The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-04-24
President Ogden's Address.


"This varied collection of men and wo-
men, moved by ethical and patriotic in
tentives, have come from remote locali-
ties that they may be mutually instructed
and inspired in a conference based upon
the common belief that the general edu-
cation of all the people is essential to
the salvation of society; that without
general education, progress in the arts,
in the diffusion of happiness, in the things
that make for good character, family
peace, clean living, human brotherhood,
civic righteousness, and national justice
is impossible. In the atmosphere of
common human sympathy the conference
for Education in the South lives and
moves and has its being.
Local taxation for education has the
sanction of law in many States. Negro
education is recognized as part of the
public educational system in every State,
both South and North. The education of
every child in our country is an admit
ted national duty, and leading minds find
in this principle broad ground for de-
mand that the national government
should share with the several States, in
proportion to the need, the financial re-
sponsibiity involved in the discharge of
that obligation The moral accountability
of the higher institutions of learning to
the cause of popular public education,
and the economic value of education to
material progress. are great subjects that
have the affirmative approval of the
highest intelligence.
NEED OF AWAKENING.
"* The one all-controlling fact be-
fore the minds of the Fathers of the
Conference was the appalling need of an
educational awakening in the rural
South who that heard will ever forget
the graphic utterances of DR.. Curry and
President Wilson, of Washington and Lee
University in which with words hot from
we'll furnished minds and glowing hearts,
they reviewed the causes of educational
backwardness and pictured the then ex-
listing need. Later came the compre-
hensive statistical and descriptive adj
dresses and papers presented to the con-
ference by members of the Southern Edu-
cation Board, that gave cumulative tes-
timony to prevailing conditions and needs.
So earnest and drastic were these utter
auces that il would seem ungracious TO
repeat them now. But the impas-
stoned expressions of these leaders voiced
the longing, anxious appeal of many earn
est and intelligent men and women that,
in the seclusion of remote, obscure and
wide-lying communities. had pondered
upon the way to improve educational
conditions and prayed long and earnestly
for the means of relief A vast amount
of the seed of the kingdom was growing
secretly. These were the conditions that
81 In
the beginning il touched only a few of
these faithful souls, but now, by its di-
rect action and by other agencies that its
spirit has called into being, the fellow
ship is increasing and bringing forth
abundant fruit. -
1T is fundamentally impossible to hold
the Southern Education Board and the
General Education Board officially, re
spOnsble for this conference. In a fun
and complete sense they are only &C
countable to the donors of the money by
which they are supported. In very
broad and positive sense they are re-
sponsible for their action to intelligent
public opinion. In a sentimental and
sympathetic sense they are so interesting
to this conference that this discussion de
mands reference to them, and the program
would be incomplete without some ac-
count of their doings. And yet it should
be positively understood and insisted
upon until the interested public comes to
fully understand that the conference and
the boards are absolutely and entirely
distinct.
WORK OF THE TWO BOARDS.
The Southern Education Board carries
on crusade for education. Its organiza-
ton is comprehensive and actively covers
the larger part of the country from the
Potomac to the Rio Grande. from the
Ohio to the Gulf. It's large expenses are
privately betrayed The General Educa-
tion Board administers such funds as
may come to 1t for the assistance of edu-
cation. In this connection they cannot