The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-02-20
EpeAR aARprEn srunrHY.

EDGAR GARDNER MURPHY.
 The news that comes to us of the resignation through iilnsss. Of MT. Edgar esrdner Murphy. as Secretary of the Southern Educational Board. will draw the attention of the whole country. ana especially of us of the South to career full of interest and Inspiration.
 It was when he left the Episcopal ministry. where he had attracted gen erai attention by bss eioqusnes. his breadth. his spiritual sxaitation and his great personal influence. that he was first seen as a national figure.
 He became immediately associated with the Southern Education Board. as it's Executive Secretary and began the work that has been 90 powerful in Southern social development. Some of his associates were men of great wealth. that olass of rich men whose sense of moral responsibility alone saves this country from the reproach of piutocratic antagonisnn to the people. the others were mostly men from Southern universities and profess sionai and business life. but all were wise. sane and in deadly earnest. They gave Mir. Murphy their full confidence. relying upon his knowledge of south ern people and their needs, his sym pathy with their aspirations and his appreciation of their growing demand for larger interest in the common schools of the rural population as the foundation of intelligence. virtue and capacity for self-governmsnt. He disappointed no expectations for aside from his known efficiency, he develop ed an extraordinary faculty for ad- ministration. ana organised each sue cesslse Conference with such tact. such 1 . knowiedge of men and delicate per ception of local conditions. that 1t may b. truly said that much of the as tonishing advance of the cause oi popular education in the South hal largely been indirectly the fruit of hil work.
 But 1t Is not in educational matters alone that Mir. Murphy has exercised his activities. His humanitariapsm i, tbo broad to be confined to one sphere however. extended. It was his per sonai intimacy with Mr. Carnegie tha secured 50 early to Montgomery it' beautiful library.
 l He almost began the agitation against Child Labor, was first chair man of the Alabama Committee. am later organised the National Associa tion. acting as it's first secretary ani remaining a member until year agu when he withdrew because he coul, not sustain it's policy of supportini Senator Beveridge in his Federal Reeu
 lation bill. which sought to alienat
 the states from all parental soiicitud
 for it's own defenceless children. H
 rejects the growing tendency of look
 ing to the National Congress for tn
 correction of every svf1 that afflict
 any part of the Republic. Mir. Mur
 phys consuming. interest in ever
 social question has brought him i
 touch with many public men of op
 posing views. but no antagonisms eve
 grew out of the contact. no one doubt
 ed his sincerity or failed to recogniz
 his intellectual force. his dispassionat
 logic or his earnest aItruism. ] He has contributed much of endul
 ing value to the literature of socit
 economies, but his great monument
 his work on Problems of the Preser
 South. the truest interpretation. th
 South has ever had to the world a large. and which has evoked the UT restrained praise of the leading thinker [ of America, while with the foremol English pubiicists it is recognised 2 } the standard authority on the relation , between the white and the backwss races.
 The entire South will sympathii with MT. Murphy in his broken healt , and cordially hope that the evil day ' may be few. while we of Montgomer who have 50 personal an interest } all that concerns him. beg that he ma remain with us until returnin : strength enables him to take up tt |. 1 .a sr.-.n- A.