And now I have to discharge the last public duty as the presiding officer of this Association-a duty that affords me great pleasure.

[Addressing Mr. Sheldon, President Calkins continued.] You, my dear sir, my fellow laborer in this educational work for many years, you are my senior here, although you claim to be the boy of this Association. For three years before I was admitted as a member of this National Association you had been laboring in it. Now I want to congratulate you upon haying attained your majority; I want also to heartily congratulate this Association in having crowned you with the Presidency. And I now take pleasure in passing over to you, my worthy successor, this emblem of the office and of the honor conferred upon you. In resigning this gavel to you I know that it goes into faithful hands, that will wield it wisely.

RESPONSE OF PRESIDENT-ELECT SHELDON.

Never, in the experience of my life, have I attempted to utter a word, with such a profound sense of weakness and with such a burden of responsibility as I feel at this moment. For twenty-eight years it has been my happy lot to enjoy the Association and reap the improvement that has come, educationally, fraternally, socially, and spiritually from it. assuming the responsibility of the President's chair, to which I am called, I remember the great educational workers of America that have occupied that seat,-Richards and Rickoff, Wells, and Philbrick lamented by all, Wickersham, Hancock and Hagar, and last, but not least, my veteran brother and friend, Calkins, who has in spirit and act met the great requirements known only to those who have some intimation or knowledge of the great care, responsibility and effort that are required by the numerous details of such a grand meeting of educators as we have enjoyed here in the city of Topeka,-I know my shortcomings; I know that with all the effort that I may make, with all the loyalty that I feel in my heart for the cause of education, with all the experience of the past, that I must throw myself upon your sympathies, claim your indulgence, and ask for your hearty co-operation as I attempt to discharge the duties that will devolve upon me for the year to come. All that strength of mind and body and experience have given to me in the past are at your service, freely and heartily. I hope that when the annual meeting of the National Educational Association for the 27th year shall have rolled around, and we are gathered somewhere between the gulf and the lakes, the Atlantic and the Pacific,-I do not know where to-day,-that we shall have the high pleasure and honor of greeting every faithful laborer from the Kindergarten to the University, in sympathy and by their personal presence

co-operate and help us to carry forward this great work which is certainly the basis of our free Republican institutions, and is really the hope of our land. Education will drive from our fair land those vices and immoralities that have been the curse of every people, and crown our intelligence with dignity and loyalty to the great Master whom we all should follow, and whose life should be a model for every teacher.

But I must not detain you with my words. I must show my work by my deeds in the time to come. And now, as is our custom, in the closing exercises of the National Association I ask you all to rise and sing the doxology in long meter.

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow,"

led by Dr. Hagar; after which I will ask the Right Rev. Bishop Vail to pronounce upon us the benediction of Almighty God.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON NECROLOGY.

The Committee on Necrology for 1885-86 beg leave to submit the following report. We have to record the decease of four very eminent and widely known educators who have been very effective and conspicuous workers in the field of educational effort. Some others may have died, but your committee have not been able to obtain reliable information concerning them.

We respectfully submit brief sketches of the life and labors of John D. Philbrick, LL. D., of Massachusetts, J. Norman Steele, Ph. D., of New York, Ariel Parish of Connecticut, and F. R. Feitshans of Illinois. The last named died at Denver, Colorado, only a few days after the meeting at Topeka, where he took an active part in the Association. It was deemed fitting to pay a tribute to his memory in this year's report. We are indebted to Charles Northend, of New Britain, Conn., for the sketch of the life of Mr. Parish; and to others for facts in regard to the lives of the others noticed.

Respectfully submitted,

W. E. SHELDON, Chairman.

JOHN D. PHILBRICK, LL.D.

John D. Philbrick was born in Deerfield, N. H., on the 27th of May, 1818, and died at Danvers, Mass., on the 2d or February, 1886. Mr. Philbrick received his collegiate education at Dartmouth Cellege, from which institution he graduated in 1842. While a student in college, he was noted for his industry and his preseverance. He entered college for a purpose, and he never lost sight of it until it was fully accomplished. He early chose teaching for his life work, and from that time he studied with reference to preparing himself for the duties of his chosen profession.

In the year 1837, and for one or two years later, Mr. Philbrick was a teacher in the town of Danvers,- now Peabody and Danvers.

