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Friday, July 10, 9 a. m.

University extension. Discussion opened by Prof. H. B. Adams, Johns Hopkins university; followed by

Pres. SETH LOW, Columbia college.

Sec'y GEORGE HENDERSON, American Society for the Exten-
sion of University Teaching, Philadelphia.
Regent T. GUILFORD SMITH, Buffalo.

Warden R. B. FAIRBAIRN, St Stephen's college.
Prof. BENJAMIN I. WHEELER, Cornell university.
Inspector FRANCIS J. CHENEY, Regents' office.
SIDNEY SHERWOOD, Johns Hopkins university.
Pres. II. E. WEBSTER, Union university.
Pres. G. STANLEY HALL, Clark university.
University extension and the Brooklyn Institute.
Prof. FRANKLIN W. HOOPER.

University extension in medicine.

W. A. PURRINGTON, New York.

Uses of secondary schools in university extension.

. Col. C. J. WRIGHT, Prin. N. Y. Military academy.

General discussion:

Ex-Pres. ANDREW D. WHITE, Cornell university.
Prof. J. SCOTT CLARK, Syracuse university.
Ass't Sup't H: M. LEIPZIGER, New York.

Regent PLINY T. SEXTON, Palmyra.

Prof. ALLAN MARQUAND, Princeton college.

Pres. W: C. ROBERTS, Lake Forest university, Ill.

Awarding of university extension prize of $100.

Ballot for Convocation and examinations councils and appointment of committees.

Closing of Convocation.

Adjourned sine die 1.30 p. m.

PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS

Wednesday morning, July 8

ADDRESS OF WELCOME

BY CHANCELLOR GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS

There is no pleasanter duty attached to the office of chancellor of the University than that of welcoming this academic congress to its annual session. In this stately and splendid chamber of legislative deliberation there are many great questions discussed, yet no question of greater importance is presented here during the winter than that which engages your attention; and if those discussions in the chamber are conducted with half the practical knowledge and intelligence and something of the high spirit and aim of those that mark the deliberations of Convocation, the state is very heartily to be congratulated.

I have been in many great assemblies of which it was subsequently stated that at least one or two or three or even five hundred millions of dollars were represented in the assembly. I am not perfectly sure that there are many millions of dollars represented in this assembly, and yet I am very confident that the influence which is certainly among the most prominent and the most profound in molding the character of the state is here at this moment amply represented. In welcoming you I welcome those who perhaps more than any other class, certainly as much as any other class, do really mold the state of New York.

The school, whether of the primary or of the secondary character, as we term it, is the arena in which the American citizen is trained. New York says with the old Dutch province of Zealand," Education is the corner-stone of the commonwealth." And if this state regards with peculiar interest and pride the legislators who usually assemble in this chamber, with what feeling should she not regard your deliberations, which are largely directed to the question how best to make those legislators. When the Yankee said to the acute European that the school in this country was the workshop in which the citizens were produced, the acute European replied to him, "And how do you train the workmen who turn out the products of that shop." This of course is one of the questions which must largely engage your attention at this time. It is how we are to make the

teachers, how we are to raise the standards of education; how above all things, if you will allow me, we are to impress upon the people in this state, as the result of your deliberations, that education is not to be valued chiefly as a material advantage, but as a spiritual force. It is as gross a wrong, believe me, to represent education as merely the means of securing material success as it is to describe beauty as merely giving pleasure to the eye. Doubtless education is the minister of what we usually call success; doubtless beauty everywhere is pleasing to the eye; but the final end of education as of beauty is the enlargement of the mental horizon, the strengthening of the mental powers, and more than all, the quickening of the spiritual

life.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, we are accustomed to say that we are charged in this Convocation with the interests of higher education in the state of New York. I think there is possibly some misapprehension in the use of that phrase. We speak in current terms of primary and secondary education. Those are convenient expressions and define the limit that we think may properly be set to that degree and kind of instruction which the state may furnish. It draws the line between what are popularly and generally considered the two departments, but remember that it is a question of degree, not of kind. Higher education is not a different education, it is only more education. The poet Pope, you remember, sneered at a little learning as a dangerous thing. But at the very moment when Pope was using those words, the profoundest mathematical scholar of his age, with the sublime modesty of greatness, was saying, and his words are a curious comment upon the poets' sneer, "I do not know how I may appear to the world, but I seem to myself to be only like a child playing upon the seashore, diverting myself with finding now a smoother pebble, now a prettier shell, while the great ocean of truth lies all undiscovered before me." In those words of Newton do we not hear something of an echo of the words of the apostle, "I count not myself to have attained"?

