Some of the hopeful members had heard of an Eastern man who had come to the rescue of the American Institute of Instruction when it was almost ready to perish. This man was made president of the institute, and he made a grand rally, which gathered together such a multitude of educators at the White Mountains of New Hampshire that the increased income has been sufficient to keep that institute in a prosperous condition ever since.

This gratifying success inspired some of the almost despairing members of the National Educational Association to call to its leadership the Hon. Thomas W. Bicknell, of Massachusetts. The grand success of the Madison meeting, in Wisconsin, in 1884, inaugurated a new financial era by largely increasing the number of members. Since then, by making the annual meetings attractive, and by lessening the expense of attending them, the membership has so increased that the funds of our treasury, now safely invested in interest-bearing bonds, are sufficient, with prudent management, to forever insure the association against financial embarrassment. This financial security serves to increase the usefulness of the association, and to guarantee its permanency. At the close of the Madison meeting Hon. E. E. White offered the following resolution, which shows how highly the association appreciated the services of President Bicknell. The resolution was passed unanimously:

Resolved, That the unparalleled success of this meeting is chiefly due to the energy, devotion, and organizing ability of Hon. T. W. Bicknell, the president of this association, whose wise and comprehensive plans, enthusiastic and self sacrificing efforts, and directing hand have inspired and guided the great undertaking from its inception to its present triumphant close, and no formal words can properly express our thankful appreciation.

Historically, let it be added, that not one dollar of these funds has ever been added to the emolument of an officer, nor furnished him any "boodle" for speculation.

In 1884 three new departments were organized and entered upon their peculiar work. These were the Froebel or kindergarten, the art, and the music departments. In 1885 the department of secondary education was added to the list, making the whole number ten.

INCORPORATION OF THE ASSOCIATION.

At a meeting of the board of directors of the National Educational Association, held at Saratoga Springs, N. Y., July 14, 1885, the following resolution was passed: Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed to secure articles of incorporation for the National Educational Association, under United States or State laws, as speedily as may be.

N. A. Calkins, of New York, Thomas W. Bicknell, of Massachusetts, and Eli T. Tappan, of Ohio, were appointed such committee.

Under the authority of the resolution quoted above, and with the approval of the committee, and by competent legal advice, the chairman obtained the following:

CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION.

We, the undersigned, Norman A. Calkins, John Eaton, and Zalmon Richards, citizens of the United States, and two of them citizens of the District of Columbia, do hereby associate ourselves together, pursuant to the provisions of the act of general incorporation, class third, of the revised statutes of the District of Columbia, under the name of the National Educational Association, for the full period of twenty years, the purpose and objects of which are to elevate the character and advance the interests of the profession of teaching, and to promote the cause of popular education in the United States. * * * To secure the full benefit of said act, we do here execute this our certificate of incorporation as said act provides.

In witness whereof we severally set our hands and seals this 24th day of February, 1886, at Washington, D. C.

NORMAN A. CALKINS.
JOHN EATON.
ZALMON RICHARDS.

[L. 8.]

L. S.

[L. S.]

Duly acknowledged before Michael P. Callan, notary public in and for the District of Columbia, and recorded in Liber No. 4, acts of incorporation for the District of Columbia.

The action of the committee on incorporation was submitted to the board of directors at Topeka, Kans., July 13, 1886, and the act of incorporation was duly approved by the board of directors.

A committee was appointed to prepare the changes in the constitution necessary to meet the requirements of the charter. At the meeting of the National Educational Association held at Topeka, July 15, 1886, the chairman-E. E. White, of Ohio-presented the report of the committee on amendments to the constitution, and the report was unanimously adopted.'

These departments are all legitimate children, though two of them have been adopted and are older than their parent. But they are a harmonious, hard working, and a thriving family. If anyone needs to be convinced of the truth of this statement, let him undertake to read and thoroughly digest even one of the late volumes

The constitution of the National Educational Association may be found on pp. 1500-1508.

of the annual proceedings. If one copy does not convince him, let him procure a full set of the twenty-two copies from our custodian at Washington, and he will have one of the best pedagogical libraries, especially if he will add to it the twentyfive or thirty volumes of Barnard's Journal of Education.

The amount of original educational matter now presented at each of our annual meetings is some six or eight times greater than it was for each of the first fifteen or eighteen years of its work. What still adds to the value of these volumes is the generally improved character of the papers and discussions. While very many of the early papers read before the association can not be excelled in value and importance, still, during these later years, the officers have taken special care to let nothing but new and original matter be presented to the various departments from year to year. As the authors of these papers are generally selected from the large number of first-class educators in our growing country, the papers are becoming more and more elevated and valuable, and contain the best and ripest thoughts of this educational era. The same may be said in regard to the character of the discussions in these various departments, which are quite fully published in these volumes. The influence of this national educational association is diffusive and permeating, and is giving character to the systems of education and of school work in all parts of our own country and in other countries-as in South America, Japan, and the Sandwich Islands, and perhaps in some of the old countries of Europe. There is not a State, county, city, or town in all our country where the influence of our associational work is not more or less felt. Even the colleges, the universities, and private educational institutions are perhaps, unconsciously to themselves, feeling this diffusive influence.

