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Reproduced by permission of Hampton InsHtute 
 ROBERT CURTIS OGDEN 
 
Reprodiued by permission of The Review of Reviews Company 
 
 ROBERT CURTIS OGDEN 
 
IN MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 ROBERT CURTIS OGDEN 
 
 TRUE FRIEND 
 
 PATRIOTIC CITIZEN 
 
 UNOFFICIAL STATESMAN 
 
 CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN 
 
 SrUiA^ m^^ 
 
 u 
 
 Privately Published 
 1016 
 
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 Copyright, 1916, by 
 HENRY E. FRIES 
 
 MAY 12 1916 
 
 ©CI.A428a70 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Everlasting and ever-widening will be the influences 
 set in motion in the South, during the crucial period of 
 its educational reconstruction, by the Southern Educa- 
 tion Board, the Conference for Education in the South 
 and their cooperative agencies. The inspiring, inform- 
 ing, and directing spirit of all these was Robert C. 
 Ogden. For his generous aid in money, in time, in 
 thought, in heart, so unsparingly and so modestly given, 
 for his helpful sympathy, his stimulative advice and 
 encouragement, and all his unselfish service during a 
 long period of years to the cause of education in the 
 South for both races, the people of the South, and es- 
 pecially the people of North Carolina, owe him a debt of 
 love and gratitude. 
 
 This booklet has been prepared by grateful friends as 
 a memorial to him, as a medium of information to our 
 people about his life and character and his work for 
 them, and as a means of affording those who desire it 
 an opportunity to express their appreciation of his 
 services by the purchase of this booklet, the proceeds 
 from the sale of which will be applied to aiding a part of 
 
 [3] 
 
the educational work of the South in which he was 
 deeply interested. 
 
 Through the work which he inspired and directed, 
 through the funds which he contributed and raised for 
 financing the Educational Campaigns for local taxation, 
 and for all other sorts of school improvement in North 
 Carolina and other states, Robert C. Ogden was a 
 benefactor of every child, every teacher, every citizen 
 of this state. 
 
 I heartily commend to all this booklet and the pur- 
 pose for which it has been prepared and to which the 
 proceeds of its sale will be devoted. I sincerely trust 
 that there will be a hearty response from all our people, 
 and I earnestly bespeak the assistance of all superin- 
 tendents of schools, teachers, and children in the sale 
 of so good a book for so good a purpose. It is the 
 inspiring story of the life and work of a wise, patriotic 
 philanthropist in education. 
 
 J. Y. JOYNER, 
 
 State Superintendent of Public Instruction. 
 Raleigh, N. C, February 8, 1916. 
 
 [4] 
 
IN COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 ROBERT C. OGDEN 
 
 The Southern Education Board approaches 
 with hesitation and with reverence the duty 
 of placing on its records a tribute to the 
 memory of Robert C. Ogden. No words can 
 fittingly express the sentiments of respect and 
 regard felt toward him by the members of this 
 body, or their estimate of his value as a man 
 and as a citizen. To an extent unusual in any 
 organization he incarnated the whole Board. 
 He was its organizer and its only President 
 during the years of his life. It was his high 
 conception of duty and privilege that held 
 the Board to its task and rendered the results 
 of its labors so remarkably successful. He 
 mapped the course, he led the way, he in- 
 spirited each follower, and by his life and death 
 he consecrated the work. 
 
 A review of the years passed shows that the 
 activities of this Board have been directed 
 to various ends — to educational campaigns 
 that have aroused one state after another, to 
 
 [5] 
 
needed changes in educational legislation, 
 to general improvement in rural schools, and 
 to the elevation of rural life. Rarely has any 
 work so far-reaching been originated and car- 
 ried through with so small an outlay of ma- 
 terial resources. The wisdom of those who 
 have directed these activities has been justified 
 by wonderful results. Mr. Ogden was re- 
 sponsible for the selection of these workers. 
 His insight recognized the tasks and chose the 
 agents best suited for their accomplishment. 
 By the power of his personal influence he held 
 the Southern Board together, and directed 
 the energies of busy men to the unselfish 
 duties which he assumed. That same won- 
 derful personality impressed itself upon the 
 nation at large. Through the Conference for 
 Education in the South he touched the great 
 hearts of the North and the South, and put 
 upon the nation's conscience a universal need. 
 All this was done so quietly, so simply, that we 
 wonder still at the results. Not by persua- 
 sion, not by fanatical insistence, but by the 
 contagion of his own personal devotion, he 
 rallied men from every section, from every 
 walk or station in life, rich and poor, high and 
 lowly, white and black, to the cause which he 
 advocated. 
 
 The South owes him a peculiar debt. He 
 [6] 
 
understood the temper and temperament of 
 its people. He admired its strength, and 
 was kind in his judgment of weaknesses. He 
 understood its problems and sought a rational 
 solution of them. Not by patronizing aloof- 
 ness and cold counsel, but by personal aid and 
 warm sympathy, he made his contributions to 
 the uplift of a whole nation. 
 
 Through his efforts our national life has 
 been strengthened, brothers once estranged 
 have become united, service feebly performed 
 has been rendered efficient, and racial cooper- 
 ation has taken the place of racial conflicts. 
 
 Robert C. Ogden was a man of high ideals 
 and far-reaching vision. To great purposes he 
 consecrated his life with a devotion unsur- 
 passed. By the compelling power of personal 
 friendship he lifted others to the high plane 
 on which he lived, and joined other hands to 
 his in noblest service. 
 
 Therefore, we, the members of the Southern 
 Education Board, dedicate to him these pages 
 in our records. The written words but feebly 
 attest our love and our loss. The record of his 
 life is the best part of our institutional history. 
 His memory is an inspiration, the conscious- 
 ness of his continued love and friendship 
 our comfort still, his work the foundation on 
 which we must forever build. Who seeks his 
 
 [7] 
 
monument will find it both in national achieve- 
 ment and in the consecration of many hearts. 
 To the God of the nations we render 
 thanks for the life and for the memory of 
 Robert C. Ogden. 
 
 Edwin A. Alderman 
 A, P. Bourland 
 Sidney J. Bowie 
 Wallace Buttrick 
 Frank R. Chambers 
 Philander P. Claxton 
 Charles W. Dabney 
 George S. Dickerman 
 J. H. Dillard 
 Henry E. Fries 
 Hollis B. Frissell 
 John M. Glenn 
 David F. Houston 
 J. H. Kirkland 
 S. C. Mitchell 
 Walter H. Page 
 George Foster Peabody 
 Wickliffe Rose 
 Albert Shaw 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 ROBERT CURTIS OGDEN 
 
 Born in Philadelphia, Penna., June 20, 1836. M. A., Yale, 1902; 
 LL. D., Tulane, 1903; L. H. D., Union College, New York, 1909. 
 Married Ellen Elizabeth Lewis, of Brooklyn, March 1, 1860 (died 
 December 3, 1909). Member of the firm of John Wanamaker, 1885- 
 1907. Retired April 1, 1907. President of the Board of Trustees 
 of Hampton Institute, Hampton, Virginia. President of the Direc- 
 tors of Union Theological Seminary, New York. Elected President 
 of the Conference for Education in the South, June, 1900; elected 
 President of the Southern Education Board, April, 1901 ; continued in 
 both offices until his death, at Kennebunkport, Maine, August 6, 1913. 
 
