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expressive of our orthodoxy. At that flowing fountain President Hayes met Lucy, and you know the rest. Their example has been remembered and repeated in the lives of many charming young people.

In these corridors, recitation and lecture rooms, and in our beautiful and capacious chapel, you may hear the echo of many voices, and in your imagination see throngs of youth some of whom are enriching life in all lands, and others will be potent factors in the work of the twentieth century.

I am proud to tell you that our institution has always been in sympathy with the line of work and culture for which your profession stands. In my own college days, both as a student and a teacher, Profs. Kidd, Bronson, White and Hamill were from time to time instructors of our students. I took lessons from the first three, though you would not suspect it, and for their sakes I ought not to mention the fact. Prof. Kidd was a man of rare vigor and force. He followed a well-defined system based on a definite philosophy of culture. Prof. Bronson was more unique and technical, more patient but not more impressive and stimulating.

Prof. White, of Philadelphia, was the celebrated teacher of his more celebrated pupil, Mr. James E. Murdoch, whose eloquence and fame have been most widely recognized. Prof. White was emphatically a teacher. In later years he was not so impressive as a reader of selections, save when he read a sentence or paragraph merely, and then stopped to explain and defend the philosophy of his rendering, and then he was the most suggestive teacher I ever knew. He told me how to read the Declaration of Independence, taking sentence by sentence, explaining emphasis and accent to me. I used in my copy of the Declaration certain devices to preserve and interpret his reading. Not long after, Dr., afterward Bishop Harris, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was asked to read the Declaration of Independence at a great Fourth of July celebration. I loaned him my copy, which he used. The next day after the reading the daily papers eulogized in a marked way upon his impressive reading.

In these late years we have formed a chair and then a school of oratory, over which Prof. Fulton presides with rare dignity and praiseworthy recognition. As a proof of the enthusiasm in this department of our college, of the skill of its worthy head and his assistants, and of the zeal of our students, we have an unequaled record in the Ohio State Oratorical Association, having taken the first place seven times in thirteen successive annual contests. We feel, therefore, that we have special reasons to welcome the representatives of this department of college and school work, a department so essential to a complete educational furnishing.

We welcome you to all that we have and all that we can do to make your sojourn with us pleasant and profitable. We express the hope that you will find the accommodations and associations here so inviting that in the near future we shall have the privilege of reopening our doors for your return and placing our best facilities at your command.

In introducing the next speaker the Chairman paid a high tribute to our distinguished Honorary President, Moses True Brown, who gave the following address:

PROF. BROWN'S ADDRESS.

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Mr. Chairman and Fellow-members: The English psychologic writer, Lewes, once said to a would-be orator who complained that with all his philosophy he could not hold his audience: "Tell them," said Lewes, something that your own eyes have seen, your own brain has thought, your own heart has felt, and you will not lack interested hearers." So I shall claim the privilege, which a near approach to the terminal limit of life -the three-score years and ten-to become reminiscent rather than didactic or philosophical, to make a familiar talk and to tell you of certain events of my life which more than any other gave shape and impulse to a desire to become an elocutionist and to teach and illustrate a then neglected science and a rather discredited art.

Of the old elocutionists I have a vivid recollection--for the soul does not grow old-and my memory brings them back as they stood before me in their mature strength and best expression. My first impulse to become what seemed to me that superior being an elocutionist came from hearing a lady read selections from Shakespeare; and soon afterward hearing the younger Vandenhoff render in a delightfully natural manner scenes from "The Pickwick Papers.

As I look backward to that remote period and recall the impressions made by these readers, I well remember the criticism that my callow ignorance made upon their performance. I said these readers simply "talked " just as anybody would and that could not be elocution! I missed the roar and the tearing of passion into rags that my fancy had somehow associated with elocution. Had I not, at the High School on speaking day, shouted at the top of my voice and red in the face,

"The war that for a space did fail

Now trebly thundering swelled the gale
And Stanley was the cry!"

