4. The same procession a little more advanced than in No. 3, showing the Social-Religious Building and the colonnade to the East Dormitory in the background.

in February, 1867, when lesser and more purely practical men could see only the abomination of desolation by which they were surrounded!

It was his belief in these purposes and the consciousness of never having "deceived or harmed a human being" that gave him such constant and indomitable courage as enabled him to defy the bankers and the money brokers of London and dare them to cause his failure, when, in the panic of 1858, they refused him a necessary loan of a million pounds sterling, except on such conditions as he could not and would not accept to dare, defy, and finally to win. Like so many other successful business men, sometimes thought to be immersed in and interested only in money getting, his real business was benevolence, all else only the means therefor. To Mr. Winthrop he once said: "From the earliest years of my manhood I have contemplated some such disposition of my property, and I have prayed my Heavenly Father day by day that I might be enabled before I die to show my gratitude for the blessings he has bestowed upon me, by doing some great good to my fellow men."

Charles Page, multimillionaire of Sand Springs, Okla., who is devoting a large part of his wealth to constructive help of widows and orphans, says he is in partnership with The Big Fellow. I wonder if many other such, including George Peabody, have not felt and do not feel that God is an important member of their firm.

Of all his benefactions, the one nearest Peabody's heart and by far the most far-reaching and the most fruitful was the one a small part of the results of which we see about us here to-day-his gifts for popular education in the war-stricken South. In the letter accompanying his first gift for this cause and constituting the board of trust to administer the fund, after uttering the vision referred to above, he proceeds: "But to make her prosperity more than superficial, her moral and intellectual development should keep pace with her material growth; and in those portions of our nation to which I have referred [the Southern states], the urgent and pressing physical need of our almost impoverished people must for some years preclude them from making by unaided effort such advances in education and such progress in the diffusion of knowledge among all classes as every lover of his country must earnestly desire."

His sane common sense enabled him to understand, as most men of his time did not understand, both the character of education needed and the fact that to be effective it must be for all the people-high and low, white and black alike. He, therefore, directed his trustees to apply the income of the trust and finally the principal when, after

thirty years, they might think it wise to dissolve the trust, "to the promotion and encouragement of intellectual, moral, and industrial education among the young of the more destitute portions of the Southern and the Southwestern states of our Union, my purpose being that the benefits intended shall be distributed among the entire population without other distinction than their needs and the opportunities of usefulness to them." His chief desire was to aid in giving elementary education to the children of the common people-the very thing most likely to be overlooked at that time among the people of these states. He understood also more fully than most men of his day could understand the interdependence of the different sections of the country, and how the welfare of each section was bound up in the prosperity of all. In making his second gift two years later, in 1869, he said with emotion in his voice: "This I give to the suffering South for the good of the whole country."

With a wisdom not always shown by those who have had both the ability and the will to help some portion of mankind by the gift of large sums of money, he left his trustees free as to the details. He chose men of wisdom whom he could trust, then trusted them without reserve. The wisdom of this action, as well as the fine understanding of the characters of the trustees chosen by him, is well shown by the fact that, though the funds finally available were small in comparison with many gifts for education made since and with funds raised by taxation for the support of schools, no other gift for education has been so far-reaching in its constructive influence. During the first thirty years of the existence of the trust only two states, Virginia and Tennessee, received as much as $200,000. The total of $216,000 received by Tennessee during all these years is approximately one per cent of what is now spent for public education in this state in a single year. The total of less than two and a half million dollars disbursed for all purposes during these three decades is little, if any, more than one per cent of the present total annual expenditure in the Southern and Southwestern states for public elementary and high schools. The total disbursements of income and of the principal itself is much less than five per cent of what these states are spending for public education this year. Any one of them will now, with little thought or care, add to or take from its annual appropriations for education as much as the total amount received from the Peabody Education Fund from beginning to end. Of the total capital investment and income of no one of the institutions sharing in the final distribution of the principal of the fund do the moneys thus derived constitute more than a minor part. Yet no

one can calculate what part of these larger incomes now available are thus available because of the wise administration of this small fund. This constitutes its chief glory.