 Dr. H. B. Frissell thus writes: 
 
 On a spring day in 1860, when Robert Ogden was 
 twenty-four, an impulsive, keen-thinking youth of 
 twenty-one, Samuel Chapman Armstrong, the son of 
 American missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands, called 
 on him with a letter of introduction. These two high- 
 spirited young men, a few years out of boyhood, joined 
 hands then in a friendship that lasted thirty-three 
 years, until the death of the younger, in 1893. 
 
 Young Armstrong left Williams College to fight for 
 the Union, was given command of a negro regiment, at 
 the close of the war became agent of the Freedman*s 
 Bureau in Virginia, and in 1868 taught fifteen negro 
 
 [9] 
 
students to make bricks and read books on an old plan- 
 tation two miles from Old Point Comfort, Va. 
 
 Thus began the Hampton Institute, and thus, in 
 1874, Mr. Ogden received and accepted an invitation 
 to become a Trustee of a far-reaching experiment in 
 education. For forty years he was Trustee of Hamp- 
 ton, and for twenty years he was President of the Trus- 
 tees. The school grew from the old plantation house 
 with fifteen students and two teachers to an industrial 
 village of 140 buildings along the shores of Hampton 
 Roads, where 900 men and women of two races are 
 trained as teachers, tradesmen, and farmers to serve 
 and lead their people. 
 
 It was through Mr. Ogden's interest in Hampton and 
 the education of the negro that this man of business and 
 ideals came to understand the heavy burdens and pecul- 
 iar educational problems of the South. Fifteen years 
 ago Mr. Ogden threw himself into the great campaign 
 of the Southern leaders to bring new life and light into 
 the South; the work of building up old Commonwealths. 
 
 In the early nineties Southern leaders of education 
 were laboring earnestly in separate states to bring- the 
 light to all the people. But not until the spring of 
 1898 was there an alliance of these rebuilders of old 
 Commonwealths . 
 
 It became clear in 1898, at this first Capon Springs 
 conference, that to accomplish the greatest good in the 
 Southern educational field the North and South must 
 enter into closer relations. Northern delegates felt that 
 
 [10] 
 
the South had been bearing heroically a heavy bur- 
 den in the establishment of a double set of common 
 schools for the two races within its borders, and that 
 since the Federal Government had given the South 
 practically no assistance, the North should help in a 
 fraternal spirit, not to meddle or interfere, but to ''stand 
 by" as fellow-citizens of a common country. 
 
 This feeling, first voiced by IVIr. Ogden and others in 
 the leisurely atmosphere and amid the quiet beauty of 
 Capon Springs, continued to be the undercurrent of the 
 Conference for Education in the South through the 
 sixteen years of its existence, whether meeting in other 
 quiet country places or amid the bustle and rush of 
 large cities like Richmond and Memphis. 
 
 The battle cry of the conference became "a common 
 school education for the children of all the people," and 
 tlie meetings were given to practical planning for the 
 accomplishment of this colossal task. 
 
 The genius of Mr. Ogden, early elected President of 
 the Conference, fused and directed the ardent enthusi- 
 asm of the men of two sections for the betterment of 
 the South until his death. Into his task the leader of 
 the conference threw himseK heart and mind. At his 
 own expense and a cost wholly disproportionate to his 
 means, Robert C. Ogden took trainload after trainload 
 of Northern men and women, year after year, to the 
 South, until most of the Southern States had heard a 
 message full of help and hope. 
 
 To Winston-Salem, N. C, to Athens, Ga., Richmond, 
 [11] 
 
Va., Birmingham, Ala., Columbia, S. C, Lexington, 
 Ky., Pinehurst, N. C, Memphis, Tenn., Atlanta, Ga., 
 Little Rock, Ark., Jacksonville, Fla., and Nashville, 
 Tenn., came the men who, with ever-increasing effect, 
 generaled the long battle front of educational advance 
 throughout the South. 
 
 [12] 
 
ROBERT CURTIS OGDEN* 
 
 AN APPRECIATION 
 By Edwin A. Alderman 
 
 President of the University of Virginia 
 [From the Southern Workman, January, 1916] 
 
 In the summer of 1901 I received a telegram from 
 Robert C. Ogden asking me to come to him for a con- 
 ference at his summer home at Kennebunkport, Maine. 
 I accepted the invitation and found awaiting me there 
 not only Mr. Ogden but my old friend and colleague, 
 Charles D. Mclver of North Carolina. This meeting 
 was my first acquaintance with Mr. Ogden, and my first 
 reunion for a long period with my old co-worker, Mclver. 
 Mr. Ogden was then well past the meridian of life, but 
 abounding in physical vigor and as eager an idealist as 
 ever dreamed of a better world. The impression he 
 made upon me then is the same I have of him tonight, 
 save that it is deepened and heightened by experience 
 of him and affection for him. Here was a man vital 
 in body, pure of spirit, keen of mind, happy of heart, 
 and utterly given over to thought of unselfish helpful- 
 
 *Address at the Ogden Memorial Meeting, Richmond, Virginia, 
 Friday evening, November 26th, under the auspices of the CoiJperative 
 Education Association of Virginia. 
 
 fl3l 
 
ness to individuals and masses. He bundled us both 
 into a canoe and carried us, with a swift, sure stroke, up 
 the deep, quiet river. Under the pines, upon a hillside 
 by the river, we spent the day discussing the organiza- 
 tion, the purpose, and the personnel of the Southern 
 Education Board — an expansion of the old Capon 
 Springs Conference made remarkable by the participa- 
 tion of men like Bishop Dudley, J. L. M. Curry, William 
 L, Wilson, Barnes Sears, Mr. Ogden himseK, and many 
 other great names. 
 
 In the autumn of that year the Board was formally 
 organized, and its great spiritualizing adjunct, the Con- 
 ference for Education in the South, became more 
 active. Mr. Ogden became the President of the Board 
 and the supervising director of the Conference; andunder 
 the guidance of his insight and enthusiasm the Board 
 entered upon a remarkable career of national usefulness. 
 
 The Southern Education Board was a natural off- 
 spring of the activities of the Peabody Foundation. 
 The great need of the time in Southern life was the for- 
 mation of a powerful public opinion for popular educa- 
 tion. Public opinion, under any form of government, 
 in such great social movements, must be continually 
 strengthened and enlightened. This Board took up 
 that task, and may be said to have accomplished in its 
 short life a great total with the smallest expenditure of 
 money of any agency of our day. So untechnical and 
 inspirational were the influences, that it is difficult to 
 describe them in any brief space. It had no funds to 
 
 [14] 
 
distribute to educational institutions. It sought to 
 ally itself with state and local agencies. Its purpose 
 was steadily, not to obtrude, but to efface itself in the 
 interest of the people. Its first principle was a pro- 
 found belief that ignorant masses, white or black, can- 
 not be safely left in the body of a democracy. Its 
 working theory was a perfect confidence in the self- 
 reliance and creative powers of the people of the South. 
 Its supreme desire was to help a great overburdened 
 people, struggling with a terribly difficult group of prob- 
 lems, but proud, and rightly determined to mould their 
 institutions after their own way and with their own 
 means. Its high method was faith in the solvent 
 power of sympathy and friendship and accurate and 
 common understanding between good men and women 
 of all sections of a united country. 
 
