIONAL ASSOCIATIONS.

BY J. L. PICKARD, LL. D., IOWA CITY.

HE great success which has attended the meetings of the National Educational Association for a few years past, may lead us to forget its humbler beginnings, and even to ignore entirely certain sporadic efforts made years before the present great organization had its birth. To one of these my thoughts have been directed recently, upon reading a casual notice of the schools of Chicago with their 2500 teachers.

In the autumn of 1846, a meeting of friends of education in the Northwest assembled in Chicago. A few educators in the Mississippi Valley had attended meetings of the American Institute of Instruction, and had conceived the idea of reproducing it upon western soil. Under the influence of David P. Page, in the Normal School at Albany, the State of New York had advanced considerably in the training of teachers. Teachers' Institutes had

been organized. Henry Barnard, of national fame, had a wider outlook than the State of Connecticut afforded him. There came to this meeting Mr. Barnard, then in the prime of life; William F. Phelps, a young assistant of Mr. Page at Albany; Salem Town, at that time well known as a teacher and an author; and Mr. O. B. Pierce, full of zeal in Institute work. At Chicago these men found some choice spirits who had organized a public school system for Chicago. Prominent among them were G. W. Meeker, J. S. Wright, W. Jones, W. H. Brown, J. T. Scammon (who still survives), W. B. Ogden, and Philo Carpenter, men full of business and yet earnest laborers in the cause of education. Three twostory brick buildings and one small frame building sufficed for all children entitled to public school privileges. One of these buildings, accommodating perhaps four hundred children in two large halls with recitation rooms, was called the "Insane Asylum" by many who thought it unnecessarily large and expensive. Sturtevant, Ingalls, and Wilder were the "masters" of that day.

The convention organized in a small hall of the Mechanics' Institute, with a program for two days. The interest was so great that an Institute of ten days was determined upon. Outside Chicago the attendance was not large, but enthusiasm was unbounded. The people of the city opened their homes to the free entertainment of teachers from abroad and welcomed their guests to the prolonged stay. All the modern attachments to the great gathering of the present day appeared in social entertainments and an out door meeting in the Court House Square, to which the children of the public schools came with banners, and great rejoicings.

The great West proved attractive to Mr. Barnard, who not many years after became chancellor of the University of Wisconsin; to Mr. Phelps, who organized the normal work of Minnesota; to a few ladies from Vermont, who found employment in Iowa as teachers first, and then as guides to children of their own; to some colaborers of Mr. Pierce in the Institute work of New York. Those who had preceded this "breaking plow" in educational cultivation went back to their homes inspired as never before with a purpose to advance the interests of popular education in the valley, but thinly settled as yet. Out of this meeting grew the organization of the "Mining Region Teachers' Association" covering parts of Illinois. Wisconsin, and Iowa. This association held annual meetings with Institute work continued for several

days. Out of this association grew state associations in Wisconsin and Iowa at least, and in the former state, Normal Schools, the first State Normal School being established at Platteville, where one member of the great convention had found a home almost immediately after its adjournment, November, 1846.

The leaders in this movement were permitted to witness some of the fruits of their efforts. But one of the Chicago promoters of the enterprise survives. The names of most are household words, as public school buildings bear their names. Mr. Scammon now sees over two thousand five hundred teachers employed where at the time of the meeting alluded to, thirty teachers sufficed for the work.

It is proper here to state that Chicago has twice welcomed most royally the National Educational Association, the successor of her first educational convention. Each meeting at Chicago has been marked as to numbers, the first meeting being the largest in its history up to the. Madison meeting, and the second by far the largest meeting since its organization. The N. W. Convention of 1846 had prepared the soil for rich fruitage.

THE EDUCATION OF AMERICAN INDIANS.

A Paper Read before the Mohonk Conference,

BY GEN. THOMAS J. MORGAN, COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS.

THE

HE American Indians, not including the so-called Indians of Alaska, are supposed to number about 250,000, and to have a school. population (six to sixteen years) of perhaps 50,000. If we exclude the five civilized tribes which provide for the education of their own children, the number of Indians of school age to be educated by the government, does not exceed 40,000, of whom 15,000 were enrolled in schools last year, leaving but 25,000 to be provided with school privileges. They occupy for the most part government reservations, chiefly in the western states and territories, widely separated, and aggregating approximately 190,000 square miles. These people are separated into numerous tribes, and differ very widely in their language, religion, native characteristics, and modes of life. Some are very ignorant and degraded, living an indolent and brutish sort of life, while others have attained to a high degree of civilization, scarcely inferior to that of their white neighbors.

