those produced by rude labor, Switzerland furnishes the most striking contrast.

Switzerland, in 1873, according to the American Consul at Basle, sent to this country watches valued at $2,520,104. The same year she sent, embroidery to the amount of $2,095,234.

Also the same year, from the same country we imported silk and silk goods to the amount of $5,224,016. To pay for these three articles alone, amounting in the aggregate to $9,839,454 in gold-not in currency--would have required, say in Montgomery, the capital of Alabama, in her favorite staple 79,000,000 lbs. or 178,000 bales of cotton, although the average price that year was higher than now, being fourteen cents per lb.

According to the values of raw material as compared with the manufactured articles in England, had this cotton been manufactured in Montgomery it would have swelled the amount to 360,000 bales, or in currency it would have reached $22,428,000, or there would have been for distribution among the skilled and highly-skilled of our industrial classes $11,214,000, after paying for these three small articles of import, watches, embroidery, and silk, from little Switzerland.

Notice how coolly Mr. J. ScoтT RUSSELL, in his book entitled: "Systematic Technical Education of the English people," speaks of the market value of labor:

“What is, then, the mercantile, or moneyed value of a well-trained, skilful Englishman, as compared to a strong, able-bodied man who understands no craft, handiwork, or art? The shop-value of the two men is at once told by the labor-market. The one man can earn for the community twenty-five pounds a year; the other man has an average of sixty pounds, and with superior skill, a hundred pounds a year. Or if we take the three grades of unskilled, moderately-skilled, and highly-skilled men, we may represent their mean values by twenty-five pounds, fifty pounds, and seventy-five pounds; in other words, the highly-skilled man is worth three times the value of the unskilled man."

Another quotation from this distinguished authority, bearing directly upon this subject, may be pardoned. It is a deserved compliment from England to the art-industry of the Continent. I introduce it, too, because it bears particularly upon one of our greatest and most essential enterprises our railroad construction and equipments. With singular clearness it at once sets forth the most marked results with their solution:

"It is notorious that those foreign railways which have been made by themselves in the educated countries of Germany and Switzerland have been made far cheaper than those constructed by us in England; it is known that they have been made by pupils of the industrial schools and technical colleges of these countries; and I know many of their distinguished men who take pride in saying that they owe their positions entirely to their technical schools. I find everywhere throughout their works marks of that method, order, symmetry, and absence of waste, which arise from plans well thought out, the judicious applications of principles, conscientious parsimony, and a high feeling of professional responsibility. In the the accurate cutting of their slopes and embankments, in the careful design and thoughtful execution of their beautiful, but economical stone-masonry,

in the self-denying economy of their large-span bridges, the experienced traveller can read as he travels the work of a superiorly-educated class of men; and when we come down to details, to the construction of permanent way, arrangements of signals, points and sidings, and the endless details of stations, we every where feel that we are in the hands of men who have spared no pains, and who have applied high professional skill to minute details."

Such is the testimony of the builder of the Great Eastern, a man whose powers of conception and design are equaled only by his powers to execute. Happily, we have our railroads, and whether economically or artistically constructed, we shall need these, and more too; but that which we most need in Alabama-in the entire South-is that which will create a demand for transportation.

Our coal still slumbers in the bosom of mother-earth, our water-power continues its eternal circuit from vapor to water, and from water to vapor; from heaven to earth-from earth to heaven.

These await but the bidding touch of art to do their willing service; and the day when these shall be called forth to take their part in this great and grand industrial conflict, a new era will dawn upon the South. Then will the managers of our railroads, of our factories, of our agricultural and mining industries, boast that they were educated at our technical schools. Our teachers and school officers, that they were trained at our Normal schools and University.

Then will Alabama, clothed with the results of the development of her own natural resources, proudly move forward in the triumphant march of prosperity, not only as seventh State in point of wealth, but among the very first in point of education, and refinement in our free, peaceful, and happy Republic.

NOTE. It has been customary to publish the Constitution, List of Members, Treasurer's Report, etc., immediately after the proceedings of the General Association. The Treasurer's accounts were handed to a member of the Auditing Committee for examination, and they have not as yet, Oct. 28th, been returned to the Treasurer. This fact compels the Publishing Committee to defer the printing of the report, with the other things mentioned above, to the last of the volume.

DEPARTMENT OF HIGHER INSTRUCTION.

First Day's Proceedings.

MONDAY, JULY 10, 1876.

The Department met at 2 P. M., in the Concert-Room of the Academy of Music. In the absence of the President, Prof. PORTER, of Yale, and the Vice-President, Prof. VENABLE, of the University of Va., Prof. D. C. GILMAN, LL. D., of Johns-Hopkins University, was requested to preside. The exercises of the Department opened by Prof. W. J. RIVERS, of Washington College, Md., who read

"A NOTICE OF THE HISTORY OF THE SOUTH-CAROLINA

COLLEGE."

In Provincial times our young gentlemen who desired a better education than could be obtained in the schools of their neighborhood, either went by tedious voyage to colleges in England or resorted to our older institutions in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Virginia, which they reached, in some cases, by journeying long distances in coaches or on horseback. At the South, and no doubt in many sections of the North, the sons, chiefly of wealthy parents, enjoyed the advantages of collegiate education. But so soon as the provinces secured their independence, the necessity for a greater diffusion of such education, in order to prepare more thoroughly the youth of the country for important positions in the Republic, manifested itself in the founding of new colleges in many States where such institutions did not already exist. In the few charters which I have seen, not only this necessity is recognized, but also the necessity of rendering such institutions easily accessible.