 Perhaps the chief practical function of the Board was 
 the winning of rural communities to a larger policy of 
 local taxation for school purposes. In the states where 
 the unit of taxation had been the county, assistance 
 was given to the "county campaign," the representa- 
 tives of the Board helping in the organization of public 
 meetings, defraying the actual expenses of effective 
 speakers, creating and circulating the literature of the 
 subject, and cooperating with the local educational 
 leaders in an effort to secure an affirmative popular 
 vote on the question of a larger local tax for the benefit 
 of the schools. 
 
 Where the unit of taxation was the school district, 
 fl5l 
 
the same methods were employed; the Board worked 
 here, as always, solely through the authorized, accepted 
 agencies of the locality concerned. These local cam- 
 paigns powerfully affected the general school legislation 
 of the state. State funds — heretofore the chief resource 
 of the Southern school system — rapidly increased, in a 
 number of states, from fifty to three hundred per cent. 
 Local organizations of women for the improvement of 
 rural schoolhouses were established; or, in cases where 
 such activities already existed, they were strengthened 
 and equipped for still larger work. The movements 
 for the formation of school libraries, for the develop- 
 ment of high schools, for agricultural education, and 
 for manual training all received recognition and re- 
 inforcement; Southern governors became educational 
 experts and pioneers. Southern legislators debated 
 popular education and appropriated two-fifths of their 
 total income for public education. The South became 
 the inspiring, dynamic, educational section of the 
 country. In short, it may be claimed that during the 
 decade of the active existence of the Board a stupendous 
 educational awakening went forward in state and nation. 
 The Board never assumed, nor did its unselfish presi- 
 dent ever imagine, that this great social impulse owed 
 its origin to the activities of this Board, for the move- 
 ment had become irresistible before its formation : Men 
 like Robert E. Lee, William H. Ruffner, J. L. M. Curry, 
 Atticus G. Haywood, and Calvin H. Wiley had given 
 it birth; but in stimulating public opinion, in arousing 
 
 [161 
 
popular enthusiasm, and in achieving unity of purpose 
 anjntvhere, the Board found a part to play and played it 
 well with power and decisiveness. In every state, from 
 the Gulf to the Potomac, the educational leaders of that 
 time will declare that their plans were helped forward 
 by the Board and the Conference; and throughout the 
 whole nation its methods and impulses were copied and 
 modified for the advancement of popular education in 
 the Republic. 
 
 The essential idealism of American life is nowhere 
 given nobler proof than in the fact that the leader of 
 this piece of democratic efficiency and volunteer states- 
 manship was an American business man, not trained in 
 the academies, but clear of purpose, strong of vision, 
 and gifted with a genius for friendship and a capacity 
 to see clearly the path ahead. Mr. Ogden had great 
 capacity for affairs, but he will endure as a figure of 
 humanitarian enthusiasm, a friend of good causes, a 
 struggler for the common good; and by the right of 
 these forces he has written his name along with such 
 names as George Peabody on the roll of the great con- 
 structive forces in the educational development of the 
 country. He achieved this result, not by giving vast 
 sums of money as Mr. Peabody did, though he gave very 
 freely of what he had; nor by building great institutions, 
 like Armstrong or Mclver, nor by administering great 
 trust funds, like Sears and Curry. He achieved it by 
 giving himself wholly to a great idea and a great pur- 
 pose. The great idea was a belief in the self-reliance, 
 
 [17] 
 
the justice, the essential wisdom of the people of the 
 South, in the handling of the most difficult and delicate 
 educational problems presented for solution to any 
 people in any time. 
 
 The great purpose was the purpose to understand his 
 brethren of the South, to cooperate with them in their 
 work, and to help bear such part of their burdens as 
 they would permit, because they were national burdens 
 and belonged, of right, on the shoulders of the whole 
 nation. His fame, therefore, is the fame of an apostle 
 of cooperation and service; his genius, the genius of 
 interpretation to each other of men and sections; his 
 charm, the demeanor of an earnest gentleman to whom 
 life and living are serious, beautiful, and reverential 
 things; his manner, that of an age now gone which 
 greatly exalted manners and bred a quality of behavior 
 that seems archaic in our busier age, but which was very 
 beautiful and distinguished, and by its passing has 
 robbed life of something that sweetened and glorified it. 
 
 It is fitting that the educational forces of the country 
 should raise a memorial to Robert Ogden. It is very 
 fitting that this memorial should be placed at Hampton 
 Institute. The creative spirit of Samuel Chapman 
 Armstrong first touched him to higher issues and trans- 
 formed the virile young merchant into a student of 
 society and a lover of his kind. The problems arising 
 from the presence of the African in American life first 
 awakened in him the statesman's vision. He saw in 
 Hampton Institute the greatest and the sanest experi- 
 
 [18] 
 
ment station for the training of a backward race yet 
 devised by the wit of men. He beheved its deepest 
 object was not only to help backward people to a better 
 economic life, to breed in them racial self-respect, to 
 endow them with skill of hand and a conception of clean 
 home life and good citizenship, but, in a large way, to 
 protect our national life from deterioration and ineffi- 
 ciency. He very firmly believed that there was but one 
 thing to do with any human being of any race in the 
 world, and that thing was to give him a chance, by 
 training him wisely for his day and need. Like Curry 
 he held to the faith that ignorance is no remedy for 
 anything. His loyalty to Hampton was not whimsical, 
 emotional, or sectional loyalty to the training of one 
 race alone, but loyalty to the Republic and Democracy 
 and to one method of freeing the Republic from a peri- 
 lous incubus of ignorance and weakness. 
 
 The chiefest weapon of Robert Curtis Ogden in all 
 his record of achievement was absolute self-forgetf ulness. 
 I have never known a man intimately who won such 
 fine pleasure and happiness through complete self- 
 surrender . He was modest, but conscious of leadership ; 
 patient, but vigilant; hopeful, but very busy and 
 dauntless. He confronted all difficulties with a cheerful 
 face and a stout heart, and out of his whole life issued a 
 serene and contagious faith in the ultimate good inten- 
 tions of his fellow-men that sets him apart as a genuine 
 helper to his kind, a friend of men — a great democrat, 
 whose constituency was the world. 
 
 119] 
 
A LIFE W'ELL LIVED* 
 
 We turn back today with affection and honor to this 
 life and ask it to teach us how to live and how to die. 
 We hear in these days much of the spirit of commercial- 
 ism and materialism in our modern world, as though 
 business life were a form of warfare and piracy, where 
 the unscrupulous win and the honorable lose. But 
 here was a man of large and exacting cares, buying and 
 selling, organizing and building, with energy and fore- 
 sight, yet maintaining among these tumultuous obliga- 
 tions an interior quietude of spirit which illumined his 
 very countenance, so that — as was said of Moses — "he 
 wist not that his face shone." Laurence Oliphant once 
 said that the greatest need of England was the need of 
 a spiritually minded man of the world — a man who 
 could live in the world, sharing its responsibilities, 
 accepting its methods, yet detached from it and superior 
 to it, as one who makes it an instrument of spiritual 
 ends. Well, here was just such a man, needed in Amer- 
 ica as much as in England — a spiritually minded man 
 of the world, knowing his world and mastering it, yet 
 
 *Selection from Address of Dr. Francis Greenwood Peabody, Ogden 
 Memorial Service, Central Presbyterian Church, New York, October 
 28, 1913. 
 
