time when they must have serious work of college grade and be free to apply it and exploit it in the great educational system of the state, rather than in selected or special schools, if their expectations are to be met.

The difficulties have been serious. It is a wonder that this college has held together at all through the four years that we have been trying to carry on the work in three or four places, and without the libraries, laboratories, classrooms and appliances that such an institution imperatively requires. But now the day of jubilee has come, and every one having anything to do with the State Normal College must move up to a higher plane, that the old school may meet the newer and heavier and holier burdens which the state of New York is placing upon it.

A splendid history ought to incite us. David P. Page, and George R. Perkins, and Samuel B. Woolworth, and David H. Cochrane, and Joseph Alden, and Edward P. Waterbury, were great teachers and natural leaders of schools. William J. Milne is such a teacher and such a leader. They and others like them have here trained more than twenty thousand men and women to fine and heroic service.

When the Civil War came, this school sent a fine company of its men, with Professors Kimball and Husted in command, into a famous regiment - the "People's Ellsworth Regiment," the 44th New York to fight the battles of the country. It was inspired by the lamentable and heroic death at the very outbreak of the war of Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth, who lies buried only twenty miles from here. I remember, when a boy, seeing that regiment go down lower State street. It was distinguished from all the other regiments by the white moccasins worn by the men. It was a selected regiment of tall men. In it there were many men of the schools. It was so strong in numbers that it filled the street from the old Capitol to the Exchange, with the company fronts stretching from curb to curb or even over the sidewalks. That broad street has seen many military pageants to be remembered but it never witnessed a scene that will be remembered longer or more vividly than when that regiment halted for a moment to receive from the hand of Mrs Erastus Corning the flags it was to carry through Antietam, and Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg, and the Wilderness, to Appomattox. When the regiment came back, the street was wide enough for its numbers, but it was then distinguished by more than white moccasins and tall men. To have had an heroic part with that regiment gives this old school a special

right to float a fine flag upon its campus. But let us not forget that women as well as men, and more of them, have gone out from this school to give a sacrificial and resultful public service, which must quicken the pulse beats and give zest to what is to be undertaken now.

Starting out in the old Mohawk and Hudson Railroad building on State street the school was there five years. It was in the building erected upon "the more ornamental plan" thirty-four years. It was in its last home on Willett street twenty-three years. For nearly four years it must have felt like an orphaned and homeless child. It must now feel proud in this fine new home, so pure and so truly American in its architecture that the lovers of classic art, and of classic art as seen through American eyes, will be glad to travel far to see it. Pride in home is no mean inspiration. Here may the State Normal College live long and prosper!

To the uses of the higher learning and the betterment of the higher teaching, to the upbuilding of a great college of pedagogy, and to the service of a noble state, we set apart these grounds and these buildings, and to all that and more we dedicate the life within, for a thousand years!

THE RELATIVE EDUCATIONAL STANDING OF NEW YORK STATE

There is no harm in a little reasonable boasting of the state of New York; but that is not the thought of this paper. Comparisons are not odious if made to ascertain what one ought to do. The effort will be to make a just comparison of our educational situation with that in nine other leading and representative states, to see in what we lack more than in what we have a surplus.

The states selected are Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and California. More could not be taken without unprofitably extending the inquiry. These are taken because they are all good strong states, not remote from our latitude, and well known for their educational activities. Absolute exactness of figures is not claimed. This is not the work of a professor of civil engineering. There are no needles to meet under the North river, and millions of money are not to be predicated upon my deductions. The figures are from the United States Bureau of Education Reports for 1907 and 1908, or directly from the states, and are sufficient for our general purposes.

There are no very marked differences between the kinds of people who have settled these 10 states. In the pioneer days when the educational plans were taking form, New York was doubtless more heterogeneous than any of the rest, and so continues. All have felt the common impulses of our American civilization. The Western States have been intellectually less hidebound and they have known how to use their political power rather more freely than the Eastern States; they have used it for educational ends; they have had the benefit of the

Address at the 47th University Convocation of the State of New York, Senate Chamber, Albany, October 29, 1909.

experiences of the older states and the advantage of laying their educational foundations without being obliged to grub out any other foundations, and after it was settled that education was to be the passion of the Republic.

No doubt density of population has some relation to educational efficiency, where conditions are so generally alike as in our American states. Of course the presence of very large cities must be kept in mind. The following table shows average density of population:

The number of pupils in school per square mile was: Massachusetts 62, New York 27, Pennsylvania 27, Ohio 20, Illinois 17, Missouri II, Iowa 10, Michigan 9, Minnesota 5, California 2.

The percentage of the population in school was: Iowa 24, Missouri 22, Minnesota 21, Michigan 20, California 20, Ohio 18, Illinois 18, Pennsylvania 17, Massachusetts 17, New York 16.

The average number of days the schools were in session was: New York 189, Massachusetts 187, California 171, Iowa 170, Illinois 169, Michigan 169, Pennsylvania 168, Ohio 160, Minnesota 145, Missouri 145.

The average number of days attended by each pupil enrolled was: Massachusetts 153, New York 145, Michigan 137, Illinois 132, Pennsylvania 127, California 126, Ohio 121, Iowa 117, Minnesota 108, Missouri 96.

The percentage of enrolled pupils in daily attendance in 1907 was: Massachusetts 81.8, Michigan 80.8, Illinois 78.3, New York 77, Pennsylvania 76.2, Ohio 75.9, California 73.9, Michigan 72.6, Iowa 68.8, Missouri 67.9.

The following table gives us some light:

The following table is informing but possibly not very pertinent to our inquiry:

ESTIMATED VALUE OF ALL PUBLIC SCHOOL PROPERTY [B. E. 1907]. TOTAL REVENUE FROM FUNDS, TAXES AND OTHER SOURCES (EXCLUDING BALANCES AND PROCEEDS FROM BOND SALES)