^BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA ^ 
 
 ISSUED MONTHLY BY THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 Entered at the Post Office at Athens, Ga., as Second-class Matter, August 30, 1905 
 under Act of Congress of July 16, 1894. 
 
 VoLVIL AUGUST, 1907, (Supplement)* No* 12 
 
 ALUMNI ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE ALUMNI SOCIETY 
 UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA 
 JUNE 18, J907. 
 
 BY 
 
 HON. C. M. CANDLER 
 
 OF DECATUR, GA. 
 
 SERIAL NUMBER T 2. 
 
Alumni Address 
 
 Mr. President, Fellow Alumni, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 “As it is the distinguishing happiness of free government, that 
 civil order should be the result of choice, and not necessity, and 
 the common wishes of the people become the law of the land, their 
 public prosperity, and even their existence, very much depend 
 upon suitably forming the minids and morals of their citizens. 
 
 Where the minds of the people in general are viciously dispos¬ 
 ed and unprincipled, and their conduct disorderly, a free govern¬ 
 ment will be attended with greater confusions, and with evils 
 more horrid than the wild, uncultivated state of nature. 
 
 It can only be happy where the public principles and opinions 
 are properly directed, and their manners regulated. This is an in¬ 
 fluence beyond the stretch of laws and punishments, and can be 
 claimed only by religion and education. 
 
 It should therefore, be among the first objects of those who 
 wish well to the national prosperity to encourage a nil support the 
 principles of religion and morality, and early to place the youth 
 under the forming hand of Society, that by instruction they may be 
 moulded to the love of virtue and good order. * * * 
 
 “This country, in the times of our common danger and distress* 
 found such security in the principles and abilities which wise reg¬ 
 ulations had before established in the' minds of our countrymen, 
 that our present happiness, joined to pleasing prospects, should 
 conspire to make us feel ourselves under the strongest obligations 
 to form the youth, the rising hope of our land, to render the like 
 glorious anid essential services to our country.” 
 
 Thus spake our forefathers in the Charter of the University 
 of Georgia, and surely in this presence, and to these sons of our 
 historic Alma Mater, whose charge was “the general superintend¬ 
 ence anid regulation of the literature of this tSate,” I need offer no 
 apology for attempting today to discuss Public Education in Geor¬ 
 gia. 
 
 Called at the eleventh hour to the discharge of the honorable 
 duty before me, by reason of the inability of the distinguished Dr. 
 Hadley, of Yale, or either of his alternates to be present, I am deep* 
 ly conscious of my lack of fitness to fill their place, and have there¬ 
 fore selected this subject as one in which I feel assured you have 
 a sympathetic interest. It is a subject demanding plain state¬ 
 ments of fact, rather than eloquent speech. It is an old theme, 
 
3 
 
 yet ever present and ever vital, so long as one generation suc¬ 
 ceeds another. It concerns us today, as it did our forefathers 
 and as it will our children’s children. 
 
 To begin at the beginning. In the first Constitution ordained 
 by the people of free Georgia, our forefathers, in 1777, declared that 
 “Schools shall be erected) in each county and supported at the ex¬ 
 pense of the State, as the Legislature shall hereafter point out.” 
 
 In that same instrument there were created eight counties, 
 and within eight years thereafter, notwithstanding the fact that dur 
 ing practically this entire period the State was engaged in a bloody 
 struggle for the right of existence as an independent government— 
 notwithstanding the unsolved and vexing problems of a people en¬ 
 gaged in blazing out new governmental paths—notwithstanding the 
 financial stress of a government without a treasury, and the pover¬ 
 ty of pioneer settlers whose only assets were in unexplored forest 
 wilds, every county had its public academy, established at the ex¬ 
 pense of the State, and the system crowned with the proposed 
 State University, from whose Charter I have just quoted—the Act 
 of 1785, providing that “All public schools, instituted or to be sup¬ 
 ported by funds or public monies in this State, shall be considered 
 as parts or members of the University.” * * * * and the 
 
 duty imposed on the President of the University, as often as the 
 duties of his station should permit, at least once in a year, to visit 
 every school and examine into its “order and performance.” 
 
 During the first one hundred years of her independent history, 
 Georgia had six Constitutions, and in every one, save that of 1789, 
 in force for only nine years—and the crudest and most imperfect 
 of all our fundamental laws—the promotion of learning and science 
 and the education of the people were made mandatory on the 
 Legislatures, and unlimited power and the widest discretion grant¬ 
 ed them in devising methods and means for the attaining of the 
 great end desired—the universal education of the people. 
 