 [20] 
 
more intimately knowing himself and mastering him- 
 self, with the power of a spiritual mind; gaining the 
 world without losing his owti soul. 
 
 First: Keep business itself clean. Purify the sources. 
 Prepare to meet thy God, not on some distant Judg- 
 ment Day, but each week, downtown. No prodigality 
 in the giving of money can atone for criminality in the 
 making of money. The elementary test of the Chris- 
 tian character under the conditions of the modern world 
 is not in one's giving but in one's getting, not in one's 
 church but in one's office. 
 
 The second teaching is this: Attach yourself to a 
 great cause, lift your eyes from your desk, enlarge your 
 horizon, live in a large world, know how the other half 
 lives. This is not only the way of philanthropy, it is 
 the way of seK-discovery. It is not only the helping of 
 others, but the saving of one's own soul. The seK- 
 centered life inevitably shrivels; the seK-forgetting life 
 naturally expands, until modest capacities and limited 
 gifts may bloom into leadership, power, and even 
 genius under the sunshine of a compelling and expand- 
 ing cause. That was what happened to this man. The 
 consecration of his powers enriched and enlarged them. 
 The great cause created in him wisdom and statesman- 
 ship, and even touched his lips with eloquence. He was 
 among us as one that served and that proved his right 
 to lead us all. 
 
 There remains, finally, the condition of efficiency 
 which was most marked in our friend. It was the 
 
 [21] 
 
power of a simple, uncomplicated, and consistent 
 religious faith. Speaking of Armstrong in the first 
 Founder's Day address at Hampton, Mr. Ogden said, 
 "Only upon the high spiritual theory can we explain 
 the power of the life which we are now considering." 
 The same high spiritual theory is the key which unlocks 
 his own character. It was said of Count Zinzendorf, 
 the protector of the Moravians, that he could ride the 
 wildest horse in his father's stable, and when asked how 
 he could be at once a Pietist and an athlete, answered, 
 "Only he to whom earthly things are indifferent can 
 be their master." The control of the physical was a 
 witness to the spiritual. Courage came from above. 
 The spiritual mind dominated the animal world. There 
 was the same source of tranquillity, assurance, and pa- 
 tience in the life of our friend. He had surrendered 
 himself, and so he had found himself. He came not to 
 do his own will, but the will of Him who sent him, and 
 so his own will grew firm and sure. He was indifferent 
 to power and fame, and so he won the greater distinc- 
 tion of being loved and mourned. Crushing sorrows 
 met him, but his own burden grew lighter because he 
 took on himself the burdens of other lives. It was 
 written of old, "He hath made all things beautiful in 
 their time; also he has set Eternity in their hearts." 
 That is the story of this modern life. Each event was 
 beautiful to him in its time because he had set Eternity 
 in his heart. He had heard the great word, "I am come 
 not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give my 
 
 [22] 
 
life a ransom for many"; but it was, to him, not a sum- 
 mons to sacrifice and resignation so much as a call to 
 privilege and joy. 
 
 I shall never forget going one day into the great busi- 
 ness establishment which he had created, and mounting 
 from floor to floor through the busy crowds until I came 
 at last to a little upper room. There, above the noises 
 of trade, a dozen of the busiest of business men sat in 
 quiet deliberation concerning great projects of national 
 welfare, and interchanged their dreams of the better 
 America which they saw, not by sight, but by faith. 
 It was a symbol of religion in the twentieth century, of 
 a faith known by its works, of a service which was per- 
 fect freedom, of the spiritualization which is still possi- 
 ble for men of the world. One thought of an upper 
 room above the bustle of Jerusalem, where the Master 
 said, "I have given you an example that ye should do 
 even as I have done to you." Nor was the Master 
 himself absent; for it was in His name that these men 
 met, and it was to them also that He said, " Where two 
 or three are gathered together in My name, there am I 
 in the midst of them." 
 
 [23 
 
SELECTION FROM ADDRESS 
 
 By Samuel Chiles Mitchell, Ph.D.* 
 
 President of the Medical College of Virginia 
 
 The projectile power of personality was happily set 
 forth in the results of the labors for the South of Robert 
 C. Ogden. It is instructive to study his plans for the 
 improvement of public schools, for the betterment of 
 farming, for the enrichment of rural life, for racial ad- 
 justment and social progress. 
 
 Mr. Ogden's personality was contagious. He became 
 a centre in organizing constructive friendships. When 
 he began his labors in the South for universal education 
 there were isolated workers in the several states unac- 
 quainted with one another, without any large view of 
 the general task, and without an interchange of com- 
 mon experience. His presence instantly caused all of 
 these workers to leap together, just as atoms form a new 
 combination in the laboratory induced by the presence 
 of a single new element. He had a rare faculty for the 
 discovery of men and of their aptitude for social leader- 
 ship. 
 
 *An addi'ess at the Ogden Memorial Service at the Central Presby- 
 terian Church, New York, October 26, 1913. 
 
 [24] 
 
The great thing, however, about Mr. Ogden was not 
 merely his sagacity as to the way in which to do the 
 things that were really worth while in the national 
 life, unerring as his sagacity was in the choice of men and 
 measures. It was not even his passionate love for 
 people, and especially people disadvantaged and in 
 need. But the great thing in him was his faith in the 
 capacity of men to grow, his faith in the essential good- 
 ness of the human heart, his faith in the subtle potency 
 of reason, when trained and rightly directed — in a word, 
 his faith in man under the influence of truth and love. 
 It was this structural faith that sustained him in his 
 great labors, that enabled him to overcome all barriers 
 and that swept him forward with a purpose that moved 
 majestically, like a force in nature. 
 
 I can never forget the first time that I saw him, when 
 he stood upon the platform at Hampton Institute, giv- 
 ing a fatherly message to the graduating class of Indian 
 and colored youth that stood before him. He seemed 
 to breathe into the characters of those people his own 
 large spirit of faith, encouragement, aspiration, and 
 spirit of social service. 
 
 His philanthropy took naturally the form of a struc- 
 tural purpose; namely, to achieve for the South through 
 the training of children and through the process of social 
 growth, results which all other means, including war 
 and politics, had been unable to produce. 
 