Though the influence of the association is more plainly, effectually, and promptly felt in the newer portions of our country, yet those States and cities which have been pioneers in educational work so long as to be sometimes chargeable with "old fogyism" have felt, and are now feeling, the transforming influences of the papers and discussions of this great body of educators.

ITS MEMBERSHIP.

The membership of the association is made up of annual members, who pay $2 a year; of life members, who pay $20; of life directors, who pay $100; also of perpetual directorships, which are usually secured by boards of education, or associations, through the payment of $100. This perpetual directorship confers the privilege of sending any one of its members to the meetings, as its representative, which representative shall be entitled to all the privileges of the association, during his attendance, that belong to a life director.

It will be readily understood that the annual memberships of this association are changeable because of the migratory meetings-from Boston to St. Paul, Philadelphia to Chicago, Baltimore to St. Louis, San Francisco to Nashville, Saratoga to Topeka, Atlanta to Toronto. During the past ten years the attendance at these meetings has varied from 500 to 10,000. The largest attendance was at Chicago in 1887, the next was at San Francisco in 1888. The meetings at St. Paul in 1890, and at Toronto, Canada, in 1891, were both very large meetings. The constant and unchangeable membership is made up of life members, life directors, and about an equal number of regular and active annual members.

It would be a wise and an economical move if the younger members, both male and female, who wish to retain their working membership should add $18 to their annual membership fee at once, and thus constitute themselves life members.

The great advantages of these large migratory meetings are not confined to the financial benefits of this association, for it is a generally acknowledged fact that their influence has been essentially beneficial to the cities and States where they have been held, and that the cause of education and public school instruction has been elevated and greatly improved in every section of our country.

This association has been, and now is, the bodyguard of public school instruction in our country.

THE SCHOOL EXPOSITIONS.

Since the organization of the industrial, the art, and the kindergarten departments and their auxiliary combination with the general association, the interest in the annual meetings has greatly increased. The school exhibits in many instances have been of a remarkable character, and it must be admitted by every careful observer of their influence upon the practical life of our youth that they have contributed essentially to the educative power of the public school systems.

The readers of the annual proceedings will find the reports of these exhibits highly suggestive and instructive.

THE WORKERS OF THE ASSOCIATION.

A merciful Providence has kindly watched over the friends and supporters of this association. Thirty men have been called to preside over and direct its interests during the thirty-four years of its existence.

No meetings were held in 1861, 1862, 1867, and 1878. Twenty-one of its presidents are now living. Nine honored men have been called to go up higher, viz, John W. Bulkley, of Brooklyn, N. Y., the third president; John D. Philbrick, of Boston, Mass., the fourth president; William H. Wells, of Chicago, Ill., the fifth president; S. S. Greene, of Providence, R. I., the sixth president; S. H. White, of Peoria, Ill., the fourteenth president; Gustavus J. Orr, of Atlanta, Ga., the twenty-first president; Eli T. Tappan, of Ohio, the twenty-second president; J. P. Wickersham, of Pennsylvania, the seventh president; and John Hancock, of Columbus, Ohio, the eighteenth president.

These were all men of educational faith, who performed the work of their life nobly and have gone to their graves greatly honored and beloved by all who knew them. We have good reason to believe and expect that the twenty-one surviving presidents will be able to go to their final reward, when it is to be rendered, with equally untarnished honors and with a revered memory.

We feel also constrained to express our high appreciation and commendation of one of our most faithful and indefatigable secretaries, W. D. Henkle, of Ohio.

At our second anniversary in Washington the association was called upon to express its deep sorrow and regret at the death of the Hon. Horace Mann, who gave a valuable lecture at our first anniversary. Other true and valuable members have closed their educational work on earth to engage in a higher and nobler work, we trust, in the spiritual mansions of the Great Teacher.

*

THE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION: ITS ORGANIZATION AND FUNCTIONS.1

By Hon. WILLIAM T. HARRIS,

United States Commissioner of Education.

