Academies of the University of the State of New York-Continued.

There were that year 421 high schools and academic departments, as against 465 in 1897, scattered, of course, throughout all the counties. of the State. One county, however, Hamilton, lying in the Adirondack region, has no institution of secondary education.

SUMMARY OF THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY.

On January 1, 1898, the number and location of institutions comprised in the University of the State of New York were as follows:

a New York institution for the blind and New York State school for the blind.
b Not including 28 duplicates.

c Including branches.

Location of institutions in university by counties, June 30, 1897.

Location of institutions in university by counties, June 30, 1897-Continued.

The map given on another page indicates the location of these institutions graphically. It is taken from the report of the secretary of the university for 1897.

ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEW YORK COMMON SCHOOL SYSTEM.1

Mr. President and ladies and gentlemen of the New York State Teachers' Association, if we are loyal sons and daughters of the Empire State, we know what are commonly considered the leading facts in her history. We can recount the chief and prominent incidents in her first settlement, and her wonderful development from the time when the Half Moon first stirred the waters of her majestic North River till she came to stand out as the central and conspicuous figure in the sisterhood of States. We have wondered at the daring and sighed at the fate of the dauntless English captain with a Queen Elizabeth ruff about his neck, who sailed his little Dutch vessel through the Narrows at our great harbor, only to be disappointed in his confident belief that he had at last found the great highway of the nations to the Indies, and to find himself in an imperial fresh-water river, flowing through what he described as "a land peopled by vigorous men and beautiful women-as beautiful a land as the foot of man can tread upon."

We have regretted that a noble company of English Puritans, bound for New Netherland in the Mayflower, were carried out of their course and landed upon the inhospitable shores of Cape Cod. Oh, how much New England owes to ill winds or bad seamanship! We have noted and commended the foresight and thrift which led the first Dutch settlers to buy 22,000 acres of land upon Manhattan Island from the Indians for the not extravagant sum of twenty-four dollars, and to lay the foundations of a State upon land in which they owned the fee. We have marked the different characteristics of the Dutch and the English as first one and then the other held the supremacy in the affairs of the colony. We have stood amazed in the presence of the fact that before and for many years after the coming of the whites there were upon this territory five savage nations with a system of laws and a retinue of officials, each with a completely organized government shaped and directed by the will of the majority, and all confederated together in a barbarian republic upon the unique plan afterwards adopted by our States and our National Republic.

We have followed in awe the unprecedented advance in population, the growth of the most imperial cities, the development of material resources apparently inexhaustible. We have witnessed the building of the greatest canal and railway systems, and have watched to a successful result the most gigantic commercial enterprises that human energy ever had the courage to undertake. We have seen literature and the arts and sciences nurtured and fostered by a people engrossed in the world's most bewildering activities. We have applauded the sagacity of our statesmen, and we have gloried in the immortal deeds of our heroes. We

1 An address delivered before the New York State Teachers' Association, at Saratoga Springs, N. Y., Tuesday evening, July 8, 1890, by Andrew S. Draper, superintendent of public instruction, State of New York.

have listened to the discussions of the earliest Colonial Congresses to form a basis of union at Albany, and we have heard the first constitution promulgated from the head of a barrel in front of the old senate house at Kingston. We know how intrepid Ethan Allen, in the gray dawn of a May morning, demanded and received from the British commander in undress uniform the surrender of Ticonderoga "in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress," when as yet the Congress had no existence; and how Mad Anthony Wayne, in reply to Washington's inquiry as to whether he would lead an attack on Stony Point, answered with the ardor of an enthusiast and the instinct of the soldier that he was-"I would lead an attack on hell if the commander in chief would order it, sir.”

Our hearts have throbbed heavily as we have read the story of the heroic and successful life struggle of Herkimer's thin battalions in the valley of the Mohawk and of Sullivan's sanguinary campaign against hostile savages in the Genesee country. The blood has tingled as we have heard the victorious cannon and witnessed the humiliating surrender of the haughty Burgoyne at Saratoga, and we have held our breath as Macdonough assembled his crew about him, knelt in prayer on the quarter-deck of his flagship, and asked the aid of the Almighty on the ensuing action before his navy thrashed a superior force on Lake Champlain, while the army paid a similar compliment to Wellington's veterans, fresh from the field of Waterloo and almost disdaining to fight plain people, at Plattsburg. We know how New York stood for independence, for the Federal Constitution, and the "more perfect union," in the first instance, and how she contributed oneeighth of her population, one-fifth of the entire force which went out to save that Union when assailed. We honor the names of Van Rensselaer and Stuyvesant and Schuyler and Cadwallader Colden and Richard Montgomery and the Livingstons and the Jays and Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris and the Clintons and Daniel D. Tompkins and Washington Irving and Fenimore Cooper and James Kent and Chancellor Walworth and Samuel Nelson and Silas Wright and Marcy and Van Buren and John A. Dix and a host of others, for we associate them with the circumstances which mark the growth and make the history of the great Commonwealth. In short, we have a general knowledge of the leading facts which stand out more prominently than the ordinary facts in the course of the physical and political development of the State.

INTELLECTUAL ADVANCEMENT.

But I venture that we are exceptional even among the loyal sons and daughters of the Empire State if we have investigated the causes which have promoted or if we know the events which have marked the social and intellectual advancement of the people of New York. If this is so, it is not strange. In the economy of statecraft. as in the experience of the schools, it is the physical object which arrests the attention, and it is the object lesson which excites interest, arouses enthusiasm, and leaves the deepest impressions upon the mind. Railways and steamships, merchandise and machinery, books and newspapers. great cities, public works and munificent charities, all the institutions which support a free State and the temple of liberty are but the public and visible manifestation of widespread mental and moral development. May we not to-night undertake to look through these visible objects and endeavor to discern the reason of them? May we not try to ascertain the leading influence behind these familiar and invaluable things and profitably to inquire into the causes which set this influence in operation and the results which it in turn has produced?

Circumstances have scarcely favored this unprecedented development in statehood. The foundations of New York were laid by a rude people in an unbroken wilderness overrun by barbarians and savages. The struggle for bread was a hard one. Yet these people offered asylum and succor to the oppressed and heart3176-33