 I believe that it was given to a business man to hit 
 upon a sounder principle for economic progress, racial 
 
 [25] 
 
adjustment, and national integration than was vouch- 
 safed to any pohtician or general in the annals of 
 America. The conquests of education alone are en- 
 during. '*One former is worth a dozen reformers." 
 What a lurid glare is shed upon the follies and wastes 
 of War and Reconstruction in view of the beneficent 
 changes wrought by these silent forces of light and love. 
 Never was more finely revealed the regenerative im- 
 pulse in the heart of man than the signal results of this 
 educational movement through the power of public 
 opinion. In the case of millions of children, Mr. Ogden 
 "thinks in their brain, throbs in their heart, speaks in 
 their conscience, and makes their will leap like a resolute 
 muscle to its task in fulfilling the will of God.*' 
 
 He was by instinct a leader, a big brother of mankind, 
 yet he delighted to follow. In many instances he took 
 up other men's tasks and pushed them to a completion 
 hardly dreamed of by the men who first conceived the 
 enterprises. Like a master builder, he made a wise 
 use of all materials at hand. ^Ir. Ogden's sympathies 
 grasped the situation in the South, emerging slowly 
 from the waste of war and sorrow of defeat. He dis- 
 cerned at a glance what an aroused public opinion 
 could do for progress through the common schools. 
 His strategy consisted, not in money, not in the creation 
 of new agencies, not in the attempt to impose ideas and 
 institutions upon a people, but in his belief in the ability 
 of the people of the South to do for themselves the things 
 necessary for their own well-being. He coveted the 
 
 [261 
 

 i MifL® ik^' 
 
 — ^j 
 
 rnl 
 
 lO 
 
 Tlie first Memorial erected to Mr. Robert C. Ogden in tl,.- >,,ut 
 Salem Academy and College, Winston-Salem, N. C. 
 
 nlv 
 
 IN THIS CHAPEL WAS HELD 
 
 THE FOURTH CONFERENCE FOR 
 EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH. 
 
 APRIL 18-19-20, 1901 
 
 ALL FORMER CONFERENCES W ERE HE LD AT CAPON SPRINGS, W. VA. 
 
 PRESIDENT 
 
 ROBT. C. OGDEN, NEW YORK. 
 
 VICE-PRESIDENTS 
 
 WALTER H. PAGE, NEW YORK, RT. REV. EDWARD RONDTHALER, NORTH CAROLINA, 
 
 EUGENE C. BRANSON, GEORGIA 
 
 SECRETARY AND TREASURER 
 
 REV. A. B, HUNTER, RALEIGH, N. C. 
 
 AUDITOR 
 
 WM. J. SCHIEFFELIN, NEW YORK. 
 
 COMMITTEE ON PL.\TFORM AND RESOLUTIONS 
 
 CHAS. D. MCIVER. ALBERT SHAW. CHARLES W. DABNEY 
 
 JOHN GRAHAM BROOKS. RT. REV. EDWARD RONDTHALER 
 
 G. R. GLENN. HENRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER. W. H. BALDWIN JR 
 
 WALTER H. PAGE. J. L. M. CURRY. 
 
privilege of sympathizing with the South in accomplish- 
 ing these great social ends and in sharing and strength- 
 ening the impulses of the men who were bent on their 
 accomplishment. 
 
 He had no ambition to be the founder of an institu- 
 tion. His name is identified with a movement, and not 
 with an institution. He preferred to vitalize the nas- 
 cent common school system. He integrated all his 
 efforts with what the towns, counties, and states had 
 already undertaken. The wisdom of this plan has 
 been abundantly justified. He multiplied himself a 
 million times by inciting the whole citizenship to get 
 underneath the task and to energize the schools as a 
 means of social progress. The principle upon which 
 he thus acted is of wide and present application. Only 
 the state, through the power of public taxation, is equal 
 to the task of training all the children for the duties of 
 citizenship in democracy. The main thing is to stimu- 
 late the people of a community to do well by their own 
 schools. The principle of local taxation, the necessity 
 of community control, and the power of public opinion 
 were the three prime factors in his plan of educational 
 campaign for the South. The fruitfulness of his labors 
 sprang naturally out of the force inherent in these three 
 principles. He built, therefore, not for a day, but for 
 the ages. Instead of being able to point to a single 
 school that bore his name, he could point to state sys- 
 tems of schools into which he had breathed the energy 
 of his own great personality. 
 
 [27] 
 
Mr. Ogden's career was as a golden clasp binding 
 together the North and South in sympathy and coop- 
 eration for the integrity of national life. He enlisted 
 throughout the North men and women of initiative as 
 co-workers in the tasks of the South. With him this 
 noble band of friends would make an annual pilgrimage 
 to the Conference for Education, study the facts in the 
 Southern situation for themselves, and strike friend- 
 ships there of enduring and fruitful character. It is 
 not too much to say that Mr. Ogden in this way changed 
 radically the viewpoint of the North with reference to 
 the South, rendering editors, publicists, and educators 
 in the North sympathetic with the struggle of the South 
 and eager to aid on all occasions the forces there making 
 for practical righteousness. These kindly interlacing 
 influences of the North and South have perhaps done 
 more toward reuniting the sections in a common pur- 
 pose and like-mindedness than any other single agency 
 in the history of our country since the Civil War. 
 
 Thus, in these two ways, Mr. Ogden's efforts in be- 
 half of public education have a distinctly national 
 bearing: First, by stirring to the very depths the mind 
 of the South through the discussion of the vital facts 
 involved in democratic education; and, secondly, by 
 knitting the sympathies of the leaders in the North 
 and in the South, revealing their oneness in the fellow- 
 ship of social service and in a common purpose embrac- 
 ing the good of the whole country. Never more happily 
 was illustrated the meaning of that Scripture, "A little 
 
child shall lead them,** for it was the efforts to open for 
 the child the door to a larger life that brought about 
 these signal results in social progress and national uni- 
 fication. 
 
 Mr. Ogden gave a new interpretation to the meaning 
 of American citizenship. He had a scent for human 
 need. He socialized his life and energies. Friendship 
 was the essence of his working programme. His hospi- 
 tality was kingly, and the list of his friends would make 
 up the honor roll of America. There can be no pes- 
 simism in the presence of such an example. All prob- 
 lems dissolve as retreating clouds before the outreach 
 of such a personality. So long as exalted citizenship in 
 the private walks of life reveal the sanity and sacrifice 
 that characterized Robert C. Ogden, there can be no 
 doubt as to America's fulfilling the moral expectancy of 
 mankind. "The character of the citizen is the strength 
 of the State." 
 
 [29 
 
ROBERT C. OGDEN 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST* 
 
 He brought to the task a business genius, a calm and 
 quiet persistence of purpose, a clear judgment, a Chris- 
 tian character of serene purity, and an utter lack of self- 
 exploitation. 
 
 We are not able now fully and justly to estimate the 
 value of his work for the education of the negro and for 
 education generally in the South, because he was taken 
 from us in the doing. We do not know much of what 
 he has done, but we do know its great value. His 
 plans, however, like those of wise men generally, were 
 so broad, his look into the future was so extended, his 
 ideas were so sane and practical, that not for many 
 years yet can we weigh all the good that he planned and 
 did, in its ultimate effect upon a section of this country 
 whose social history has been full of difficult problems, 
 and for a race of which this people must be trustees 
 and guardians for many decades to come. 
 
 It was my good fortune to be associated with Mr. 
 
 *Selection from an Address of Ex-President William Howard Taft, 
 LL.D., Ogden Memorial Services, First Presbyterian Church, Brook- 
 lyn, November 9, 1913. 
 
 [30] 
 
Ogden in several of the many projects for the better- 
 ment of the negro and of education, which claimed and 
 had his interest and his effective support. When I 
 speak of the elevating effect that association with him 
 had, I speak from personal knowledge. And the same 
 thing is true when I speak of his clear-sightedness, his 
 very great experience and knowledge, and his most 
 valuable judgment on what was practical and what was 
 not, in the objects to be pursued to bring about a bet- 
 terment of educational and social conditions in the 
 South. 
 