Any generalizations regarding these people must, therefore, be considered as applicable to any particular tribe with such modifications as its peculiar place in the scale of civilization warrants. It is certainly true, however, that as a mass the Indians are far below the whites of this country in their general intelligence and mode of living. They enjoy very few of the comforts, and almost none of the luxuries, which are the pride and boast of their more fortunate neighbors.

When we speak of the education of the Indians, we mean that comprehensive system of training and instruction which will convert them into American citizens, put within their reach the blessings which the rest of us enjoy and enable them to compete successfully with the white man on his own ground and with his own methods. Education is to be the medium through which the rising generation of Indians are to be brought into fraternal and harmonious relationship with their white fellow-citizens, and with them enjoy the sweets of refined homes, the delight of social intercourse, the emoluments of commerce and trade, the advantages of travel, together with the pleasures that come from literature, science, and philosophy, and the solace and stimulus afforded by a true religion.

That such a great revolution for these people is possible is becoming more and more evident to those who have watched with an intelligent interest the work which, notwithstanding all its hindrances and discouragements, has been accomplished for them during the last few years. It is no longer doubtful that, under a wise system of education, carefully administered, the condition of this whole people can be radically improved in a single generation.

Under the peculiar relations which the Indians sustain to the government of the United States, the responsibility for their education rests primarily and almost wholly upon the nation. This grave responsibility, which has now been practically assumed by the government, must be borne by it alone. It cannot safely or honorably either shirk it, or delegate it to any other party. The task is not by any means an herculean one. The entire Indian school population is less than that of Rhode Island. The government of the United States, now one of the richest on the face of the earth, with an overflowing treasury, has at its command unlimited means, and can undertake and complete this work without feeling it to be in any degree a burden. Although very imperfect in its details, and needing to be modified and improved in many particulars, the present system of schools is capable, under wise direction, of accomplishing all that can be desired.

In order that the government shall be able to secure the best results in the education of the Indians, these things are desirable, indeed, I might say necessary : –

First. Ample provision should be made at an early day for the accommodation of the entire mass of Indian school children and youth. To resist successfully and overcome the tremendous downward pressure of inherited prejudice and the stubborn conservatism of centuries, noth-ing less than universal education should be attempted.

Second. Whatever steps are necessary should be taken to place these children under proper educational influences. If under any circumstances compulsory education is justifiable, it certainly is in this. case. Education, in the broad sense in which it is here used, is the Indians' only salvation. With it they will become honorable, useful, happy citizens of a great republic, sharing on equal terms in all its blessings. Without it, they are doomed either to destruction or to hopeless degradation.

Third. The work of Indian education should be completely systematized. The camp schools, agency boarding schools, and the great industrial schools, should be related to each other so as to form a connected and complete whole. So far as possible there should be a uniform course of study, similar methods of instruction, the same textbooks, and a carefully organized and well-understood system of industrial training.

Fourth. The system should be conformed, so far as practicable, to the common school system now universally adopted in all the states. It should be non-partisan, non-sectarian. The teachers and employees should be appointed only after the most rigid scrutiny into their qualifications for their work. They should have a stable tenure of office, being removed only for cause. They should receive for their service wages corresponding to those paid for similar service in the public. schools. They should be carefully inspected and supervised by a sufficient number of properly qualified superintendents.

Fifth. While, for the present, special stress should be laid upon that kind of industrial training which will fit the Indians to earn an honest living in the various occupations which may be open to them, ample provision should also be made for that general literary culture which the experience of the white race has shown to be the very essence of education. Especial attention should be directed toward giving them a ready command of the English language. To this end, only English should be allowed to be spoken, and only English-speaking teachers should be employed in schools supported wholly or in part by the government.

Sixth. The scheme should make ample provision for the higher education of the few who are endowed with special capacity or ambition, and are destined to leadership. There is an imperative necessity for this, if the Indians are to be assimilated into the national life.

Seventh. That which is fundamental in all this is the recognition.