The first board brought together in counsel and action were representative men from both sides of the great struggle then just ended, men of leadership and possessed of the full confidence of their fellow citizens on both sides; and those chosen later were of the same character and influence.

The mere announcement of the names of the first board immediately disarmed all suspicion and gained the confidence of thoughtful people, both North and South, that the purposes of the trust were worthy and that the methods of administration would be wise and just. The annual meetings of these great men for this high purpose were a powerful influence toward reuniting the people whom they represented. Dr. J. L. M. Curry, later general agent of the fund and historian of the Confederacy, says the fund came "a white-winged messenger of peace and fraternity in the hour of gloom, poverty, and despondency." "No instrumentality," he adds, "has been so effective in the South in promoting concord, in restoring fellowship, in cultivating a broad and generous patriotism; and, apart from its direct connection with schools, it has been an unsurpassed blessing in cementing the bond of a lately dissevered Union."

The general agents of the board were such as such a board might have been expected to select: Barnas Sears, J. L. M. Curry, Samuel A. Green, Wickliffe Rose. To their wisdom and energy, constantly counseled by the chairman, Robert C. Winthrop, as long as he lived, are due the wonderful constructive results of the fund, no less than to the trustees themselves.

Sears and, to a larger degree, Curry were flaming evangels, preaching everywhere eloquently, earnestly, and effectively the gospel of public education-the education of all the children of all the people in schools supported by taxes levied on the property of all the people; convincing and moving the people and their representatives in city councils, county courts, and state legislatures; and, probably more important still, firing the zeal of younger men like Galloway of Mississippi, Aswell of Louisiana, Bowie and Abercrombie of Alabama, Alderman, McIver, and Aycock of North Carolina, Tate of South Carolina, and a host of others in all these states, to carry the gospel of public education to every nook and corner of the country and to work as few men have ever had opportunity to work for the great cause fundamental to the welfare of the whole people.

The story of the work of the Peabody Education Fund cannot be fully

told without telling the story of these men. It is no reflection on other general agents of the fund or on other workers for the cause of public education in these states to dwell here on the preeminent services of Dr. Curry. With tongue and pen, in formal address, in informal conversation, and by personal influence in every state, he preached, in season and out of season, this great crusade. There is record of his addressing fifty legislatures, less one, and always on the same theme and in the same masterful way-four in Alabama, seven in Georgia, three in Florida, six in South Carolina, four in North Carolina, two in Virginia, one in West Virginia, four in Tennessee, one in Kentucky, five in Arkansas, five in Mississippi, three in Louisiana, four in Texas. And he appeared more than once, I believe, before committees of Congress in behalf of the Blair Bill, which sought to give Federal aid for education in the states. But it was through his hundreds of addresses before teachers' institutes, education associations, and popular assemblies that he sowed most effectively the seeds that are still springing up to abundant harvests. It was there that these scores and hundreds of young men heard and were inspired by him, who have for forty years continued to spread his gospel and to ring the changes on his very phrases. I have heard these phrases in original or adapted form in every Southern state, and must myself plead guilty to this high type of plagiarism.

He preached the duty of the state in the support of education. To the legislature of Louisiana in 1880 he said: "With state aid, universal education is difficult and slow; without it, unattainable, impossible." To the Georgia legislature in 1888: "The duty of parents and churches must not be underestimated, but the whole history of the human race shows their insufficiency-without state systems and support, general education is impossible. Parental and individual and church efforts have never approximated the needs of the young." To the legislature of Louisiana in 1892: "Private schools perish; the state does not die."* To the Virginia legislature in 1892: "Every human being has an absolute, indefeasible right to education, and there is the correlative duty of government to see that the means of education are provided for all. The first necessity of civilization is a system of universal education. Education is the only security for our free institutions; an essential condition of personal and civil liberty, of equality before the law.

*I have heard President Alderman repeat this, as if original with him, to mass meetings of citizens in the mountains of Western North Carolina and elsewhere, and with tone and manner that Curry might have envied. Happy the man whose carefully-thought-out and wrought-out phrases become original with a large group of earnest, eloquent followers.