mean faith in God; that is the ultimate that depends on you; but they have faith-they believe in you. No child is born cynical. It may learn the evil habit if it lives with some people, but it is not so born; it believes. Every child loves. And no argument is needed; every child has hope. And those are the elemental things of human character and of human life; and when at last God's great kingdom has come and God's great city is built, it will be the triumph of faith, the answer to hope, and the realization of love. And whenever you handle a child, you are handling the elemental stock in which these forces are found; and it is only as we handle the child right that we can do anything to hasten the coming of the city of God. I might turn aside to ask you to look at young life to-day everywhere; and if you do, you will see the proof of all we are thinking, both in realization and in failure. And-O!-let us not forget when sometimes we are given to criticism and to speaking unkindly of certain things that our eyes are seeing in the young to-day. The blame is not on the young; it is somewhere behind on those who have had to do with their training and their teaching. That is a subject to be discussed more with parents than with teachers. When you have children to teach that come out of true homes, your work is all the easier. When you have children to teach that have no influences in the home that make for character and beauty and glory, your task is the more difficult, but it is the more sacred. I utter the plea in the midst of these celebrations-a plea that the teachers of to-day shall not forget the supreme things that make of the playtime of the child the foundation of the building of the city of God. HISTORICAL EPISODES A sort of moving-picture portrayal of scenes in the fifty years of George Peabody College for Teachers was presented in over a hundred slides, with comment and explanation made by William Ross Bourne, A.B. '05, Ph.D. '24. The pictures were divided into five series. The first series dealt largely with George Peabody and the Peabody Education Fund; the second series gave pictures of the first home of George Peabody College for Teachers, including scenes of buildings and grounds on the former campus at Second Avenue (South Market Street) and Lindsley Avenue; the third series gave pictures of President Stearns, President William H. Payne, and various class and faculty groups of the first quarter century; the fourth series gave more detailed pictures of societies and student organizations, which at the same time exhibited many college activities and the costumes of the period; the fifth series depicted the new program and the steps by which the remarkable progress of the second quarter century of Peabody was made possible, including pictures of the new campus and class and faculty groups of the present régime. Musical numbers were given at the beginning and end of each of the five series by the Peabody Ensemble Singers under the direction of Professor Gebhart. Below is given the text of Dr. Bourne's comment on three notable scenes: "1. First meeting of the trustees of the Peabody Education Fund. Ten of these sixteen distinguished Americans shown in the picture met on February 8, 1867, at Willard's Hotel, Washington, D. C., at 11 A.M. On the preceding day they had received the famous letter from Mr. Peabody which forms alike the charter of the activities of these trustees and of George Peabody College for Teachers. "In the group George Peabody is seated at a table with Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, his confidential friend and for twenty-seven years the chairman of the trustees (1867 to 1894). General Grant, who had just led the Northern armies to victory, stands side by side with Governor Aiken, of South Carolina, whose state had been ravished by the relentless Sherman. Behind Mr. Winthrop stands the venerable Bishop McIlvaine, of Ohio, by whose prayers the deliberations were lifted up into the presence of the Most High for his blessings. "The trustees passed resolutions of grateful appreciation of Mr. Peabody's unprecedented generosity to the city of London and to the institutions in the Middle and Eastern states of the Union, and then declared: 'He has now crowned the whole with this last deed of patriotism and loving-kindness, so eminently calculated to bind together the several parts of our beloved country in the bonds of mutual well-being and regard.' "It is a very noble gathering. There stand several governors of states both North and South; senators of the United States; President Grant, the commander in chief of the American Army, who had fought and lost and won again at Appomattox in the struggle for the preservation of these United States. There was a great bishop of the church, who had guided our benefactor in many ways in the past. Mr. Winthrop is called to take the chair, and, calm statesman though he is, he trembles with profound emotion. Mr. Peabody rises. The bishop is on one side of him, while the general of the Grand Army of the Potomac stands on the other. After reading his deed of gift to them for the children of the South, there is a solemn hush, and then it is proposed that the blessings of Almighty God be called upon this solemn act. They kneel there in a circle of prayer, the Puritan of New England, the pioneen of the West, the financier of the metropolis, and the defeated veteran of the Confederacy. With bended knee and touching elbow, they dedicate this great gift. They consecrate themselves to the task of its wise expenditure. In that act and in that moment, not quite two years after Appomattox, is the first guaranty of a reunited country." "2. The memorable meeting of the trustees of the Peabody Education Fund at Washington, January 24, 1905, when it was unanimously voted that $1,000,000 be appropriated for the endowment of George Peabody College for Teachers, in cooperation with gifts from Nashville and Tennessee, amounting to an additional $750,000. This