 As the forefathers of 1777 believed that the general diffusion 
 of education was one of the chief pillars on which rested! the sta¬ 
 bility of the government they were struggling to establish, even so 
 believed the fathers of 1861, and in the Constitution of that year, 
 facing a struggle for the preservation of the rights their sires had 
 won, unparelled in the histories of war, they declared “The Gen¬ 
 eral Assembly shall have the power to appropriate money for the 
 promotion of learning and science, and to provide for the educa¬ 
 tion of the people.” 
 
 After four years of bloody war, the heroes of a lost cause re¬ 
 turned to desolated homes and wasted fields, and gathered together 
 the remnants of manhood, met together for the framing of a new 
 Constitution, and realizing more than ever that the hope of good 
 
4 
 
 government depended upon suitably forming the minds of the youth 
 of the 1 State, that they might “render the like glorious and essen¬ 
 tial services to their country,” they reordained the educational pro¬ 
 vision of the Constitution of 1861, in that of 1865, and further di¬ 
 rected the General Assembly to provide “for the early resumption 
 of the University of Georgia by the adequate endowment of the 
 same.” 
 
 The 1 Constitution of 1868, an infinitely better instrument than 
 any one—at the beginning of the Convention which framed it, 
 judging from the personnel of the great majority of its member¬ 
 ship—could have anticipated, contained the mandatory provision 
 that the first Legislature to asemble after its ratification, should 
 establish “a thorough system of general education, to be forever 
 free to all the children of the State, the expense of which to be 
 provided by taxation or otherwise.” 
 
 In not one of these instruments, from 1777 to 1877, was there 
 a limitation on the powers of the Legislature to support by taxa¬ 
 tion nor a restriction on their discretion as to the scope of charac¬ 
 ter of the educational system to be supported at the public ex¬ 
 pense. 
 
 For the first time, in 1877, Georgia adopted a contracted and 
 narrow view of the State’s interest and duty in public education, 
 and in the Constitution of that year, the mandatory provision for 
 “a thorough system of common schools for the education of chil¬ 
 dren” was qualified, and the unfortunate restriction added, “in the 
 elementary branches of an English education only,” and the power 
 to tax for educational purposes so limited. 
 
 Unfortunately this was not all, for in that instrument, munic¬ 
 ipalities and counties were so hampered by restrictions as to their 
 power to tax themselves, that for more than a quarter of a cen¬ 
 tury, educational progress in progressive communities, has been 
 [handicapped and thousands of children pleading for bread, have 
 had to be content with the crusts afforded by the insufficient funds 
 from the State Treasury. 
 
 Prior to the ratification of the Constitution of 1877, it was in 
 the power and discretion of the Legislature, to provide and support 
 by taxation and otherwise, a thorough, complete and correlated 
 system of public education, beginning with Elementary Schools, 
 ton through Secondary Schools, to the University. 
 
 The Constitution of 1877 rendered impossible any complete 
 State system of public education. It provided only for the estab¬ 
 lishment and maintenance of elementary schools, and the support 
 of the University, without any connecting links. It provided for 
 the laying of a foundation and the putting on of the capstone, thus 
 erecting a structure dwarfed in its very conception. 
 
5 
 
 This narrow view of the State’s interest in and duty to public 
 education, was placed in the Constitution on the initiative of men 
 who were avowed enemies to the principle of education of the peo¬ 
 ple by the State, at the public expense'. 
 
 I have seen it stated in a paper by Prof. Stewart, and subse¬ 
 quently in a speech by Hon. H. H. Perry of Gainesville, at Mill- 
 edgeville, that G’en. Toombs was responsible for 'the Constitutional 
 restriction on our educational system and if I remember correctly 
 the newspaper reports of Mr. Perry’s speech, reported him as 
 thanking G'en. Toombs, for such a restriction. These generally 
 well informed gentlemen are mistaken in ascribing to General 
 Toombs the authorship of this clause, or direct responsibility 
 therefor. 
 
 I regret that on the aye and no vote on its adoption, he is 
 recorded as having voted for it, but ithte Convention records do not 
 show that he did more, nor that he spoke a word during the debate 
 thereon. 
 
 The education article of the Constitution as prepared and re¬ 
 ported by the Committee on Education, of which Gen. Toombs was 
 not a member,' diid not contain this restriction nor was it in the ar¬ 
 ticle as reported to the Convention by the Committee on Final 
 Revision, of which Gen. Toombs was Chairman. 
 