 I cannot close without an expression of the personal 
 love that the beautiful character and charming person- 
 ality of Mr. Ogden awakened in every one who was 
 privileged to come in contact with him. His sense of 
 duty as a citizen was not in the slightest degree dimmed 
 or made less strong because he had also a wider sym- 
 pathy for mankind; but there was united in him with 
 energy and a knowledge of how to do things a sweet 
 reasonableness, an elevated enthusiasm, and a sane 
 courage and hope that one can never forget. He repre- 
 sented in the highest sense the real Christian gentle- 
 man, and it is no reflection on those whom he has left 
 to say that it will be many years before the world will 
 look upon his like again. 
 
 31 
 
TRIBUTES 
 
 BY 
 
 Dr. P. P. Claxton 
 Miss J. E. Davis 
 David H. Greer 
 Edgar Gardner Murphy 
 John W. Fries 
 Edwin A. Alderman 
 Walter H. Page 
 S. G. Atkins 
 H. E. Fries 
 
 [38 
 
TRIBUTES 
 
 Concerning the Winston-Salem Conference, Dr. P. 
 P. Claxton, United States Commissioner of Education, 
 writes : 
 
 The Conference for Education in the South, which 
 began its work in a small way at Capon Springs two 
 years before the beginning of this century and held its 
 first public meeting at Winston-Salem, N. C, in the 
 second year of the century, has been beyond question 
 one of the most important single factors in the remark- 
 able awakening and progress which I have here briefly 
 recounted. Some day, when the history of this move- 
 ment has been adequately written, this will be seen more 
 clearly than is now possible. We are still too close to 
 the events to catch the perspective. 
 
 In Mr. Ogden's party were many men and women 
 whose names were known to us and to all the world for 
 their achievements, but whose faces were unfamiliar 
 to most of us. From the South came men who in their 
 states and local communities were known for their in- 
 terest in education and for their leadership in the mew 
 movement for democracy in education. When these 
 men and women from the North and the South met 
 
 [35] 
 
through those three days in the North CaroHna "Twin 
 Cities" to learn to know each other and to discuss the 
 problems of education in the South as seen from their 
 different points of view, the hour of opportunity had 
 struck. From that hour to this the movement in the 
 interest of which these people had come together has 
 gone steadily on, with increasing momentum and in- 
 creasing definiteness of purpose and aims. 
 
 Miss J. E. Davis also writes: 
 
 It was at Winston-Salem that, for the first time in 
 this Conference, addresses were made by public school 
 superintendents, and it was at this meeting also, at the 
 suggestion of Dr. Dabney, of the University of Ten- 
 nessee, who had made a serious study of the educational 
 situation in the South and had presented a startling 
 array of figures, that an Executive Board was formed to 
 conduct a campaign of education in the South. This 
 was the beginning of the Southern Education Board; 
 and its natural outgrowth, the General Education 
 Board, was incorporated during the following winter. 
 
 As one recalls the inspiring meetings at Winston- 
 Salem it is hard to decide what elements most con- 
 tributed to the inspiration. Beyond the setting itself, 
 which lent not a little charm, perhaps it was the eager 
 pressing forward of many men of many minds toward 
 one supremely important goal. "Everything in the 
 South," said Dr. Dabney, "waits upon the general 
 education of the people." Mr. Ogden showed so well, 
 
 [36] 
 
in the following words, the attitude of his associates 
 that they deserve to be widely quoted, being as appli- 
 cable now as then to questions affecting the American 
 nation : 
 
 "With the past, so far as all present interests of hu- 
 manity are concerned, should be buried all questions, 
 once real but not now vital, having to do with the right 
 of secession, with slavery, with the unsavory record of 
 reconstruction, with the suspicion and doubt of post- 
 bellum alienation. Practical business judgment de- 
 cides powerfully and positively against the resurrection 
 of the settled issues of a dead past. They have interest 
 historically in enabling the man of affairs and the stu- 
 dent of social conditions to ascertain present facts, but, 
 to the mind of the American patriot, have no further 
 popular function and require no discussion.'* 
 
 The battle-cry of the Conference became, "A common 
 school education for the children of all the people," and 
 the meetings resolved themselves into a committee of 
 the whole to discuss ways and means by which this 
 colossal undertaking might be carried to completion. 
 The task is still unfinished; but the impetus given to it 
 by this Conference and by the numerous agencies which 
 it has assisted or set in motion has already produced 
 changes without parallel in our educational history, 
 and will in the end accomplish the desired result. 
 
 Events and activities of all sorts paved the way for 
 the Athens meeting in 1902, in which year enthusiasm 
 for the "Ogden Movement" was at the flood. Never 
 
 [37] 
 
did the "Ogden Special'* carry a more distinguished 
 company; never was the trip through the South longer 
 or more interesting. It has been spoken of as " the prog- 
 ress of a King of Friendship." In cities en route, the 
 party was met with carriages, escorted to the chief 
 places of interest, entertained at teas or luncheons, and 
 showered with flowers. At some stations the school 
 children assembled and sang a welcome to Mr. Ogden 
 — "the children's friend." 
 
 Athens — the one-hundred-year-old university town 
 with its wide avenues, delightful old homes with colon- 
 nades of tall white pillars, surrounded by large gardens 
 — what recollections the name conjures up of wonderful 
 Southern hospitality from people full of kindliness and 
 charm! They gave up their best rooms; they loaded 
 their tables with delicacies; they anticipated every wish 
 of their guests. 
 
 Mr. Ogden was a notable presiding oflBcer, alert and 
 quick, but having great dignity and poise. His face 
 beamed with light, illumining his extremely forceful 
 personality. Those who accompanied him on his 
 Southern trips remember with an inward chuckle the 
 reflections, asides, and comments which his sense of 
 humor prompted him to make, and they remember, too, 
 how his great tender heart was touched by the pathos 
 of any human-interest story. 
 
 38 
 
TRIBUTES OF SOUTHERNERS TO ROBERT 
 CURTIS OGDEN 
 
 You have had the wisdom to plan, the courage to 
 attempt, and the energy to execute a great and noble 
 enterprise whose benefits are so widespread and far- 
 reaching that they cannot be calculated or measured. — 
 David H. Greer. 
 
 Back and forth you have knit the comradeships that 
 have given to individual effort the confidence and the 
 social power of a common cause. 
 
 Your instrument of service has been, not money noi 
 rare executive capacity — though you have given both 
 — but friendship; a friendship highminded, loyal, and 
 transparently sincere. — Edgar Gardner Murphy. 
 
 The great movement of which Mr. Robert C. Ogden 
 is the acknowledged leader is unique in the annals of 
 philanthropy, in that it is not intended to found an 
 institution as a monument, to promulgate an idea, or 
 to exploit a system. — John W. Fries. 
 
 I hail you as a tireless worker for men, a gentle diplo- 
 mat of peace, a mediator between the best in sections 
 
 [39] 
 
long estranged but no longer, a man of the world and 
 yet to do its work, a stout friend of all good causes. — 
 Edwin A. Alderman. 
 
 Mr. Ogden opened long vistas and disclosed large 
 visions to his faithful followers. He stimulated South- 
 ern thought; built up Southern character; and fired 
 Southern men to the most patriotic endeavor. — Walter 
 H. Page. 
 
