The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1903-05-05
BELATED NOTES OF THE EDUCATIONAL
CONFERENCE.

Conference in last weeks paper, we did not nave
space to speak in detail Of the several great
speeches that we had the pleasure of hearing. Ihe
most popular and eloquent speaker, we think, was
DIR. St. Clair McKelway; the most profound and
~forceful was DIR. Lyman Abbott, and the most
polished and felicitous, DR.. Francis G. Peabody.
Three Great Addresses.
DIR. McKeIway, who is Editor of the Brooklyn
Eagle, spoke as a Northern man on "The North
and the South" and completely captivated his au-
dience by. his observation-disclosures, his epigram-
matte style, and his thrilling tributes to Lee,
"StonewalI" Jackson and Henry Grady. His pero-
ration indicates the general character of the adj
dress:
"FelIow citizens, let us remember the oneness
of our American derivation and destiny. Let us
eb thankful that in the baptism of blood all serious
causes of division and reproach were purified
away. Let us be grateful for the years of peace
through progress and of progress through peace.
Let us hail them as but the prelude of still better
days to come. From this tableland of time, look
ing backward on the past, and forward on the
future, let us strike hands for the betterment of
politics; for the cleansing. of rule; for the moral
trusteeship of private wealth an of public office;
for the lifting of poverty, through self help, into
comfort; for the considerate leadership of igno-
rance into knowledge; for the transmutation of
provincialism into patriotism and of patriotism
into philanthropy. In this work, while our coun-
try is our solicitude, let our field be the world.
While our countrymen are our preference, let hu-
mainly be our client. By recasting ourselves on
the lines of Gods laws in our hearts, our State
shall prosper, our cities shall come to honor, our
communities shall conquer the pinnacles of ma
terial and of moral achievement, and our nation
shall attain to the benign purpose of deity in it's
discovery and in its development. And from the
vantage ground of this republic will sweep
streams of blessings to all the race of man. If to
this we here dedicate and here consecrate our
selves, the North of our homes and the South of
your hearts, the North and the South of our coun-
try will eventually be constrained to admit that
we sought well and thought we'll and wrought we'll
for their behoof and for our own"
DR.. Lyman Abbott spoke without manuscript,
his address was very imperfectly reported, and
unfortunately we failed to take notes; so that
we should only MAIN his speech were we to at
tempt to outline it. But he is a man who has
thought deeply and fearlessly on all the great
problems of his time, and, to use his own phrase
regarding another address, "every word seemed
to weigh a ton" The right sort of manhood suf-
frage, he says, means manhood first and suffrage
afterward. Self-government must exist in the in
dividual before it can exist in the society. A
thousand times nothing is still nothing, and if
the individual man cannot govern himself, then
a thousand men who cannot govern themselves
as individuals, fail to make a self-governing com.
munity."
Speaking of the negro problem, he declared that
the negro must not depend on law but must work
out his own salvation through merit and industry
He quoted Henry Ward Beecher as saying il
1865: A the laws in the world cannot lift a mar
higher than the natural forces put him. You car
pass laws saying that the colored men are youl