The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1895-09-12

4
Prof. Moses, who was visibly affected
by this token of appreciation, said:
"My dear friends, / can find no words
wherewith fifty to express to you my
deep sen of gratitude for this most
beautiful gift, and for the kindness
which has prompted it and rendered it.
Its richness and its beauty will give me
constant pleasure, and as it faithfully
ticks away the future, it will bind me
with pleasantest memories to the past,
| and as friendly monitor with it's little
voice will call necessarily upon me to
improve my time lest my days be evil,
and bid me exert all my strength to
prove worthy of the continued confidence
and affectionate interest of the faithful
friends from whose hands it has come.
AS committee, corps of teachers and
superintendent, each with separate du-
ties but all tending to one common end,
we have iabored together for the adj
vancement of public education in this
beautiful city for decade. The space
of ten years is short in the life time of
great system such as that upon which
we have been building, and we may say
that the walls of our Zion have scarcely
been reared, but the time is not insig-
nifcant in the life of individuals. The
| majority of the committee ten years ago
are members of the committee today.
Whatever success the cause of public
education has made in Raleigh is due in
large degree to the stability of the
governing board and to the rare faith
| fulness and high character of its mem
bers. 1t is no idle praise to say that
their reputation for fairness and devo-
ton to the public interests has gone far
beyond the limits of the State. Contro-
| versies about politics and ecclesiasticism
and personalities which have well nigh
proved the ruin of the school sys
| tenn of cities have never found hearing
| in your executive sessions. In reviewing
| the whole work, am more than delight
ed to bear testimony to the fact that in
no single instance has any vote been cast
in your meetings with any motive, save
with a careful and conscientious regard
for the public welfare For your single
ness of purpose, for your deep interest
in the advancement of those little ones,
whom it is Christlike to serve, for the
heavy personal sacrifices which you have
time and again made most cheerfully
without reward or the hope Of reward,
He who remembers even the giving of
cup of cold water, Himself, will reward
you richly.
'With the teachers with whom have
been in almost daily communication,
planning and working together to bring
light out of darkness, / come
to the parting of the ways with
regret all the deeper because of your
loyalty and sympathy. In season and
out of season, by day and by night, you
have given your hearts and your lives to
the great work to which by the provi-
dence of God you have been called.
Well do know that, though / have
never chided you for doing too little,
have otter been compelled to demonstrate
with you for attempting too much. You
have felt your pulses beat with the evil
dences of an enlarged field of usefulness
and honorable position for womanhood
such as you doubtless never dreamed of
in your childhood. You now see in
Raleigh, perhaps ten times as many
ladies leading the happy life that
comes from sweet independence as you
saw ten years ago. You have
recognized that in the colleges, in the
summer schools, in the universally of
our noblest literature at a merely nomi-
nal cost by virtue OF printing machines,
by the unrivalled oppori unities for cul-
ture to be gained by summer travel for
little more than pittance, a glorious
future for all regardless of traditional
limitations of sex which is alluring
enough to make every heart leap for JOY.
To say that the teachers Of Raleigh have
been among the foremost in availing
themselves of these advantages is but
feeble recognition of their merits; to
urge them still to press forward is a
work of supererogation on the part of
one who knows so well their dauntless
spirit. For my successor, can ask from
you 10 more than that the same degree
of loyalty which has been mine way be
his: Sin essentials, unity; in non essen
tials, liberty; in all things, charity"
and for these absent little ones, / need
scarcely say that the highest guide in ev-
cry teachers work shou be the words
of the Great Teacher, when He said of
His di ciples: "While was with them
in thy name, those that thou gavest me
have kept, have given them thy word
that the world may know that thou hast
| sent me and hast loved them"
"And at last, when the fullness Of our
time has come, and the work which has
been given US to do shall have been ac-
| complished, when the sun has set and
the shadows from the mountains are fall
ing upon our bark as it glides on the
lake in the sunset to the unknown and
unknowable shore beyond, may the
glooming be lit up, for each one of us,
with the light of friends of other days
around us and among them may we see
the sweet light fiom eyes of blue and