All our scholarship, all our learning, all the attainments of education are but comparative. It is a ladder let down from Heaven. Men and women are ascending at different points. No one is absolutely first, no one is utterly last.

I welcome you then, teachers of New York, I welcome you to this most important meeting, citizens of a great state. Let us determine that the rule of our deliberations, that the rule of our conduct shall be described in the legend of New York, and that as we are here in

a state great in territorial extent, greatest in population, greatest in resources, so we who bear the banner of what certainly is not the least of its great interests, are resolved that we will step only to the music of that legend, and raise the standard of that commonwealth "Excelsior."

COMMMITTEE REPORTS

Convocation council. Pres. D: J. Hill, chairman, reported as

follows:

It is only just to say in presenting the report of the Convocation. council that the work of conceiving and formulating the program which is now put into your hands is very largely, almost entirely, the work of the secretary of the University. We wish before presenting the program to the Convocation, to enforce, if any enforcement is possible after the persuasive words which have been uttered by the chancellor, the recommendation that every speaker confine himself to the time set by the rules of Convocation; and we are most happy to know that the chancellor, in his gentle and gracious manner, will refresh your memories if any one is disposed to overstep the boundaries of these rules.

It has been intimated that we have a large array of ability for the discussion of questions on the program. The committee has thought it wise to depart from the time honored custom of using our home talent almost solely, and to invite from beyond the borders of the Empire state, men distinguished in many departments of knowledge. This is an additional reason why the speaking should be crisp, brief, and within the limits set.

The committee feels that it has been very generous, and very just also, in the range of topics that have been recommended for discussion. They touch every department of higher education. We begin with the discussion of the "University study of philosophy," and the list of names that we have presented here promises us a very full morning without the additional topics that have been suggested. You will notice on the fourth page of the program several questions beginning with the one "Should Convocation be changed to a winter month?" It is probably not desirable to discuss all these questions; but they are placed here in order to give you an opportunity, if you wish to discuss them. If we get to them, we shall consider only those which the Convocation votes to discuss. Adopted.

Necrology committee. Prin. O. D. Robinson, chairman, read

in abstract the report (printed in full in memoirs), which was adopted by a rising vote.

Examinations committee.

follows:

Prin. D. C. Farr reported as

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The report of your committee is necessarily a very brief one, the results of its work being contained in the pamphlet which has already reached you. The committee has had two sessions, one in the regents' office early in August lasting two days — and we did not limit ourselves to eight hours either and another at Syracuse in December. The questions that chiefly interested the members and to which they gave their consideration were the courses of study and the number of examinations. On inquiry of all the principals of the schools, we found that three fourths of them agreed in preferring three examinations. In all our relations with the officers of the regents, our suggestions have been very kindly and very courteously received.

We do not want you to understand that the results of the syllabus are largely due to the deliberations of this committee; we want you to give credit to whom credit is due. The long friend and faithful servant of the cause of education in this state, Dr Watkins, is largely responsible for the good things which that pamphlet contains, and we sincerely hope that he will have a safe return to us and that his work will be largely instrumental in the future, as it has been in the past, in promoting the interests of higher education in this state.

There are many things perhaps in this syllabus with which you do not agree; but on the whole, so far as we have been able to learn, the teachers are exceedingly well satisfied with the results that have been tabulated and which are before you, and which probably will be changed as advancing needs require. Adopted.

Committee representing colleges. Pres. H. E. Webster reported as follows:

A few moments ago Secretary Dewey asked me to report for this committee, Pres. Adams of Cornell, who was chairman, being absent from the country.

As I had not anticipated making this report, I have not written it out and can only make a brief statement. As you know, this committee was appointed last summer at Convocation. It has met from time to time in the office of the University as was agreed. We made a report which will be published and distributed, I under

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