 The amendment to the Article as reported by the Committee, 
 restricting public education to “the elementary branches of an 
 English education only,” was offered by Judge Augustus Reese, of 
 Morgan County, and vigorously advocated by him and by Mr. Hol¬ 
 combe of Milton, both of whom stated that they were opposed to 
 the 1 whole theory of public education at State expense and would 
 abolish it if they had the power. 
 
 Gen. Toombs voted for the amendment, as did a majority of 
 the Convention—of more than this he must be acquitted. 
 
 I cannot believe that a majority of the Convention voted for 
 the Reese amendment upon the same convictions as did its author, 
 but rather because of then existing peculiar political conditions 
 and the public unrest following the Presidential election iof 1876. 
 Nor do I believe that such a Constitutional restriction upon the 
 scope of public education would be favored by a Constitutional 
 Convention in 1907, or ratified by the voters of 1907, if submitted 
 ito them. 
 
 Not only was it for the first time in our State history, that 
 in 1877 we embodied in our fundamental law this narrow view iof 
 the object and scope of public education, but for the first time we 
 actually placed an embargo on education by religious or philan¬ 
 thropic organizations or institutions, willing to assume a part of 
 the public burden and aid in the great work of training the young 
 
6 
 
 and fitting them for the duties of citizenship, in the limitation plac¬ 
 et! on the power of the General Assembly to exempt from taxation 
 other property than the “buildings erected for and used as a Col¬ 
 lege, incorporated Academy, or other Seminary or learning.” 
 
 God speed the day when public sentiment and a realization of 
 the needis of the State for more and better educated citizens, will 
 demand of the Legislature the submission for ratification by the 
 people, of a Constitutional Amendment exempting from taxation 
 all property exclusively used in the great cause of education. 
 
 I do not fear a union of Church and State or the evils of “dead 
 hand,” in a republican form of government, nearly so much as I 
 Ido the danger to its stability from the ignorance of the suffragists. 
 
 I have thus far undertaken to show the broad 1 conception our 
 fathers had as to the necessity for the education of the people, 
 under a government of the people, by the people, and at the ex¬ 
 pense of the people, as illustrated in our earlier Constitutional his¬ 
 tory, and that it was only as recently as 1877 that our ideal of a 
 broad, complete and correlated system of public education was 
 abandoned. 
 
 With this brief review 1 desire toi call attention to educational 
 conditions today and to some of the needs of our system. 
 
 The estimated school population in Georgia in 1905, was 720,- 
 000, of whom about 375,000 were white and 345,000 colored. 
 
 Of this population probably one-half were males, so that if all 
 lived, in 1920, 360,000 new voters would be entitled to participate 
 in the government of the State. 
 
 Of the 720,000 persons between six and eighteen years of age, 
 488,000, or 67 per cent, at cne time or another during the year, 
 went to a school house and placed their names on the school rolls 
 —but out of this enrollment there was an average attendance dur¬ 
 ing the year of only 280,000, or less than 40 per cent of the school 
 population. Of this average attendance, 172,000 were white chil¬ 
 dren, that is only 46 per cent of the white school population of 
 Georgia attended school in 1905 with any degree of regularity. In 
 other words, less than one-half of the white children and only two- 
 fifths of all the children of the State attended school after enroll¬ 
 ment. 
 
 When I have mentioned this one fact I have said enough to 
 attract the thoughtful attention icf every patriotic Georgian who ha, s 
 at heart the welfare of society or the perpetuity of good govern¬ 
 ment. Need we wonder that the census enumerators found in 
 Georgia in 1900, more than 475,000 persons ten years of age and 
 over, unable to read or write their names, of whom over 100,000 
 were whites. 
 
 Let us analyze these* figures further. 
 
7 
 
 Of the estimated school population in 1905, approximately 
 600,000 lived in the county and in the small towns, leaving a 
 strictly urban population of approximately 120,000. 
 
 This rural school population is almost entirely dependent on 
 the State Common school fund. In 1905 this fund was approxi¬ 
 mately $1,735,000, of which about $1,450,000 was available for the 
 600,000 rural children, that is, less than $2.50 per child. 
 
 Of the rural school population, 389,000 were enrolled in the 
 State system, with an average attendance of 217,000. 
 
 That is, only 36 per cent, barely more than one in three of the 
 rural school population in the State regularly attended school in 
 1905. Of the white children in the rural districts of the State, 
 only 131,000, or 40 per cent of the total, attended regularly. 
 
 In the local systems in the State in 1905, mainly in the cities 
 and towns, the enrollment was 70 per cent as against 55 per cent 
 in the rural districts and the average attendance 53 per cent of the 
 population as against 36 per cent in the rural districts. 
 