was the beginning of the building of this new home for the College, where it might be housed in comfort and beauty, to work in the creative enterprise of exemplifying the Peabody spirit: "The service of man and the glory of God.' "The older members of the Peabody trustees leading in this movement will be noticed: Judge Fenner, Governor Porter, Mr. Morgan, Mr. Olney, and Hon. Joseph H. Choate, presided over by the venerable Chief Justice of the United States, Hon. Melville W. Fuller. The younger members who put new vigor into the development of these beneficent plans were President Roosevelt and Bishop William LawThis meeting was as decisive for the development of the College as the meeting of 1867 was significant for education in the South." rence. "3. Visit of President Roosevelt to the campus, October 22, 1907. President Porter, on the step of the motor car, is pinning the College colors to President Roosevelt's coat, who has risen to address the students and faculty and friends of the College there assembled. The ovation was an expression of appreciation for the pronounced activity of President Roosevelt in behalf of endowing the College." PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND DAY The second day's program illustrated the part which Peabody has had in stimulating public education through the training of teachers and through its leadership in guiding the establishment of normal schools and teachers colleges. From Peabody as a center the influence has spread in all directions, permeating not only the South, but the nation at large. The commemoration exercises were impressive enough as the Golden Jubilee of Peabody, a particular institution, but not solely or even mainly in that limited aspect. They were more truly impressive as the stupendous triumph of a great ideal. Public education in its broadest sweep was the true theme of the great convocation of scholars, statesmen, educators, alumni, and public-minded citizens assembled at the Peabody Semicentennial Celebration. The direct training of teachers for the Southern schools had been begun by Peabody in 1875, and every item in the beginnings and growth of the public-school system of the South held strong interest. But the discussions glanced at the past only to get a correct start on projects stretching into the long future. Public education in the South is sweeping forward with an irresistible advance. The assembly at Peabody was a conference of the men and women who are guiding its progress. An imposing array of speakers as eminent and as critically acute as was ever brought together at such a commemoration discussed the fundamentals of civilization involved in the problems of public education, particularly as relating to the South, but equally applicable to our whole nation. As an external symbol of these weighty discussions was the formal procession of delegates in academic garb bringing felicitations from one hundred and fifty-five sister institutions within the United States, and the alumni delegates representing all of the classes that have been graduated from George Peabody College for Teachers during fifty years. The volume of congratulatory messages brought by these delegates added a joyousness to the occasion which was still further enhanced by greetings sent from five hundred and two other colleges, universities, and learned societies within the United States. Ninety-five of the famous foreign institutions of learning sent either delegates or messages of greeting and congratulation. The true theme of this day's program was: George Peabody College for Teachers in the PRESENTATION OF DELEGATES H. J. MIKELL MR. CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES AND MR. PRESIDENT OF GEORGE PEABODY COLLEGE FOR TEACHERS: It is my high privilege to present to you the distinguished representatives from our sister institutions of learning who have come to felicitate our College upon the occasion of its semicentennial. Because of the humanizing influence of true culture there is a feeling of friendship and brotherhood among institutions of learning. They are all engaged in the high task of education; they are all engaged in the hard task of trying to eliminate ignorance and prejudice and narrowness; and this oneness of purpose and aim gives them a feeling of comradeship, and they are ready to do honor one to another and to rejoice in one another's good fortune. The famous motto of William of Wykeham, England's great friend of learning, "Manners Makyth Man," is still the motto of all true culture. So these distinguished educators have come to-day to show their manners-not merely a certain ceremonial politeness, but a real friendship for George Peabody College and a deep appreciation of the way in which she is fulfilling the vision of her founder. And this was the vision of our founder. He says: "Looking beyond my span of life, I see our country, united and prosperous, taking a high rank among the nations and becoming richer and more powerful than ever before." But if George Peabody could only see a nation becoming rich and powerful, then his vision was very sordid and very earth-bound. Instead of the seer whose symbol is the soaring eagle, he was the bird with a broken wing, which always clings to the earth. But it was not so with him. This was not all his vision. This was not all his vision. Listen to him again: "But to make her prosperity more than superficial, her moral and intellectual development should keep pace with her material growth." Now, the moral and intellectual development of a nation depends upon the education of its people-the task to which all these institutions represented to-day are dedicated. But surely education means not only the training of the intellect, not only the making a man's mind as keen and sharp as was the scimitar of the Sultan Saladin, with which he could sever a silken veil. A nation becoming rich and powerful through intellectual development only was not the whole of the vision of our founder. So listen |