The American army had not yet been disbanded when, in the spring of 1782, Maryland established her first college. Before the close of the century other colleges were founded in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, where none had existed before, and also in Maine, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. In South Carolina the effort was made at first to establish four colleges in as many different places easy of access, in order to accommodate all the youth of the State. But through lack of means on the part of the people, these colleges were not efficiently sustained. Only one survived-the Charleston College-which has con

ferred inestimable benefits upon the city in which it is situated. At length, in 1801, the Legislature determined to found the South Carolina College at Columbia, the centre of the State, "where all its youth may be educated," says the charter, and to "promote the instruction, the good order, and the harmony of the whole community." Eminent gentlemen were chosen as trustees, and a sure and liberal support was guaranteed from the State Treasury, the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, President of the Senate, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the Judges of the State were ex-officio members of the Board; and in conjunction with these, thirteen other prominent citizens were quadrennially elected by the Legislature.

A very important point in the organization of an institution of learning. is the selection of its first President. He may-if he be the right mansecure for it at once respect and public confidence; and in systematizing its government may give tone to its subsequent administration. Permit me to say that however peculiar in political affairs South Carolina may have seemed to some of you, through misapprehension of her devotion to principles and to her convictions of the true relation of the State to the General Government-yet in matters of education her citizens have been, as perhaps you are aware, most liberal and cosmopolitan. When, for example, immediately before the late war they desired to inaugurate public schools in Charleston like those that are in successful operation in many of the Northern States, they selected Northern teachers experienced in such methods of teaching, and induced them, by the remuneration they offered to come and superintend their new schools. The same liberal spirit existed more than a half century ago. The first President of her College was a native of Massachusetts; under whose able administration for sixteen years the institution grew into consistency and stability. Her second President was an Englishman. Others have been supplied from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Georgia. Indeed, more than half the Presidents and a large majority of the Professors have been other than natives of the State. Not that there was any lack of talents and acquirements at home-but the ambition of the people generally lay in other directions, and few of our gifted young men cared to devote themselves for life to the arduous duties of teaching. When I left home, in Charleston (where 1 had been at the school of a teacher from New Hampshire), and entered the South Carolina College at Columbia, I found that one of the professors was a German, another a native of New York, another of Connecticut, and another born in New York, but of New-Jersey parents. The students for whom these teachers were selected by the influential body of trustees already mentioned, were, in large part, sons of the élite of the State; of its Governors, Chancellors, and of all those old families whom some are pleased to call the aristocracy. The trustees looked solely to the qualifications of the professors for the duties to be performed; and perhaps to the advantages of a diversified experience in systems of instruction. I am led to remark that as modern civilization has been vastly benefited by the change from ancient national exclusiveness to free and extensi e State intercommunication-so educational bodies recognize now more than ever the advantages of mutual comparison in methods and

their results-from which we may indulge the hope that there will be finally evolved "the survival of the fittest."

The first Faculty of the South-Carolina College consisted of the Rev. Dr. JONATHAN MAXCY, a graduate and afterwards President of Brown University (R. I.), and subsequently President of Union College (N. Y). With him was associated-(and these two formed at first the whole Faculty)— Prof. HANSFORD of Connecticut, a graduate of Yale. Two other professors were soon added; one from Georgia, and another from Massachusetts, but a graduate of Dartmouth (N. H). To this exhibition of the liberal spirit of the State in matters of education, I must beg leave to add that South Carolina-until deprived, of late, of her own domination at home-has kept education distinct from politics; as she has likewise always kept religion distinct from politics.

From what has been said, it will be perceived that the older American colleges furnished models for the government, discipline, and curriculum of studies first adopted in the South-Carolina College. Latin, Greek, Mathematics, Logic, Moral and Mental Philosophy, Rhetoric, and the French Language formed the curriculum. But the requirements for graduation in 1804 were not much more extensive than the requirements for entrance to the junior class in the same College in 1840. Under the first President the culture had been characteristically philosophical and æsthetic. Under the second President, Dr. THOS. COOPER, special attention was directed to physical science. Educated at Oxford, England, and having been an associate of PRIESTLEY and a professor of chemistry and mineralogy in the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. COOPER brought with him an enthusiastic devotion to this department, and gave it prominence not only in the college but in the State. Unfortunately, after being many years President, he busied himself with infidel speculations, and on this account, notwithstanding his great learning and ability, brought the College to the brink of ruin.

On the re-organization in 1835, under President BARNWELL (subsequently U. S. Senator), there was established the department of "sacred literature and the evidences of Christianity," which was taught then by the late Bishop ELLIOTT of Georgia. This subject has ever since formed a regular part of the course of study. Excellent professors were chosen for chemistry (Dr. WM. H. ELLET), mathematics (Major Twiss of West Point), languages (J. W. STUART), Belles Lettres (HENRY JUNIUS NOTT), History and Politica Economy (Dr. FRANCIS LIEBER); while the President taught Moral and Political Philosophy and International Law. With these names and without further notice of professional changes, it may be well at once to mention the distinguished Presidents who followed Dr. BARNWELL, namely, Rev. Dr. HENRY, Hon. Wм. C. PRESTON, and the Rev. Dr. THORNWELL (of whom biographical sketches may be found in a History of the College, by Dr. La BORDE, a professor for thirty-three years). The College now attained its highest efficiency and popularity. The number of students increased to more than double the previous average. The buildings were improved and augmented in number, a new library and a commencement hall were erected, the chemical and philosophical apparatus and cabinet of minerals were rendered complete, an observatory was built, and supplied with prop