 The expenditure per capita for the urban children was $12.72 
 as against $3.72 per capita for the rural children. 
 
 The average number of days taught in the rural districts was 
 103, as against 8 1-2 months in the urban districts. 
 
 These figures demonstrate that the cities and larger towns 
 in Georgia, are in a large measure doing their duty in providing 
 (educational opportunities for their children, and that they see 
 the necessity for general education and are taxing themselves to 
 provide it. 
 
 For every dollar given them by the State, they are raising four 
 dollars by local taxation. 
 
 The enrollment, however, of only 70 out of every one hundred 
 and the average attendance of only 53 out of every one hundred, 
 suggest to my mind the inquiry as to whether having provided 
 8 1-2 months per year of good free schools by taxation, they should 
 not consider whether the time has not arrived, when in such 
 communities the attendance on these schools should by law, be 
 made compulsory. 
 
 The statistics given further demonstrate the total inadequacy 
 of our rural schools, and prove the fact that five-sixths of the chil¬ 
 dren of the State are not enjoying equal opportunities with the 
 remaining one-sixth, who live within the limits of our towns and 
 cities. 
 
 This is neither fair to the children living in the country, nor 
 is it to the interest of the State. 
 
 To my mind the blighting imperfections and the glaring weak¬ 
 ness of our State Educational system, are sadly shown in the 
 rural districts of the State. 
 
8 
 
 Six hundred thousand chiMiren, of whom 325,000 are. white, be¬ 
 ing educationally starved. It is to this condition of public educa¬ 
 tion in the rural districts that I desire especially toi call your at¬ 
 tention. 
 
 I believe the crying need of our system is the immediate es¬ 
 tablishment and the liberal support of more, better equipped, bet¬ 
 ter taught, and better supervised elementary schools, with the vi¬ 
 tal connecting links of Secondary schools, in which large numbers 
 of our country boys and girls would be enabled to secure larger 
 opportunities and fitness for usefulness than is obtainable in the 
 primary schools, and through which many others could reach and 
 enjoy the blessings of the State aided institutions of higher educa¬ 
 tion. 
 
 With a correlated system of primary and secondary schools in 
 the rural districts, giving to the country boys and girls equal op¬ 
 portunities with their brothers and sisters in the cities, I believe 
 in five years, the attendance upon every one of our State supported 
 nstitutions, as well as on every denominational college in Georgia, 
 would be doubled, and in a generation, quadruplets. 
 
 I believe that utility should be the supreme test in education 
 and that this standard should always be kept in view in shaping 
 the courses of study in the Common schools, Primary and Second- 
 ary. At the same time I do not believe it is fair to cut the country 
 boys and girls off from higher opportunities and confine them abso¬ 
 lutely and exclusively to elemental or vocational studies. 
 
 I would not disparage the abilities nor the virtues of our ur¬ 
 ban population, but I do believe that the country offers a surer 
 ■and better field for the development of strong characters and the 
 cultivation of manly virtues, than do our cities. The country is 
 largely free from the vices that attract and allure the young to 
 dissipation and ruin. The environment of country life is more fa¬ 
 vorable to moral training, as well as physical healthfulness and 
 growth. There are no crowded tenements with their disease laden 
 atmosphere—no narrow alleys in which are nightly lessons of de¬ 
 pravity—no gilded resorts in which the young are taught to forget 
 or deride the homely virtues of the fireside. The country boy has 
 room to grow, and filling his lungs with the pure air of heaven, 
 perfumed by the flowers that grow on every side, his activities 
 are not prescribed by a feiw square feet, but are as broad as the 
 acres over which he romps. 
 
 That rare gentleman and able statesman, the Hon. T. G‘. Law- 
 son, himself a living example of the best product of an ideal coun¬ 
 try environment, has beautifully and truthfully pictured nature’s 
 aid in the development of a country boy. “Conversant day and 
 night with the glory of the heavens, with the beauties of the 
 
9 
 
 earth, and with the songs of the birds, his aesthetical faculties 
 are unconsciously and continuously developed. 
 
 “With the earth beneath him, and the vaulted sky above him, 
 his soul luxuriates in the love of freedom with as much felicity as 
 he breathes the free air of heaven, and 1 there is born within him an 
 intense love of country and an eternal hostility to oppression and 
 tyranny. As his mind unfolds and enlarges under the inspiring 
 beauty and love of nature everywhere around him, it imbibes sen¬ 
 timents that revolt against narrow schemes of selfishness, and 
 temptation to sordid commercialism and avarice.” 
 