Thirty-three years ago last August there met in the city of Philadelphia a handful of men to organize a national teachers' association. The movement started in New York and Massachusetts. A call had been issued and widely circulated the year before (1856) inviting "all practical teachers in the North, the South, the East, and the West who are willing"-these are its significant words" who are willing to unite in a general effort to promote the general welfare of our country by concentrating the wisdom and power of numerous minds and by distributing among all the accumulated experiences of all; who are ready to devote their energies and their means to advance the dignity, respectability, and usefulness of their calling." A constitution was drafted and adopted, and officers were elected for the following year. The directory of the newly formed association voted to meet in Cincinnati in August, 1858. The noteworthy feature in the constitution adopted is the government of the association by a board of directors elected at the annual meeting. This board was to consist of a large number of counselors, one from each State, district, or Territory, together with the president, secretary, treasurer, and twelve vice-presidents. It also became the practice, even from this early meeting, to appoint a large nominating committee-one member from each State represented in the convention. Inasmuch as it has frequently happened that only a single delegate was present from a State, the nominating committee has been obliged to fill out its extensive list of officers by naming its own members. The first president of the association, as well as seven of the vice-presidents and two of the counselors, ten in all, were members of the nominating committee that reported their names. While this strikes us at first as bad form, or even as dangerous to the usefulness of the association, a moment's reflection convinces us that the danger is imaginary and affects the form rather than the substance of the thing. If an entire assembly appoints itself on a nominating body, and then names all of its members to one office or another, it amounts to the same as a committee of the whole for the nomination of officers and a distribution of offices to all."

In later years, since the association has grown to gigantic proportions, it is true that this large committee has dwindled in comparison to the size of the body it represents. But the fact that the rule requires that all the States, districts, and Territories shall be represented on the board of directors secures a variety of interests in that board, which prevents the possibility of clannishness or misrule. Should, however, it be deemed desirable to provide even a wider participation of the rank and file of the association in the election of its directory, this could be easily Read before the meeting of the department of superintendence, at Philadelphia, Pa., February, 1891.

effected by a constitutional provision permitting each State delegation to select its member of the nominating committee, leaving the president to select, as heretofore, for those States that decline or neglect to act. Practically, this would be a safeguard against any possible influence that might come from partisanship or political management, but it is quite difficult to conceive any circumstances wherein danger is to be apprehended from such source. All will agree, however, that the highest usefulness of the association depends on the complete subordination of the political partisan

element.

We may here properly inquire what the legitimate results are which we should look to come from this annual gathering of teachers from the length and breadth of the land. The main answer to this is provided for us in the words of the original call issued in 1856. In the language already quoted, the association should "concentrate the wisdom and power of numerous minds, and distribute among all the experiences of all." This call was written by Dr. Daniel B. Hagar, then president of the Massachusetts Teachers' Association. It was stated at the Philadelphia meeting in 1857 that there were already in existence twenty-three State teachers' associations, besides larger and smaller associations not bounded by State lines-such, for example, as the American Institute of Instruction in New England, and the American Association for the Advancement of Education, which had been formed in Philadelphia. These associations had demonstrated the value of general conferences in which educational topics were discussed. The wisdom and power of many minds concentrated on the difficult problems of the profession brought light such as none had seen before. The accumulated experience of all was thus distributed to each. The individual teacher, in his uneven development, strong in some points and weak in others, found complementary strength in the experience of his fellow-teachers, strong where he was weak and perhaps weak where he was strong.

The divine principle of vicariousness that prevails in the spiritual world, rendering it possible for each man, woman, and child to participate profitably in the experience of another human being-so that the spectacle of a deed and its consequences renders it entirely unnecessary to perform the deed itself in order to get what of good comes from doing it as a life experience-this divine principle of vicariousness in the life of human souls at once explains for us the true function of teachers' associations and also the function of education itself in its entirety. What, indeed, is all education except the reenforcement of the individual by the experience of the family, the community, the nation, the race? Education is, therefore, properly defined as the elevation of the individual into participation in the life of the species. While the brute inherits organically in his muscles and nerves and brain the experience of his progenitors in such a way that the life of his race appears as instinctive impulse, man, on the other hand, not only inherits the results of the life of his ancestry in the form of instincts and aspirations, but he can by language receive and communicate the outcome of his life direct. Hence his ability to collect within himself the results of others' lives is increased infinitely beyond that narrow line of hereditary descent; for he can, through language, avail himself of the senseperception of others far removed in time and space, making himself thereby a sort of omnipresence in space and time. Then, too, he can avail himself in like manner of the thoughts and reflections of his fellow-men, especially the thoughts and reflec tions of those most gifted minds that have done most to solve the problems of life and explain the anomalies of experience. More than this, too, he learns not only through their perceiving and by their thinking on what they perceive, but he learns by seeing their doing, and by the story of their doing, what to do himself and what to refrain from doing. Thus by language the individual is enabled to live vicariously the life of the race, and to live his own life vicariously for others. Whatever one does goes into the reservoir of human experience as something of value; if it is a negative deed, bringing with it its punishment, the knowledge of it renders unnecessary the repetition of its like by others. If it is a positive deed, securing for it the normal development of the soul, then it is a precious discovery, and it may be adopted by all men as a new ethical form or moral law.

