It is one of the most fortunate circumstances of our history that the vote in the Continental Congress was substantially unanimous. Without the accompaniment of the Ordinance, the Constitution of the United States itself would have lost half its value. It was fitting that the whole country should share in the honor of that act which, in a later generation, was to determine the fate of the whole country.

We would not forget, to-day, the brave men and noble women who represented Connecticut, and Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, in the band of pioneers. Among them were Parsons, and Meigs, and Varnum, and Greene, and Devol, and True, and Barker, and the Gilmans. Connecticut made, a little later, her own special contribution to the settlement of Ohio. Both Virginia and Massachusetts have the right to claim, and to receive, a peculiar share of the honor which belongs to this occasion. They may well clasp each other's hands anew, as they survey the glory of their work. These two States, the two oldest of the sisterhood,—the State which framed the first written Constitution, and the State whose founders framed the compact on the Mayflower; the State which produced Washington, and the State which summoned him to his high command; the State whose son drafted the Declaration of Independence, and the State which furnished its leading advocate on the floor; the mother of John Marshall, and the mother of the President who appointed him; the State which gave the General, and the State which furnished the largest number of soldiers to the Revolution; the State which gave the territory of the North-West, and the State which gave its first settlers, may well delight to remember that they share between them the honor of the authorship of the Ordinance of 1787. When the reunited country shall erect its monument at Marietta, let it bear on one side the names of the founders of Ohio, on the other side the names of Jefferson and Richard Henry Lee, and Carrington and Grayson, side by side with those of Nathan Dane and Rufus King and Manasseh Cutler, beneath the supreme name of Wash. ington. Representatives of Virginia and Massachusetts, them. selves, in some sense representatives of the two sections of the country which so lately stood against each other in arms, they will bear witness that the estrangements of four years have

not obliterated the common and tender memories of two centuries.

Forever honored be Marietta, as another Plymouth! The Ordinance belongs with the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution. It is one of the three title-deeds of American constitutional liberty. As the American youth, for uncounted centuries, shall visit the capital of his country,-strongest, richest, freest, happiest of the nations of the earth,-from the stormy coast of New England, from the luxurious regions of the Gulf, from the prairie and the plain, from the Golden Gate, from far Alaska,—he will admire the evidences of its grandeur and the monuments of its historic glory. He will find there, rich libraries and vast museums, which show the product of that matchless inventive genius of America, which has multiplied a thousand-fold the wealth and comfort of human life. He will see the simple and modest portal through which the great line of the Republic's chief magistrates have passed, at the call of their country, to assume an honor surpassing that of emperors and kings, and through which they have returned, in obedience to her laws, to take their place again as equals in the ranks of their fellow-citizens. He will stand by the matchless obelisk which, loftiest of human structures, is itself but the imperfect type of the loftiest of human characters. He will gaze upon the marble splendors of the Capitol, in whose chambers are enacted the statutes under which the people of a continent dwell together in peace, and the judgments are rendered which keep the forces of States and nation, alike, within their appointed bounds. He will look upon the records of great wars and the statues of great commanders. But, if he know his country's history, and consider wisely the sources of her glory, there is nothing in all these which will so stir his heart as two fading and time-soiled papers whose characters were traced by the hand of the fathers one hundred years ago.

They are the original records of the Acts which devoted this nation, forever, to Equality, to Education, to Religion, and to Liberty.

One is the Declaration of Independence, the other is the Ordinance of 1787.

On the 30th of April, 1889, the Centennial of the Inauguration of George Washington as First President of the United States was observed at New York; Benjamin Harrison, the first President of the second century of the Republic, being present. His journey to New York, and all succeeding exercises, closely resembled those of 1789. The entire Nation honored the occasion by the ringing of bells, a solemn church service, and special exercises in the public schools of the land.

PART IX.

PATRIOTISM TO BE BRED IN THE SCHOOLS.

INTRODUCTION.

Ar no previous time in American history has there been a more pressing demand for the inculcation of patriotic sentiment through the schools, than during these closing years of the nineteenth century. The increasing influx of an illiterate, unsympathetic, foreign element deepens that sentiment. During the years 1887 and 1888, nearly one hundred and fifty colleges provided for special instruction in Civics; thereby passing beyond the technical sphere of Political Economy, to teach the principles of good government and those branches of study which instil pride of country, and prepare youth for responsible and honorable citizenship.

Hon. Andrew S. Draper, Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of New York, in his Official Report for 1887, says,—

"Let me say a word for a little more patriotism in the schools. We have little in our every-day life to arouse patriotic ardor. We have no frequent or great exhibitions of power; no army to stand in awe of; no royalty to worship; no emblems or ribbons to dazzle the eye; and but few national airs. We have elections so frequently, and then say such terribly hard things of each other and about the management of government, that I imagine the children wonder what kind of a country this is, that they have been born into. There is no such inculcation of patriotism among our children as among the children of some other lands. If I had my way, I would hang the flag in every school-room, and I would spend an occasional hour in singing our best patriotic songs, in declaiming the masterpieces of our national oratory, and in rehearsing the proud story of our national life. I would do something to inspire a just pride in the thrift and development of the first and greatest State of the Union. I would attempt to impress upon all, the

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supreme value of their inheritance, and the sacred duty of transmitting it untarnished and unimpaired, but rather broadened and strengthened, to the millions who will follow after."

Hon. M. A. Newell, Superintendent of Public Instruction for Maryland, in his Inaugural Address before the National Educational Association, at Louisville, Kentucky, in 1877, commenting upon the strikes and riots of that year, used the following language:

“That free institutions, resting on the basis of universal suffrage, are accompanied and stimulated by universal intelligence, is a truism which I should not be justified in repeating before this audience, were it not that the events of the last few weeks [the July riots] have converted the dormant truism into a pregnant truth. The commission to the Roman Dictator, 'See to it, that the Commonwealth receives no injury,' is now the order of the day to every American citizen, in his own place and sphere of action. To us, as educators, comes with special force the order, 'See to it, that, so far as your office is concerned, the Republic receives no injury.' The question before us at this crisis is, 'Are our public schools doing all that we have a right to demand of them to prepare the young people who have to live by the labor of their hands, to become intelligent, moral, and industrious citizens?'"'

State Superintendents Cooper, of Texas; Austin, of Florida; Buchanan, of Virginia; Cornell, of Colorado; Edwards, of Illinois; Kiehle, of Minnesota; Higbee, of Pennsylvania; Tappan, of Ohio; Stockwell, of Rhode Island; Dickinson, of Massachusetts; Patterson, of New Hampshire; Dart, of Vermont, and many other educators in charge of State systems, of colleges, normal schools, city schools, high schools, and grammar-schools, have actively entered upon the plan of making the inculcation of patriotism a special function of their work. It will soon be, if it is not already, a specialty, of universal and cardinal importance.

In 1887, the National Congress, almost without dissent, at the earnest importunity of an organized body of Christian women, known as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, enacted a law having special reference to the teaching of temperance physiology in schools under government control. A systematic "reading-method," known as the Chautauqua, whereby families, and youth beyond school age, could have uniform lines of study promotive of intelligence in life-work, has added its force to the