 “Charity and hospitality, the fear of God 1 and the love of man¬ 
 kind, create and enrich within him the virtues of a lofty char¬ 
 acter.’ 
 
 “In the thousands of country homes in Georgia today are found 
 thei purest and highest types of true Americanism, and in them is 
 ever kept fresh the hope of our State and our country. 
 
 “But rich as are the opportunities bestowed by an all wise 
 Providence on these country boys, yet they do not suffice for the 
 fullest development and the highest equipment for service to So¬ 
 ciety and the State. 
 
 “Their minds should be trained to understand and grasp the 
 problems of the broader life and human society, as well as the 
 lessons of science and philosophy bound up in the common place 
 things about them.” They should be taught not alone to find 
 
 “Tongues in (trees, books in running brooks, 
 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything,” 
 but that greater lessons, so often forgotten in the isolation of the 
 country, that no man lives unto himself alcme—that the highest 
 aim in life is service, and that qualification for the best service 
 is in education.” 
 
 I plead today for better and wider educational opportunities 
 for the children of the rural districts. Thcis. Carlyle said, “This 
 I call tragedy, that there should one man die ignorant, who had 
 capacity for knowledge.” I do not know, but possibly, nowhere in 
 the English speaking world, is this tragedy of more frequent occur¬ 
 rence than in the rural districts of Georgia, and with less than one- 
 half of the white school population in these districts attending 
 schools regularly are we of this generation likely to behold fewer 
 such tragedies? 
 
 The perfection of our system ,the multiplication of our schools, 
 the betterment ictf their equipment, the employment of better quali¬ 
 fied and trained teachers, the broadening of our curriculum, the 
 lengthening of the school terms, none of these can come without 
 larger funds. Money may or may not be, as has been said, the root 
 of all evil, but I believe it is today the sum of all our educational 
 
10 
 
 necessities. In its great need is comprehended all our several 
 needs. If we could give our State rural school system $6,000,000, 
 instead of $1,500,000, every other need could be met, and with this 
 sum, we would be doing for the 600,000 rural children of the State 
 only what our cities and towns are doing for their 120,000. 
 
 There is but one way in which the urgent need for larger funds 
 can be met, and that is by local taxation. The country must large¬ 
 ly help itself, and after all self-help is the best help. It is educa¬ 
 tional in itself. It exalts the man, as well as ennobles the object. 
 
 The State can increase its appropriation tci the common school 
 fund, only as taxable values increase. We are now virtually at our 
 constitutional tax limit of five mills, and only as new subjects of 
 taxation or larger properties are found 1 by the tax gatherer, can 
 any considerably larger appropriations be made from the State 
 Treasury. 
 
 To secure the supplementary local tax in small towns, districts 
 and counties, by a two-thirds popular vote as our constitution re¬ 
 quires, the public mind and conscience must be awakened and 
 aroused. 
 
 The saddest truth in regard to education in the rural districts, 
 is that our people do not realize their educational needs. Parents 
 actually think that their children are being equipped for life, chil¬ 
 dren believe that they are being educated, and some of the teach¬ 
 ers are satisfied with methods. No human being ever tried to bet¬ 
 ter his condition until he was brought to a realization of his needs, 
 and our rural districts will never have thorough educational 
 advantages until the peicple themselves get a proper concep¬ 
 tion of conditions as they are, and of needs as they really exist. 
 
 When the public mind is educated, when the public conscience 
 is aroused, self help will follow. The great mass of tax-payers will 
 demand the privilege of aiding the State in educating their chil¬ 
 dren, and in training them for the highest usefulness to the State, 
 to Society, and to themselves. 
 
 I do not favor a large per capita school tax, as has been recent¬ 
 ly suggested in some quarters. Our poll tax, which is an educa¬ 
 tional tax, is enough on this line, and is constitutionally limited to 
 $1.00. I believe all property values are enhanced and property 
 rights safe-guarded by universal education, and that property, 
 rather than the individual, should contribute more largely to this 
 enhancement and security. 
 
 Nor can I bring myself to favor national aid to common school 
 education, neither do I believe it desirable or politic. In it I can 
 only see tne probabilities cf complications that would bring endless 
 race troubles in the South, besides bringing us nearer to that cen- 
 
11 
 
 tralization of power in the Federal Government, so dangerous toi 
 the reserved rights and powers of the States. 
 
 The campaign now needed should he a campaign for the edu¬ 
 cation for voters and tax-payers, in order that the education of the 
 child may follow. When this first campaign is successfully 
 ended, thei second will follow and be won, just as the light follows 
 and dispels the darkness. 
 