Thus the very principle of all education-the principle that makes possible what we value as civilization in contrast to savage life-this principle is appealed to as explaining and justifying the existence of a national educational association. "Concentrate the wisdom and power of numerous minds; distribute to each the accumulated experience of all."

Who can say, looking back down the ladder of thirty-three years, that this beneficent process of giving and receiving has not characterized every stage of its ascent? Spiritual giving, we are taught, is not a giving which diminishes the supply of the giver. In material giving there is a transfer which makes him who gives poorer by the amount of his gift. But he who imparts his experience to others possesses all the more firmly all the fruits of his own experience. Every teacher who has risen in this National Educational Association to expound his own observations or reflections, or to give the results of his experience, has, in the act of doing it, helped

himself first of all to see more clearly than before the true lesson of his life. In spiritual participation, there is no division or loss. In material things-in food, clothing, and shelter-to share is to divide and diminish the part that goes to each. But these general principles we may admit, and yet fail to see in the work of the National Educational Association anything worthy of being classed under such high rubrics. Let us, therefore, take up in detail, that all may recognize, some of the phases of the teacher's work that have been under discussion at the annual gatherings. I find, on looking over the table of contents of the annual volumes of proceedings, that there have been presented 241 papers on the five parts of the school system, namely, 28 on the kindergartens, 27 on primary work, 75 on high schools and colleges, 56 on normal schools, 45 on manual training and technical schools.

These 241 papers have all related, incidentally, to matters of course of study and methods. But besides these there were 21 papers relating especially to the philosophy of methods, 81 to various branches of the theory of education and psychology, 29 to the course of study, 10 to the peculiarities of graded and ungraded schools, 25 to musical instruction, 10 to natural sciences, 40 on drawing, and 24 to the important subject of moral and religious instruction. These make 240 additional papers on special themes of course of study and methods of discipline and management-in the aggregate nearly 500 papers on these themes.

Besides these papers there are others-on building, heating, and ventilation, 3; national aid to education, 14; education for Chinese, Indians, and colored people, 8; on supervision of schools, 10; on the uses and abuses of text-books, 9; on examinations of teachers and of pupils, 8; on compulsory education, 3; foreign educational systems, 10; education and crime, 2; on the best methods of keeping statistics, 4; on the criticisms urged against our schools, 8; in all nearly 100 more papers on important questions.

We all remember with some remaining feelings of dismay the old-fashioned essays read at teachers' gatherings. The following titles will suggest them: "The teachers' motives," "The teacher and his work," "The causes of failure and success in the work of the teacher," and "The teacher's ideal." Very often such titles introduced only goody-goody reflections on the personal character of the teacher. In the early days of the association such essays were more frequent. One is glad to observe their growing rarity, not only in the National Educational Association, but also in State associations and in educational magazines.

Of course these 600 papers, relating to various points of school management, were only the half of the intellectual pabulum set forth at the annual gatherings. It is safe to say that the impromptu discussions called forth were at least another half. Where the undisciplined mind had flagged and failed to follow the thread of the written discourse, the oral discussion brought out vividly the points of the paper, and by vigorous opposition or defense aroused the powers of the weakling. The vigorous oral debate has here its tremendous advantages over the printed paper read in the educational periodicals.

We have not mentioned the advantage of personal contact of mind with mind. In these gatherings the young teacher sees those who have grown old in the service and who have acquired reputation for their work. He meets his equals and measures their ideals by his own. He learns to see the details of his profession from many different points of view. The impression derived from the printed page differs from that derived from personal conversation. Each has its advantages. The personal impression is more stimulating and provocative of imitation. The cool study of the printed paper leads to deeper self-activity. Both are useful, nay, indispensable. It is obvious that for this personal lesson upon the teacher our recent large associations are far more valuable than the small gatherings of the early date; where three hundred met then, now we have three thousand. The visitor to the association now sees ten times the number of eminent teachers, and rejoices in a tenfold opportunity for profit.

I do not think that I overestimate the value of this feature of the educational association when I call it one-half. On this basis I shall call the direct aid received from the essays and papers read one-fourth; the direct aid from the debates and discussions, one-fourth; the direct aid from personal conversation with and observation of fellow-members of the convention, eminent persons, and otherwise, this, and the benefit of observation on that section of the country into which the association takes the visitor, amounts to one-half the direct aid that he gets at the association.

Since 1870 the association has been in process of forming departments for the further specialization of work. It has done this partly by absorbing existing associations devoted to special work, and partly by forming new departments direct.

It absorbed the normal school and superintendents' associations, and, in after years, successively the departments of (a) higher instruction, (b) elementary instruction, (c) industrial education, (d) the National Council of Education, (e) the kindergarten, (f) the art education, (g) music instruction, and (h) secondary instruction; thus making ten departments in all. There has been since 1884 an educational exposition, which may be called the eleventh department.