The Savannah morning news., 1902-04-25
To HELP The SOUTH
EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE AT
ATHENS BEGINS.
A MOST NOTABLE GATHERING.
PHILANTHROPIsTs AND EDUCAT-
ORS JOIN HANDS.

thrOpy Toward South for This Pur-
pose Has Gone Almost Entirely to
Black Race-President Ogden
Speaks of the Great intellectual
Awakening One of Features OF
New Century-AppeaI of Children
of the South Must Be Answered.
Athens, Ca, April 24.-In the chapel
of the University of Georgia welcome
was tonight given Robert c. Ogden
and his party of philanthropists by an
assemblage composed of prominent ed
ucators from all parts of the South,
jurists, business men and students
who came here to be present at the
first session of the fifth annual con-
ference for education in the South.
The conference was invited to the state
by the Georgia Legislature, and Hon.
Clark Howell, president of the Senate,
speaking for the commonwealth and
for the municipality of Athens, voiced
the first words of welcome. After ex-
tending a hearty greeting to the gath
ering of distinguished men and wo-
men, Mr.. Howell said
This welcome is made doubly
hearty in the declared purpose of this
organization to conduct it's work along
lines which will recognize the neces-
sites of the great masses of the
whites as well as of the blacks who
compose our population. In the excit-
ed rush of some of those philanthropic-
ally inclined to pile up funds to be de-
| voted exclusively to the education of
the negro, the struggling masses of
| the whites have been too often lost
sight of.
at is best to be frank in this matter
of so much importance to our we'll be-
ing. The failure to secure heretofore
the real, sincere and practical cooper
alton of the South in external edu-
| cational movements normally entitled
to the very fullest support and sym
pathy from all the people of the Sec
ton most directly affected has been due
to the fact thatthe philanthropy which
has directed it's energy toward the
South has been expended almost ex-
clusively in the behalf of one race,
| overlooking the greater necessities of
the other. AS a result of this course
| vast armies of poor white boys who
could not help. themselves have been
| since the Civil War working out their
own salvation against odds which have
| required superhuman endurance to sur
mount.
l. An Educational Trust.
In this day of trusts and combines
let the work of this conference be to
improve the opportunity to organize
the biggest and most comprehensive
/ trust yet attempted-an educational
| trust in which every child will be a
stakeholder and every human head will
be a share of stock. When you do this
/ you will have inaugurated movement
| beside which will be insignificant the
| combines which cornered both the land
and the ocean, and which levy tribute
on every morsel of food which enters
| the mouths of the hungry. There will
| be created in such a combination a
storehouse of energy backed by riches
| greater than Golconda's, and which can
| be made to unfold to the eager sworld
| the priceless resources locked in the
| fertile bosom of the wealthiest unde-
| veloped territory of Gods green earth
an energy which will harness our
rivers, start to pulsating as never be-
| fore the beating arteries of our COM
merce; create new factories, inspire
new enterprises, transform idlenesS in
| to industry and touch with the magic
wand of knowledge the source from
! which will spring an overlooking foun-
| tain of peace, contentment and pros
| perity."
President Ogden's Address.
| Mr.. Ogden was then introduced and
delivered his annual address. He said
| in part:
This conference exists for a holy
| cause-holy in the highest sense. Its
creed reflects the divine love, broad
and beneficent as the universal sun
shine and expressed in the single sim
pie dogma that every child in this
! broad land possesses the natural right
| to a good English education. The per-
| sonnet is cosmopolitan in a marked de-
| gree. Here are governors of states
| officers of great corporations, educators
of every degree, clergymen of many
| communionS, editors, authors, bankers,
merchants, lawyers, who for the time
being have set aside their several cares
| for the larger interests of our common
country. And the browning grace, in
fluence and power of this assembly
appears in the presence of so many
| good women.
I'm moral and natural things the
new century is an advent to the world
| at large There is a sudden nantes
| tation of accumulated power. Masses
! of capital rush together with magnetic
| impulse and in startling magnitude
! Community of interest pools in con-
crete form values that had not been
! comprehended in detail. This material
/
this realization of things an intellec-
| tual awakening appears. Generous IA
| cilities for research are placed at the
! command of science. The increase of
| endowment to great institutions of
| learning is the recognition of the debt
| that wealth owes to scholarship"
| The president then outlined the or
ganization and work of the Southern
| Education Board and the board of the
general education fund, formed since
! the last conference.
The SOuth's Problem.
AS to the problem of education in
| the South, he said in conclusion:
"Out of the case comes the silent APP
neal of millions of children of school
| age. With this appeal comes the cry
| of, our country with a stern demand that
| from this child material for good cit
liens for the future shall be furnished.
| 1t is our duty to so echo and re-echo
these appeals that the ignorant shall
rise up and by the mere force of human
right. demand adequate education,
| that the people should tax themselves
for educa ton. that school authorities
should promote the best ideas of edu-
cation, and that philanthropy should
supply the lacking margin beyond the
capacity OF the public purse and private
| local liberality Let no doubtful ex-
| preston or uncertain sound go forth.
/ Education for all the people; good,
well equipped school houses with COM