 Do not let us waste our time and energies on side issues. It 
 is idle to talk of compulsory attendance laws for the rural districts 
 until we have a thorough system of elementary schools, amply 
 financed, with better buildings and equipment, with more efficient 
 and better paid teachers, and competent State and! county super¬ 
 vision, upon which to compel attendance. Then—and net till then 
 would I advocate a general compulsory attendance law. 
 
 There are individuals and economic reasons why we should 
 devote our undivided attention to the perfection and financing of 
 our State system, now so largely a rural system. 
 
 Georgia is largely an agricultural State, and notwithstanding 
 our vast strides in manufacturing industries, doubtless for years to 
 come agriculture! will continue to be the occupation of a large ma¬ 
 jority of her people. 
 
 The influx of our best rural population to the cities and towns, 
 the increasing abandonment of our farms to a shiftless and care¬ 
 less tenantry, if continued, is bound to prove a calamity. 
 
 The hurtful exodus of whites from the country to the cities, is 
 made up largely of two classes; 1st, Parents who value education 
 and realize their duty to give their children the opportunities of 
 obtaining it; and, secondly, of young men, who without proper 
 educational equipment for the pursuit of the noblest profession of 
 life, and without any true idea of its wonderful possibilities, be¬ 
 come dissatisfied and seek employment in the cites, in the endi only 
 to fix through life, their destinies as hewers of wood and drawers 
 of water. 
 
 Agriculture is no longer looked upon as an occupation—it is a 
 science. On the soil and its cultivation all life depends for sus¬ 
 tenance. It is the sole asset in all creation that is inexhaustible 
 and indestructible, because it contains within itself the possibility 
 of infinite renewal. 
 
 Every farm, properly and) scientifically tilled and cared for, 
 should be worth more money with each passing year, and yet our 
 youths are daily abandoning the farms to seek in the city dry 
 goods clerkships or motor handles on trolley cars. The earth is the 
 Lord’s and the fullness thereof, and he who is intrusted with the 
 care of even one acre of it, is a co-worker with God. 
 
 There is no human occupation in which the exercise of talents 
 
12 
 
 and forethought anid the application of principles of science yield 
 quicker or more certain or larger returns. There is no profession 
 in life, in which education of mind and hand is more necessary, or 
 more sadly lacking. 
 
 I rejoice that in agricultural education Georgia is preparing 
 to lead the way in the establishment of agricultural high schools 
 in every Congressional district of the State. 
 
 Gov. Terrell, in a few days to surrender the helm of State, has 
 the distinction of having occupied the gubernatorial chair for a 
 longer period with one exception than any other Georgian since 
 the war, but this fact will have long been forgotten when it is re¬ 
 membered that to him, more than to any other man or official, 
 is due the successful organization in Georgia of eleven schools in 
 which the teaching of the science of agriculture will be the chief 
 work, and in which may be given some degree of special training 
 which will send our farmer boys back to the farms, better equipped 
 for their life work, and filled with new zeal and higher love for a 
 profession that enobles man and exalts God. 
 
 Georgia has need of such young men. Conditions prove this. 
 
 There are in this State 37,747,000 acres of lanidi, but only 10,- 
 615,000, or 28 per cent are actually under cultivation, the other 72 
 per cent being unimproved and untilled. The value in 1905 of all 
 farm property in Georgia, including live stock, implements, etc., 
 was $300,000,000, and the value of the agricultural products of 
 Georgia for 1905, was $150,000,000. Of the nine climate belts in 
 degrees of latitude, and altitudes from 5,000 feet down to sea level, 
 Georgia can produce within her borders every crop and fruit grown 
 in the United States. 
 
 And yet, with advantages of climate and soil equalled by few 
 states, witu a farming population in native intelligence and inauS 
 try surpassed by no people on earth, a c tudy of the °rop statistics 
 of the National Government show us sadly behind other states 
 in our methods anid in the intelligent application of scientific prin¬ 
 ciples. 
 
 In 1905 the average yield of corn per acre in Georgia was 
 ele\en bushels as against 28 4-5 in the whole country. In the yield 
 per acre Georgia ranked 46th among 48 states and Territories, only 
 exceeding Florida and South Carolina. 
 
 wheat, the average per acre was 6 9-10 bushels as against 
 14 1-2 tor the Union, and we ranked 42nd in 44 states, exceeding 
 ' riy North and South Carolina. 
 
 In oats, 15 bushels per acre against 34 for the whole country, 
 and out-ranking Florida only in 48 states and territories reported. 
 
