The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-04-25
Honorable Clark Howell Wei
comes the Educators.
THE GL0RIEs OF THE EDUCATIONAL AGE
Poetic Portrayal of Coming Develop
ment Beautiful as Dream Yet
Splendidly Real. Education For All,
Cries Ogden, an Eight Months School
in Every District, Let Nothing Less
be the Aim of This Conference.
(By the Associated Press. }


Athens, Ca, April 24.-In the chapel
of the University of Georgia welcome
was tonight given Robert c. Ogden and
his party of philanthropists an assem-
blage composed of prominent educators
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 conference for the de-
velopment of 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 ponwealth and for
the municipality hens, voiced the
first words of W. After extend
ing hearty gree gathering of
distinguished me Mr.. How
ell said:
This welcom anade doubly hearty
in the declared purpose of this organiza-
tion to conduct it's work along lines
which will recognize the necessities of
the great masses of the whites as well
as OF the blacks who compose our pop
ulation. In the excited rush of some of
thoSc OpiCdlly lucllHeu LO pie
up funds to be devoted exclusively to
the education of the negro, the strug-
CLING masses of the whites have been
too often lost sight of.
1T 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 co-opera-
tioE ofthe South in external education
al NOV ement normally entitled to the
very fullest support and sympathy of all
the people from the section most direct
ly affected has been due to the fact that
the philanthropy which has directed it's
energy toward the South has been ex-
pended almost exclusively in the behalf
of one race, overlooking the greater ne
cessities of the other. AS result of this
course, vast armies of poor, white boys
who could not help themselves since the
Civil War have been working cut their
own salvation against odds which have
required superhuman endurance to sur
mount.
I'm this day of trusts and combines
let the work of this conference he to
improve the opportunity to organize the
biggest and most comprehensive trust
yet attempted-an educational trust in
which every child will be a stockholder
and every human head will be a share
of stock. When you do this YOU will
have 1naugurated a movement beside
which will be Insignificant the combines
which corner 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 combine a store house of ener-
gy, backed by riches greater than Col
conda's and which can be made to un-
fold to the eager world the priceless re-
sources locked in the bosom of the
wealthiest undeveloped territory of
Gods green earth-an energy which
Will harness our rivers, start to pulsat-
ing as never before the beating arteries
of our commerce; create new factories,
Inspire new enterprises, transform idle
ness into industry and touch with his
magic wand of knowledge the source
from which will spring an overfiowing
fountain of peace, contentment and pros
perity.'
Mr. Ogden was then introduced and
delivered his annual address.
President Robert Ogdens address at
Athens, Ca:
''This conference exists for a holy
cause-holy in the highest sense. It's
creed reflects the divine love. broad and
benefcent as the universal sunshine and
expressed in the single simple dogma
that every child in this broad land pos
ssses the natural right to a good English
education. The personnel is cosmopolitan
in marked degree. 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 crowning grace,
influence and power of this assembly ap-
pears in the presence of so many good
women.
In moral and national things the new
century IS an advent to the world at
large. There is a sudden manifestation
OF accumulated power. Masses of capt.