Mr. Philbrick taught the same school for three successive winters during his college course. At that period, teachers' meetings were almost unknown, and the helps of any kind for teachers were rare indeed. As there were some twelve or fifteen male teachers in the town, many of them college students, they formed a sort of association among themselves, and met occasionally in different parts of the town. These meet

ings were both pleasant and profitable, and were greatly enjoyed by Mr. Philbrick, who ever evinced the determination to make the most of his abilities and opportunities.

On graduating from college, he came to Boston and entered at once upon his chosen work, beginning as assistant teacher in the Latin school in Roxbury. The same qualities of mind and heart exhibited themselves in his practical life as a teacher, that had distinguished him through the years of his college course as learner. He was industrious in preparing his daily tasks and persevering in the application of his methods of teaching and control.

His success as a teacher attracted attention, and in 1844, he was transferred from the Roxbury school to the English High School. In 1845 he was made master of the Mayhew School. Three years later he was appointed to organize the Quincy School, the first of the present system of grammar schools of the city.

Early in his educational career, Mr. Philbrick gave evidence of possessing a rare degree of organizing power. In the exercise of this power he exerted, perhaps, more influence over the organization of the schools under his charge, than over the philosophy and methods of teaching accepted and practiced in them. In 1852 he was called from Boston to New Britain, Conn., to organize the State Normal School, established two years before in that town, for the training of teachers of the public schools.

By an act of the Connecticut legislature, passed in 1849, the office of Superintendent of Common Schools and that of Principal of the State Normal School were united. Mr. Philbrick accepted the twofold office, and did all in his power to perform well the responsible duties committed to his care. As principal of an important educational institution, and as superintendent of a system of schools, he did enough for Connecticut to eventually provide for her public schools better trained teachers, and for the teachers themselves a more generous support.

By invitation of the school committee of Boston, he came back to Massachusetts in 1857, and commenced what proved to be the great work of his life, the reorganization and direction of the public schools of the city. Mr. Philbrick was superintendent of the public schools of Boston from 1857 to 1874, and again from 1876 to 1878, and when he resigned his office, he left these schools the best organized and conducted public educational institutions in this or any other country.

Mr. Philbrick performed some important educational service outside of his labors as Superintendent of Schools.

Mr. Philbrick was for eleven years an active and prominent member of the Board of Education of Massachusetts. His broad, generous views of education, his intimate acquaintance with the actual working of our public

schools, and his warm sympathy with teachers, made him one of the most valuable members of the board. His chief duty as a member was in connection with the normal schools of the State.

One of the most marked departures from the customary course of common school studies, during the term of Dr. Philbrick's membership of the board, was the introduction into the schools of elementary instruction -industrial drawing. In response to a petition from some of our foremost citizens, seconded by the Board of Education, the legislature, in 1870, passed an act introducing industrial drawing into the school curriculum in cities and towns containing more than 10,000 inhabitants. But brief experience under the law made it apparent that special preparation of teachers for this work was necessary to give definiteness of aim and adaptation of methods to the end in view.

Out of this discovery, among other instrumentalities, grew the State Normal Art School. To Mr. Philbrick more than to any other one person are we indebted for the Massachusetts Normal Art School. The necessity for such an institution became apparent to him at the outset of the movement, and his experience as an educator enabled him to see, with perhaps greater clearness than others, its necessity in order to carry on the work throughout the State.

He was appointed by the government to represent the United States in educational affairs at the Vienna Exhibition, in 1873, and again at the great Paris exhibition in 1878, of which he made elaborate and able reports. He organized and superintended the Massachusetts educational exhibit at Philadelphia, in 1876, and did his work with so much skill and good judgment, that the products of the public schools were judged to be of the highest excellence.

Mr. Philbrick has contributed much to our educational literature by his able public addresses, and by his valuable school reports, which have embodied his best thoughts on a great variety of educational topics. These reports will be read, I am sure, with increasing interest by all educators who have access to them, as the years go by.

Mr. Philbrick was a member of that association of gentlemen, who, interested in the professional applications of science, and in the practical and fine arts, began to form those ideas, which, after struggling for a long time for an opportunity to make a material expression of themselves, finally, on the eighth day of April, 1862, were organized into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,-an institution that introduced at once a new and most important element into our systems of education. From the day of the organization of this distinguished institution to the time of his death, Mr. Philbrick was a member of its corporation and of its committee on instruction. He was an earnest and intelligent friend of the Institute, for he was deeply interested in its objects and its methods.