My mother was guide, philosopher, friend and inspiration to me and to her I went to protest against "talking just as anybody would." Quietly and sedately she said, "My son, the shallows murmur, the deeps run quietly to the sea. You will note that I was in the "vital" stage of my evolution and held as an unapproachable model my first teacher, a strong robustious person, with a voice like a fog-horn and whose favorite "piece' was that impossible poem, "The Maniac," and who howled his simulated insanity with a perspiring vigor that made all things crack as he roared, "Stay, jailer stay, and hear my woe!" And yet honestly and earnestly he taught elocution from that vicious standpoint-the outside, and with a resultant of sound and fury that has added a new word to our terminology—the yellocutionist.

I recognize my first real teacher of the art of expression as William Russell, the elder Russell, revered be his memory!

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And what besides a personality so cultured and pervading that it seemed atmospheric do I recall as his peculiarity? Why, his enunciation, the giving organic form to the English-spoken word. It was simply ideal. Often with pencil in hand I would craftily lay for him," with the deep design of catching an error escaping from his mouth. No man in our time has that clean-cut enunciation. I remember that I used to lay it all to his lips-such lips! clean cut as a Greek chiseling, a veritable, sensitive mould in motion, fashioning such music of the vocals, such passion of the subvocals, such precision of the aspirate sounds, as I never hear now-a-days.

Two sounds, alas fallen into neglect in these modern days, Russell had in perfection: the English "r" as heard in "earth," or "earn," "firm, earn," "firm," "virtue;" and the French ū as inconstitution," "institute," "duke!" He labored with us and told us that they were high evidences of cultured speech and might be called accomplishments of our art. One word so outraged his sensitive ear that when uttered by a student in his presence, he came very close to the boundary of a really healthy profanity! That word was haunted!" Tradition hath it that once, when attending a religious service, he rushed out of the church for fear of a second utterance of "a haunted house " by the gospel preacher!

The elder Russell, taken all in all, was the finest illustrator of spoken English undefiled that has come to us. Supreme as master of the English tongue, let us reverently remember him! As an evidence of the truth of heredity I listen with delight to the finished articulation of the younger Russell, the Rev. Francis T., the eminent elocutionist, who always brings back to me the music, rhythm and impress handed down to him from his father.

It

My next teacher was that grand old man, then in his prime both as teacher and artist, James E. Murdoch. I have spoken of Wm. Russell's chief characteristic as a native, organic power of speaking English words. And Murdoch's chief characteristic, it has seemed to me, was his wonderful quality of voice. In color it always reminded me of royal purple such as kings wear; or the glou-glou of rich Burgundy poured into transparent crystal. It filled the ear as these colors fill the eye. No American elocutionist ever had such a rich, resonant voice. is something never to be forgotten. And to the very close of his life, it held its richness like a Cremona violin. On his last visit to Boston, at the age of seventy-six, I was appointed a committee to find a reader to entertain the New Hampshire Club. So I asked my old teacher and friend, Mr. Murdoch, to come and read. I introduced him as 66 a hero of 76" (years), and by request he read "Sheridan's Ride," which years before I had heard him read in Pike's Opera-House, Cincinnati, when the ink upon the manuscript was scarcely dry, and when the house rose at him" in an access of patriotic fervor that reminded me of Rachel reciting "The Marseillaise" before a French audience. The fact that Mr. Murdoch retained this marvelous voice to the time of his death at past eighty years, would seem to prove that the trained and cultivated voice never leaves the body until

vitality leaves it. Russell once said to me, "When my voice begins to crack, and I pipe and whistle and so play the last act in the drama of life, I shall stop." But it never cracked! And the trumpet tones of "the hero of 76" at that New Hampshire dinner roused an enthusiasm that was only satisfied when the gray old man rode again with Sheridan "into Winchester twenty miles away!"

I have faint reminiscences of a quaint book, "Bronson's Elocution," which with all its oddities contained many a wise suggestion. And Barbour whom I never saw, who taught Wendell Phillips at Harvard, when all round the College were forest trees and where Phillips would wake the echoes with all sorts of explosive sounds, in the formative period of his incomparable oratory.

