The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-12-30
INVITED TO KENTUCKY.
Mir. Cassidy Arouses Teachers With
 Spirit of Fun.


 Mir. Cassidy Arouses Teachers With | Spirit of Fun.
 A popular misconception of teaching and teachers, that the drudgery of teaching, and that teachers, from long l association with prosaic things, tend to become as dry as their subjects, was disproved at the closing session of the Southern Educational Association in Montgomery yesterday.
 For three days the educators of the South had been in session. dealing with the weighty matters which form their i morning. noon and evening food for thought during the greater part of the year. Long papers had been read and discussed with gravity and serious ness during many sessions Dry mat ters were considered with deliberation and seriousness inconceivable 10 some | of the laymen ana iaywomen who at | tended the sessions. Deep waters were waded through. and volume after VOL ume of manuscript read aloud, while speakers vied with one another express sing views in opposition to other views, or amendatory to the opposition. At the end of the three days it had been so long since the teachers had cracked smile that the expressions of many of them had become set and hard, their faces scanned with the wrinkles that go with the argumentative and aggressive state of mind. Everybody was longing for a laugh. and at last 1t came.
 M. A. Cassidy of Lexington, Kyp was the man who did It. Upon him had been delegated by the teachers of his town, the honor of extending to the Association an invitation to hold the next annual meeting in their city He seemed to realize the unspoken longing of the delegates for a Cooo hearty laugh, and when he rose to speak, he proved that an educator Is not necessarily a man with out good spirits and fine appreciation of things outside of arguments and papers.
 Mir. Cassidy prefaced his invitation by the statement that he came from Lexington, Ky, which was not only the center of Kentucky" he said, but the center of the universe as well"
 At this the tired teachers began to sit up and look interested. At first they were undecided whether the man from the State of Breckinridge and Clay and Boone was about to advance a new geographical theory. or givN them something else. They were soon undeceived, for he did the latter, or at least, promised to do the latter. if they would come to Lexington.
 With eloaueice flowing, Mir. Cassidy extended to the educators the assurance that if they would only go to Lex ington, Ky, they would have ;he time of their lives The people of I.exing- ton, ky, were the warmest hearted people in the world, he declared. They would open their hearts and take in the stray and foreign educator with welcome that would make the world seem rosy and pinkhued.
 If you come to Lexington, Ky," he concluded, i've will let you lie down in our green pastures, and we will lead YOU beside our distilled waters"
 At this statement, the educators ap- plauded loudly
 But this was not the end. President Abercrombie, to uphold the reputation of Alabama. and not to be outdone by the Kentuckian, told a story of man he had known who had visited In Ken lucky. though not in Lexington. The | old man had heard that residents of the Blue Grass State were bibulous peO- | pie.
 And it's a fact the narrator of the story was quoted to have said, I saw more Bibles there than l ever saw m 1 the same length of time in my life. !" | A short time after this, the conven- ton of educators adjourned.