 In potatoes our yield: per acre was 65 bushels, as compared 
 
13 
 
 with. S7 for the country, and we ranked 44th in 47 states and ter¬ 
 ritories. 
 
 In cotton, our chief crop, we produce about one bale to f )ur 
 acres, 
 
 Need I pursue this line further to convince you as 1 have my¬ 
 self, that Georgia is behind nearly every other agricultural state in 
 this great country, not because of any lack of willing workers with 
 native ability, not because of any disadvantage of climate, not be¬ 
 cause of sterility of her soils, but because of lack of trained minds 
 and scientific methods. 
 
 Every department in life, with its constant changes in indus¬ 
 trial conditions due to new application of science, demands bet¬ 
 ter training and greater adaptibility on the part of the worker, and 
 in no profession are they more needed than in agriculture. 
 
 Science has supplied an immense funidi of usable information 
 that is revolutionizing the older methods of our fathers, and the 
 i.eed of which is emphasized because of the almost brutal indiffer¬ 
 ence with which we have robbed our soil of its virgin fertility. 
 
 A knowledge of soils, their composition, and characteristics; 
 of plant life, its organism, development and growth, of animal life, 
 of mechanics, of drainage, irrigation and engineering, of agricul¬ 
 tural chemistry, physics, and even of elementary commercial law 
 and usages, is not imparted in our elementary schools, nor gather¬ 
 ed in a practical way on the farm, except after years spent in 
 careful observation and laborious study, and then only imperfectly 
 and crudely. 
 
 This knowledge can best be supplied in a time saving and in¬ 
 telligible manner, in practical agricultural Secondary Schools, sup¬ 
 plementary to our elementary schools. 
 
 These schools should be wide open to every boy of good char¬ 
 acter, and every lesson taught from the text books should be illus¬ 
 trated on the school farm. Conducted along the lines upon which 
 they have been organized, and properly equipped and liberally 
 supported by the State, I have unbounded faith in the practical 
 success of the eleven schools we are now building. I can but be¬ 
 lieve that they will early prove inestimable blessings to thousands 
 and send back to the farms of Georgia yearly increasing numbers 
 of strong young men better equipped for their chosen life work, 
 and fired anew with zieal itio make the harvest fields of this great 
 State to wave in double beauty and plenteousness. 
 
 And then we are to crown the system with out rejuvenated 
 anld 1 reorganized College of Agriculture. 
 
 Mr. President, the old college of Agriculture here has never 
 had a square deal. With virtually no equipment, undermanned and 
 half starved, oiftimes unfairly criticized, and always under sus- 
 
14 
 
 picious eyes, it has never been permitted to enjoy the confidence 
 of the agricultural classes of the State, nor given fair opportunity 
 to prove its usefulness. 
 
 But I believe a brighter day is dawning. I believe that our 
 people realize the breadth of its field of usefulness and the need of 
 a special school of high standing, whose sole care shall be the de¬ 
 velopment and promotion of the science of agriculture, in which 
 more than one and three quarter millions of our people are directly 
 interested, and on which all depend for the sustenance of life. 
 
 This College may not send back to the farm, farm laborers. 
 I trust it will not. But it will send back to our communities train¬ 
 ed and educated agriculturalists. It will give us especially fitted 
 and qualified young men as teachers in our agricultural schools, 
 and leaders of thought and examples of immeasurable influence in 
 every ocmmunity. 
 
 In all the range of educational effort, I know no field so hith¬ 
 erto sadly neglected in Georgia as that of agricultural education, 
 nor one of such vast possibilities or direct good to the overwhelm¬ 
 ing majority of our people. 
 
 Let us stop our criticisms. Let us cast aside our suspicions. 
 Let us get close to, and in touch with the work, and let us make 
 this College of Agriculture what it should be, and what it can be 
 made—the chief corner stone of our temple of education, a foun¬ 
 tain from which shall flow ever widening streams of influence and 
 knowledge, which shall revive our waste places, and burden them 
 with the heavy headed harvest. 
 
 Mr. President, 1 make no plea today for the University of Geor¬ 
 gia, as the head of our system. None is needed in this presence. 
 None ought to be needed anywhere. Her record! is one of glorious 
 service, and her past is her pledge for the future. 
 
 Brought into existence by the State, the Constitutional man¬ 
 date of the people is laid on the Legislature to support it as liber¬ 
 ally as the condition of the State Treasury will authorize. In re¬ 
 cent years the General Assembly has enlarged its appropriations 
 for its support, and I have no fear but that they will be more lib¬ 
 eral in the future. It is to the waste places in our common school 
 system that I call your attention, confident that if we build these 
 up—if we awaken a general educational revival among the masses 
 of the people, if we educate from the bottom, we will kindle a flame 
 of educational interest that will, in time, dispel all darkness, 
 and amdist its illuminating rays scores- will come up to these halls 
 where now only the few obtain the blessing. 
 