A teacher ever to be revered and remembered passed over into the new environment some years ago, who merited in his helpful and optimistic life Emerson's phrase of "the over-soul." I refer to Lewis B. Monroe. Generous, helpful, sympathetic, hopeful, his pupils will keep his memory green, the highest hope and reward of the faithful teacher.

I want to thank the audience for their attention; and, as an excuse for the personal element that I have so strongly introduced, to say that I had prepared a deeply philosophical disquisition upon Man, a Microcosm," which, by the advice of our worthy Chairman, I thought it better to inflict upon you on some future occasion.

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The Chair then called for the report of the temporary executive committee. Miss Laura E. Aldrich, secretary of the temporary organization, reported as follows:

Before presenting the report of this committee, I think it is due to those members who were not in Detroit last July, that I read the minutes of the two meetings held at that time for the purpose of organizing this Association:

The teachers of elocution from Ohio, present at the Fifth Annual Convention of the N. A. E., held in Detroit, met in the committee rooms of the Association at half-past one, on the afternoon of July 3, for the purpose of forming an Ohio State Association of Elocutionists.

Prof. Robert I. Fulton, of Delaware, called the meeting to order and was at once made temporary chairman. Miss Laura E. Aldrich, of Cincinnati, was elected secretary. A motion was inade and carried to meet at seven o'clock the same evening for permanent organization. A motion for the Chair to appoint a committee of three to consult about a constitution and other interests of the Association, and who were to present a report at the evening meeting, was made and carried. The Chair appointed the following committee: Chas. M. Flowers, of Cincinnati; Mrs. M. E. Bentley, of Cleveland, and Mrs. Elizabeth M. Irving, of Toledo. Motion to adjourn carried.

The

The evening meeting was called to order at 7 o'clock. minutes of the afternoon meeting were read and approved. Owing to the unavoidable absence of the Chairman of the

Committee on Constitution, Mrs. Irving submitted the following report:

DETROIT, July 3, 1896. Mr. Chairman: Your committee appointed to-day to present an order of business for the meeting of Ohio readers and teachers of elocution, suggests the following: There shall be a temporary organization to make arrangements for the first called meeting. The officers of this organization may consist of a chairman, a secretary and a treasurer, who shall be a committee on constitution, and also an executive committee in its full sense. This committee shall draft a constitution and by-laws, arrange a business and literary program, send out such literature as they may deem expedient, and make a full report at the first meeting. We further recommend the immediate creation of a fund to defray expenses to be incurred by this committee, and the selection of a place and time for a meeting to effect a permanent organization. We also recommend that overyone present send at once to the secretary the addresses of all persons known to them who may be eligible to membership in this organization. C. M. FLOWERS,

MRS. ELIZABETH MANSFIELD IRVING,
MRS MARY E. BENTLEY.

This report was accepted and the committee discharged. The Chair then suggested that this organization follow its distinguished predecessor, the N. A. E., and elect an Honorary President. Following this suggestion, Mr. Neil, of Delaware, nominated Moses True Brown, of Sandusky, who was unanimously elected Honorary President of the Ohio State Association of Elocutionists. The report of the committee was then taken up. Mr. Virgil A. Pinkley, of Cincinnati, was elected treasurer. It was moved that the chairman, the treasurer and the secretary form an executive committee to arrange a program, draft a constitution and attend to all other matters pertaining to organization. Motion carried.

A discussion on funds then arose, and it was finally moved and carried that the part of the report referring to finances be rejected and that this matter be left for decision to the first regular meeting. Next in order of business was the selection of a place of meeting. After a cordial invitation extended by Prof. Robert I. Fulton, Delaware, O., was unanimously chosen as the first place of meeting. Moved and seconded that the meeting take place during the week immediately following Christmas day, the exact date to be decided by the executive committee. Motion carried. Moved that one day be the length of time devoted to convention work. Amended to read two days. Motion, as amended, carried. Moved and carried that all persons solicited to become members must also be eligible to the N. A. E. The meeting was brought to a close by a most graceful little speech from our Honorary President, Mr. Brown, offering his hearty cooperation in advancing the cause of elocution in this great State of Ohio. The temporary association adjourned subject to the call of the Chairman.