 Robert C. Ogden, with his broad vision, genial na- 
 ture, and ready wit, was the President and the soul of 
 the Conference, and won the hearts of us all. I remem- 
 ber how, when, to relieve the strain of a long session, 
 he asked the audience to stand and sing "America'* and 
 some one asked why might not the windows be raised 
 to let in the air, Mr. Ogden replied, "The air is in the 
 song of course," and so it was, and is. — P. P. Claxton. 
 
 On one occasion I called at his office when he was 
 very busy and a great many people were trying to see 
 him. Being admitted to his private office I realized 
 what it meant for so busy a man as he to see me; and, 
 noting that he did not manifest the slightest impatience, 
 although my call was of no possible business significance, 
 I could not refrain from emphasizing my appreciation, 
 and I strongly apologized for interrupting him in the 
 midst of his busy hours, expressing my regret at the 
 same time that it was necessary for me to intrude upon 
 
 [401 
 
him. In his rare, kindly toned voice he urged me to 
 desist, and would not accept my apology, saying that, 
 on the contrary, the debt was his, that he should thank 
 me for calling with my story and with information about 
 the improvement of conditions among my people in 
 the South. He insisted that such a report was of dis- 
 tinct value to him in keeping alive and stimulating his 
 missionary interest in those who needed sympathy and 
 help. His manner and words at this time impressed 
 me profoundly and gave me new hope, and a new and 
 ennobled idea as to the human impulses of the Christian 
 business man. — S. G. Atkins, 
 
 41] 
 
ROBERT CURTIS OGDEN 
 AN UNOFFICIAL STATESMAN 
 
 It was my high privilege and great pleasure to know 
 Mr. Ogden and have more or less personal association 
 with him from 1876 on to the time of his death — a 
 period of nearly forty years. I was attracted by his 
 buoyant personality and was always thrilled by the 
 enthusiasm he aroused among the large company of 
 Sunday-school teachers and scholars under his leader- 
 ship. 
 
 I had known General Armstrong and was interested 
 in the work at Hampton, and I soon discovered Mr. 
 Ogden's heart was deeply enlisted in that great educa- 
 tional experiment. My association with Mr. Ogden 
 as a trustee at Hampton began in 1884. All these 
 years of close association revealed to me more and more 
 the unusually noble qualities of undaunted energy and 
 persistence and faith with a unique humility that never 
 dimmed the enthusiasm of Robert C. Ogden. His 
 presence was always an inspiration to students and 
 teachers and visitors. IVIr. Odgen organized, in the 
 early years of Hampton, annual visits of selected parties, 
 which showed his original quality of mind. These visits 
 
 [421 
 
of representative men and women are midoubtedly one 
 of the factors in the ever-deepening appreciation of the 
 work of Hampton which has made it notable among 
 schools of any character. 
 
 The beautiful personal friendship which existed be- 
 tween General Armstrong and Mr. Og^en was in itself 
 an inspiring lesson of comradeship. The quality of 
 personality, which is the great glory of human nature, 
 was beautifully marked in the life and character of 
 Mr. Ogden. His was a personality that had the splen- 
 did quality of being able to express itself freely and 
 strongly to groups of men and women as well as to 
 individuals. He had also the quality of drawing out 
 by his beautiful consideration and reverent regard for 
 all, young and old, the best that was in those who were 
 his companions for the time. There are many scores 
 of men and women among the finest of our country's 
 folk who will never forget hours dominated by his per- 
 sonal equation, which were made remarkable in addition 
 by the brilliant scintillations drawn forth from others 
 present by his comradeship and notable social qualities. 
 His long life experience, reaching back to Army life 
 in the Civil War and through varied experiences as a 
 merchant in both New York and Philadelphia, his 
 never-failing church activity and Sunday-school work 
 and unnumbered services as trustee of organizations of 
 most varied character, prepared him for the position of 
 unique leadership in educational evolution which made 
 him a most prominent figure in the advance movements 
 
 [431 
 
in education which have signalized the twentieth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 It was my good fortune to be of the company invited 
 to Capon Springs, of which Mr. Ogden was so prominent 
 a member. The discussions at that conference indi- 
 cated to all the great possibilities from a nation-wide 
 cooperation in dealing with the special problems in 
 education which confronted the South. It was Mr. 
 Ogden's strong and confident imagination which ener- 
 gized the company to believe that the time had come 
 for widening and strengthening the thought which had 
 been the fruitful result of the Capon Springs confer- 
 ences. Many thousands throughout the South who 
 were not able to be at Winston-Salem, Athens, Knox- 
 ville, Birmingham, Little Rock, Richmond, Nashville, 
 and other places which gave hospitable welcome to the 
 Conference of Education in the South, have followed the 
 impetus of that great movement and undoubtedly 
 countless thousands in coming years are to derive bene- 
 fit from the enthusiasm generated at these conferences. 
 The Southern Education Board was constituted by 
 Mr. Ogden by direction of the Conference held at 
 Winston-Salem. The men thus brought together by 
 Mr. Ogden, some of whom had not before known each 
 other, were exceptional from many points of view, and 
 the work accomplished by this Board with the small 
 income of $30,000 a year through a dozen years mgiy 
 well be cited as one of the most extraordinary move- 
 ments in history. The statistics gathered by the Exec- 
 
 [44] 
 
utive Committee under the direction of President 
 Alderman and Dr. Claxton, now United States Com- 
 missioner of Education, and their associates, were a 
 revelation to the whole country. It was discovered 
 that the universal poverty of the South following the 
 unlimited disasters which war brings, and continues in 
 its trail for generations, had so reduced the productive 
 capacity of the population that the whole Southland 
 had been able to give only eighty-three days of schooling 
 to the average man of twenty-one years and over in the 
 South at the beginning of this century. It was found 
 that in one of the states of the South the average prod- 
 uct per capita of the men employed in farming — owners, 
 tenants, and hired men — was less than $200 per annum. 
 This against an average of $1,100 in the State of Iowa. 
 Mr. Ogden is entitled to much of the credit for the 
 evidence that this was not sufficient economic basis for 
 a proper educational system. 
 
 The General Education Board was organized about 
 this time, and undoubtedly the unique work of the 
 Southern Education Board under Mr. Ogden's leader- 
 ship was an important factor in defining the lines on 
 which the General Education Board was organized. 
 In fact, its first work was directed to the study of the 
 problem of education in the South, and the first million 
 dollars given to it was for that work. IVIr. Ogden was 
 one of the first members of this Board and was always 
 faithful and self-sacrificing of his personal comfort and 
 even health in giving his services on its call. The 
 
 [45] 
 
increase of money annually devoted to education in the 
 South from all sources by fifty million dollars during 
 the first ten years of the life of the Southern Education 
 Board undoubtedly resulted in part from the inspiration 
 and arousing of the people which the statistical and 
 campaign work of the Southern Education Board gave. 
 This work resulted in the coining of a new designation 
 of the work of a modern publicist; and it is undoubtedly 
 true that when one reads to-day of "Unofficial States- 
 manship" there arises before the minds of those who 
 knew him, and also of others who did not have that 
 good fortune, the splendid figure and noble head and the 
 frank, outlooking gaze with the modest and friendly 
 greeting of Robert Curtis Ogden. 
 
