premacy within the limits of our country, Ohio will reap the advantage of those people who have come from the difficulties which I have named and who have benefitted by this grand system of our common school education. And I am glad to hear such a favorable report from our School Commissioner; there lies the bulwark which all the ideas and isms of socialism and anarchy might butt against until the end of time-they will remain. (Applause.)

We welcome to our shores people from every clime and every nation, who coming here seeking may find a home, an asylum where hope and plenty enter in. We love them all. There is work for willing hands to do.

Because this wonderful development of this country is not abnormal under the conditions of to-day, the industry and ingenuity of our people are being felt everywhere and Ohio shares a large part in that enterprise which is carrying our manufactured goods to every clime under the sun.

To the inventive genius of her citizens we owe many of the ripe machines that have been brought to the aid of labor, not to the detriment of labor, but to the benefit of all the people. It is to that enterprise and to that inventive genius that we look in our future development for a realization of all that for which men hope; our beneficent laws protecting and caring for our industries, and inviting here those who associate together with capital large and efficient enough to carry on enterprises under the laws of our state.

We have cared for them and nurtured them, but under this development there comes a time, my fellow-citizens, when it is necessary, in keeping pace with the rapid progress, to adjust ourselves and our laws to meet these conditions. We must not be led astray by false sentiment of demagogism. We must not yield to any cry that would in any way intimidate or paralyze capital, but, recognizing that other great factor which is associated with capital, our laws and our policy must be in the interest of all classes and those who work with their hands,

(Applause.)

Important questions in connection with this industrial development are forcing themselves upon us every year, aye, every month. I say important questions because nothing can be more important than the questions which strike at the very heart of industrial development. It is the duty, the bounden duty of every citizen of Ohio to feel that his interests and responsibilities are not limited within the environment of his own town or county. It is this great civic pride which permeates the whole state and occasions of this kind will bring into life the public-spirited and patriotic feeling, so that the very name of Ohio and its future will be an inspiration. (Applause.)

Let it be known that we as a people, that we as a state, consider from the standpoint of individual and corporate interests the value of all that aids in the production and development of our industries, and that a good name abroad will bring within the limits of our own state all the elements needed to feed and to nourish this spirit of evolution and development. The people have as much to do with that success, almost, as does nature, because it is the people who create the sentiment, who fill the very atmosphere with that sentiment, of fair dealing, of honest but effective laws, of the consideration of every man's interest, individual or corporate, with a desire, aye a determination to do that which is best for the whole people.

Ohio, I am glad to say, in all her past history has shown that spirit both in law and sentiment, and it is because of the success and the growth of that spirit that I join with you in the prophecy of the future, that the greatness of our state has only just begun; that what has been accomplished in a hundred years, aye, within the last fifty years, and with the conditions favorable, with that spirit which I hope fills the heart and mind of the people when they are called together in convention or in conference or in the celebration of an occasion like this, that they, appreciating what has been wrought out and called to their attention, will go home and think about it, think about it from the standpoint of good citizenship and humanity, think about these economic questions from the standpoint which will uplift society-and when I say society, I mean from the bottom up (great applause), place all classes, as God Almighty in

tended, upon the same equality, and let them work out their own destiny in proportion to their enterprise and ability. (Renewed applause.)

What an inspiration it is, my friends! I do not believe we fully appreciate that in these United States, after a little more than a hundred years, we have brought together men from all nations and all conditions and harmonized and equalized and made them a part of this great body politic, all bound first on bettering their own condition, then their duty and loyalty to their fellow-man, and then to their state and country.

A hundred years has done this and from what a beginning! It would startle, aye, it world stagger, the mind of the people of the old world could they have been told that such a result would have occurred. Could any man have prophesied that under our institutions a people governing themselves could have come out of all this combination of men from all nations, could have been molded into a body politic, the majority of which are inspired by the highest motives of doing good to themselves and their fellow-men. That is American and that is the Ohio idea. (Great applause.)

It gives me great pleasure, my fellow-citizens, to be present on an occasion like this, because it gives me an opportunity of meeting face to face so many of our people, so many of my fellow-citizens whom it has not been my pleasure to see and know; to join with you in the celebration of this great event.

I join with you in the bright hopes of your future here in Ross County, and I join with you in the feeling that this great function has been and will be productive of good everywhere. It is good to have these conferences, these heart to heart talks, this dissemination of facts which is appreciated by all, the opportunity to know more than we would have known in regard to our state affairs and our growth and development.

From the standpoint of her commercial and industrial inerests, if I know anything, I know that Ohio stands, and deservedly so, in the front rank, and if our opportunities for the future are no less-aye, but they are greater than a hundred years ago, because there is no teacher like experience there is no better proof of what can be done than to judge the future

by the past as to what has been done; therefore, on every hand there is every reason why this should be made an opportunity for rejoicing, and here's hoping that we may all live to enjoy another one. (Loud and long continued applause.)

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF OHIO.

LEWIS D. BONEBRAKE.

GENERAL STATEMENT.

NO MINOR INSTITUTION.

The history of the public schools of Ohio and the statement of the present condition of public education in our commonwealth can not be condensed into

a few words or be covered by a few fragmentary sentences. The institution commonly called the free public school system is too large an institution; its history covers too much detail; its glorious achievements are too many, and its benefits are too farreaching, to condense them into a few words or adequately to recount them in small compass. The wisest statesmen of one hundred years ago could hardly have foreseen the wonderful development destined to come from the free school system in the ten decades covered by the first century of our statehood. The thoughtful and far-seeing might have hoped for larger usefulness, for extension and improvement, but the present glorious heritage of free universal opportunity for culture and learning at the expense of the state could hardly have been dreamed of even by the wisest of the period. The public schools are no minor institution.

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LEWIS D. BONEBRAKE.