 The poverty of our country cannot longer be pleaded in bar 
 of more liberal support to- the education of the people by taxa¬ 
 tion. 
 
15 
 
 A third of a century has passed since war devastated our land, 
 and the indications are that for the first time in 1907 our taxable 
 values will have reached and passed the high water mark of 1860. 
 The same spirit that sustained us through four years of struggle 
 for the right against overwhelming odds, has animated us in the 
 more prolonged struggle of recuperation, and today we stand 
 again on the heights and look upon a country fruited with good 
 and rich in the promise of better things. 
 
 Our people are ready for a forward movement toward higher 
 ideals and a grander destiny. 
 
 The croaker who halts at the expense of education should 
 be made to stand aside. He must be taught that the education 
 of his children is not only an investment, but a security for 
 every investment that he already has. That an educated; 
 mind and an upright character are not only more valuable than 
 all the gold and the silver he can hoard, but that they are the 
 only security he can have for the enjoyment of that which he 
 has accumulated. 
 
 The dearest rights of property, of inheritance, of personal se¬ 
 curity, of life and liberty, all depend upder a democratic govern¬ 
 ment, On an educated citizenship, and the man who refuses to 
 contribute to the general diffusion of education and religion is 
 jeopardizing the very thing he holds of highest value. 
 
 Gov. Aycock forcibly said, “it undoubtedly appears cheaper to 
 neglect the aged, the feeble, the infirm and the defective, to for¬ 
 get the children of this generation, but the man who does it is 
 cursed of God, and the State that permits it is certain of destruc¬ 
 tion. 
 
 “There are people on the face of the earth who take no care 
 of the weak and infirm, who care naught for their children, and 
 who provide only for the gratification of their own desires, but 
 these people neither wear clothes nor dwell in houses. They leave 
 God out of consideration in their estimate of life, and are known 
 to us as savages.” 
 
 The fact is, Mr. President, instead of being too poor to sup¬ 
 port a thorough system of public schools, we are too poor not to 
 sustain such a system. The saying of the wise man of the East, 
 “There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that 
 withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty,” is an 
 inspired truth especially applicalble to individuals and states in 
 the matter of educational expenditures. 
 
 The wealth of Georgia today consists not in her bank de¬ 
 posits, her stocks and bonds or stores of merchandise, but in the 
 richness and vastness of her undeveloped resources. 
 
 And the asset of superlative value among these undeveloped 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILUNOIS-URBANA 
 
 3 0 
 
 12 105628728 
 
 16 
 
 resources, is in the three quarters of a million children in the 
 State. 
 
 The verdict of all history, formed after six thousand years of 
 trial, is, that man’s power anld capacity as a wealth producer is 
 multiplied in direct proportion to his education and training, and 
 that the ignorant man is always industrially dependent. If, there¬ 
 fore, we would enrich our State, and make her indeed the Empire 
 State, let us take the raw material in these children, anid by prop¬ 
 er fashioning and forming, make of them men and women. 
 
 We hear much of the problems of the day, of combinations of 
 corporate capital and their restraint, of railroads and their regu¬ 
 lation, but transcending all these in importance and vital concern, 
 I place before you today the question of the hour, the problem of 
 education. 
 
 The question of the Man of Galilee is pertinent today, “For 
 what shall it profit a man, if he gain tlhiei whole world and lose 
 his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul.” 
 
 I love this State of my birth, this land of my fathers. Her 
 people are my people. I long to see them prosperous and content¬ 
 ed. 
 
 Under the inspiration of this occasion and in this place dedi¬ 
 cated to the advancement of religion and education, I believe 1 
 see at noi distant tday, churches and school houses crowning every 
 hill in Georgia, and hear her every valley echoing with the calls 
 of their bells to altar and desk. 
 
 With such scenes in mind, I am reminded of the prayer of 
 the patriotic bard of Scotland for his native land: 
 
 “O Scotia, my dear, my native soil. 
 
 For whom my warmest wish to heaven is sent. 
 
 Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil, 
 
 Be blessed with health, anti peace, and sweet content! 
 
 And oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent 
 From luxury’s contagion,' weak and vile, 
 
 Then, howe’er crowns and coronets be rent, 
 
 A virtuous populace may arise the while 
 And stand a wall of fire around their much loved isle.’-