 It is probably true that no one man has done so much 
 personal work in bringing about an interweaving of 
 minds and intermingling of hearts of men and women 
 of the North and men and women of the South as this 
 true believer in all men, who had faith in the real unifi- 
 cation of the country and in the sure result of patience 
 in well doing. All hail to this true Statesman ! 
 
 George Foster Peabody. 
 
 [46 
 
A MASTER OF MEN 
 
 I was in New York attending a Board meeting one 
 day about the time Mr. Ogden moved from Philadelphia 
 to New York and opened the new Wanamaker store. 
 I overheard some one say, '*New York has received a 
 great addition to her moral and religious strength in 
 the coming to this city of Mr. Robert C. Ogden." 
 That chance remark regarding a man theretofore un- 
 known to me made a deep impression on my mind. I 
 do not recall who said it; I only know that he knew 
 his man. 
 
 I first met Mr. Ogden a few days after he invited me 
 to become a member of the Southern Education Board 
 in the summer of 1901. From that day until the day 
 of his death he was my friend. 
 
 Mr. Ogden was a recogniized leader in that great 
 movement for better education in the Southern States, 
 which has received such large recognition and apprecia- 
 tion in later years. It would be difficult to enumerate 
 his manifold contributions to that movement. I think 
 his chief contribution lay in the fact that he brought 
 men of like mind and purpose together, and enabled 
 them to know and understand one another. These 
 
 [47] 
 
men of the Southern States, thus brought together, 
 inaugurated and directed what I believe to be the most 
 significant movement in public education which our 
 country has ever seen. 
 
 Mr. Ogden was imposing in figure, benign of coun- 
 tenance, with a voice of rare power and resonance; he 
 was a statesman in the best sense of that term, an 
 orator of great power, and a "master of men." No one 
 ever met him without at once believing in him and 
 trusting him. He was a successful merchant, a man of 
 vision and foresight, with a wealth of acquaintance 
 and experience, all of which he brought to bear on that 
 leadership for which we all honor him. He gave liber- 
 ally of his money and made his gifts more valuable by 
 the greater gift of himself. He was modest but did 
 not lack courage; he effaced himself, but at the proper 
 time and place he had the quality of magnificent self- 
 assertion. 
 
 Other men and other agencies have done large things 
 for education in the Southern States, but to Robert C. 
 Ogden should be accorded the position of Field Mar- 
 shal. 
 
 April 26, 1918. Wallace Butteick. 
 
 4S 
 
MR. ROBERT C. OGDEN-AS A PATRIOT 
 
 The Patriot— for his Country— is called to do or die, 
 'Midst the noise— and smoke— and fury of the fray, 
 While this calls for manly courage, there's a different 
 
 kind of Patriot, 
 Who is recognized throughout our land to-day. 
 
 As a man of deep conviction. He with patience and with 
 
 care, 
 Had decided he was forced to take a stand, 
 There was no blare of trumpets or friends to urge him 
 
 on, 
 As he studied every section of our land. 
 
 His task was all the harder, for the wounds of former 
 
 strife 
 Were deep: it seemed as though they'd never, ever, 
 
 heal — 
 Yet he counted all 'twould cost him— if he lost this 
 
 final fight 
 'Gainst illiteracy, that all the South was made to feel. 
 
 Some few there were quite certain that the effort made 
 
 would fail, 
 That the Conference could not hold the forces long; 
 
 [49] 
 
Yet under his direction, there were gathered from the 
 
 Nation 
 Men of thought and action — big, and bold, and strong. 
 
 As, from year to year, they gathered, and his plans 
 
 they all considered. 
 They forgot their lack of knowledge in the past. 
 For the Nation was before them, and to fit it for its 
 
 future 
 They must know no North or South nor East or West. 
 
 —H. E. Fries. 
 
 [50 
 
IVffi. ROBERT C. OGDEN— AS A STATESMAN 
 
 Through the portals of our Nation 
 
 He had seen the thousands coming 
 
 From great cities and strange lands across the sea. 
 
 And he thought of future ages, 
 
 "When these thousands, by slow stages, 
 
 Might control our land predestmed for the free. 
 
 He knew well the colored race 
 
 Have with us a lasting place, 
 
 And though once held back in bonds they now are free; 
 
 To prepare them for their station, 
 
 As a part of this great Nation, 
 
 Was a task no human eye could well foresee. 
 
 Next in each and every portion 
 
 Of our great and glorious land 
 
 He sought for wise, and true, and noble men. 
 
 Who would give their time or money, 
 
 To consider every section. 
 
 And to the weak, the greatest aid extend. 
 
 He, with others, oft was thinking, 
 That this Nation has a mission 
 To perform among the nations of the earth — 
 
 [511 
 
And to perform this mission 
 
 We'll need men in every station, 
 
 To melt and mold our men of foreign birth. 
 
 Already we are seeing 
 
 The results of this right thinking, 
 
 In the lives of studious maiden and of men : 
 
 They should oft repeat the story. 
 
 And to him give all the glory. 
 
 As the "Unofficial Statesman" — that He's been. 
 
 — H. E. Fries. 
 
 52] 
 
MR. ROBERT C. OGDEN— AS A CHRISTIAN 
 GENTLEMAN 
 
 Through the years of early manhood 
 He withstood each test and strain, 
 While amid the trials of business 
 He was found each year the same, 
 Always battling for the right, 
 Always bold, and fair, and square. 
 He was modest and retiring. 
 Yet impressed men everywhere. 
 
 Thousands came in daily contact 
 With this man of gentle ways — 
 Learned from him, that " true politeness'* 
 Always draws one, "always pays." 
 Yet he taught another lesson. 
 Oft forgot along the way — 
 That the God of Sabbath morning 
 Is the God of every day. 
 
 He would seek the poor and helpless, 
 Aid them through some other friend. 
 Ne'er destroyed their independence, 
 While his aid he'd gladly lend; 
 [53] 
 
All in need, to him, were brethren. 
 For he knew no Church or State, 
 Once convinced that help was needed 
 He'd ne'er stop or hesitate. 
 
 Glad we see a grand Memorial 
 Built in honor of our friend; 
 But he built his own memorial. 
 It will last till time shall end. 
 He will live through all the ages. 
 In all portions of our land. 
 Not as Statesman or as Patriot, 
 But — as Christian Gentleman. 
 
 — H. E. Frie,g. 
 
 [54 
 
MH. ROBERT C. OGDEN— AS A MAN 
 
 Come ! Gather the children and tell them a tale, 
 A clear lighted story of heart and of vision, 
 One of the present, of love and devotion, 
 One that shines bright in its own clear precision; 
 
 The tale of a man full of vigor and strength, 
 
 Who went forthy mid the darkness and light. 
 
 And always you found him, where duty had called him, 
 
 Arrayed for the right — in each fight. 
 
 'Midst carnage and strife and where cannon groaned 
 
 forth, 
 'Midst straining and stress of each day, 
 *Midst worries of business and troubles of hfe 
 He led men — and taught them — to pray. 
 
 In mingling with men he saw their great needs. 
 He thought not of self but of others. 
 He gave from his store, and gathered much more, 
 Contending that all men are brothers. 
 
 A true man they found him in bright balmy youth. 
 
 He kept faith with his friends later on. 
 
 He rang true in business, in Church and in State, 
 
 But truest and best in his home. 
 
 —H. E, Friei. 
 
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