USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Malden > Memorial of the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Malden, Massachusetts, May, 1899 > Part 5
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One of the noteworthy features of the school work then, as I trust it still is, was the cordial cooperation which always existed between the teachers and the parents, between the parents and the teachers. Their joint purpose seemed to be, as it always should be, to make the common school attractive to every child in the community. The good teacher, like a good pastor, will be a welcome influence and an inspi- ration. The parents' responsibility ceases when the children start for school. Daniel Webster's mother understood this. She set a true example in the community in that time by attempting to teach her son herself; and then by denying herself everything to keep him at school, and by weaving and dyeing the garments which he wore when at Exeter Academy. But the first attempt in declamation broke down in tears. And though he was the cause of tears to that fond mother, she was yet to see him recognized with orators such as Demosthenes, Burke, and Chatham, as one of the seven wonders of the world of oratory.
Of the young people and the teachers with whom I had the honor to be associated in this city I cannot speak too appreciatively. They seemed to be the very best friends I had in the world ; and so long as I continue to wear this little endless band of gold - the only thing, I suppose, about me that I bring back to Malden -this little band of gold they gave me- I shall always think my regard was recipro-
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cated. Why, it was a Malden High School girl, a graduate of that valuable institute of learning, with whom in the church near by I had the honor to exchange life-long promises, which, I trust, have never yet gone to protest.
Notwithstanding quite a wide experience of education after leav- ing Malden, I can truly say that I am in no small degree indebted to this good city of Malden and to my experience here for my very fundamental conception of the ideal of the teacher, - the teacher in whose ears the song of the ninety and nine rings right on forever until she brings the last child into the fold of virtue and honor, - the teacher who is absorbed with just such devotion and honor to her pupils, and who has just such a patient willingness to set them right for the thousandth time, who has such an abiding confidence in them and such a yearning love for them, as only the tenderest mother or the Great Teacher Himself has for them.
Ah, my friends, teaching is a fine art, demanding in the artist not only character, scholarship, culture, and method, but also such a powerful æsthetic imagination, such a love of beauty, and such an abiding sense of the immortality of the children as shall inspire the teacher at every step. The material upon which the teacher works is more priceless than precious gems, more tangible than wood and iron ; for it is not known to be subject to such change as the transmutation of forces. Remember that every turn of the wheel and every stroke of the brush shall make or mar, both for time and eternity. It is indeed the material of a human soul which the teacher fashions; it is the living, winged spirit, a radiant being rising into view out of the illimitable past. Its course for a time is through this terrestrial atmosphere. It comes for a time within finite gaze, but at length it passes away out of sight without the slightest slackening of speed.
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. The Soul within us, our life's star, Has had elsewhere its setting And cometh from afar. Not in entire forgetfulness, Nor yet in utter nakedness, Like trailing clouds of glory do we come, From God, who is our home."
As has been well said, for the whole ground has been covered, it is eminently fitting that a great quarter-millennium celebration should open with this first exhibition of the public school. No other interest of the community is more important. We never tire in this land of declaring that we are all born free and equal. Now do we not talk about it every time we pay you a visit? It is vastly more important
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to remember that we should remain free and equal than that we are born free and equal ; and the chief agency to that end consists in this noble system of common schools. Ah, I thank the electrician for lighting up here the red on their cheeks, the white on their hands, and the glow of their eyes. Or is it a Star-Spangled Banner I am thinking of? Ah, I say there is no other interest in the community more important than this - no other agency more valuable than our common schools. It is the chief force of our economical epoch. Why any attempt springing from motives of false economy or exclusiveness to limit the advantages of free education to that select few whose leisure and means permit them to do nothing else but to attend school for twenty to twenty-five years? If it is the idea that they will monopolize the successes of life, - any such attempt is rebuked by every page of our history. There is no spirit of oriental caste in America. It was a young American who admitted that his father was a swine-herd. "Yes," he replied to the high-born idler, "and if your father had been a swine-herd you would have been one too." Ah, friends, what is a grander privilege in this realm, whether we consider it as a form of life endowment for ourselves or as a provision for our children, than the right to place those children under the care of teachers who shall be just as worthy as the father, in his capacity of citizen, sees fit to demand, - teachers whose morning hymn shall never cease? With Dr. Watts, we can say : -
"Could I in stature reach the pole, Or grasp the ocean with a span, I would be measured by my soul, - The mind 's the standard of the man."
Well, I must not detain you. What an admirable example your Massachusetts speakers set here. One thought in closing. You are indeed fortunate. You are to be co-related with this great historic anniversary of yours, upon which you are to spend several days look- ing backwards, and especially forward during the century ; and which falls in the brilliant close of the nineteenth century, when for the first time the eyes of the whole world are concentrated upon America. Our country is the product of four hundred years of growth out of widely varied peoples and territories. But up to the spring of 1898 we had lived as a nation in comparative isolation. The great powers of the world knew little of our existence, and held us only in ill- defined respect. In the matter of armies, they had the idea that the ideal, the typical soldier, is the German, who will march right up to the cannon's mouth and cut into pieces the enemy's platoons without ever swerving from company front. In the matter of navies, they viewed as invincible the British battle-ship.
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Now, my friends, the charge of the American volunteer up San Juan hill and the performance of the American fleet at Manila Bay compelled a pause in these established trains of thought, and taught the world that at least there are others. Why, the Spanish admiral over there at Manila knew, before a single shot was fired, that he would be annihilated, when he saw the American squadron steaming in there and lining up in that encircling naval procession, as if they feared nothing in the heaven above, in the earth beneath, and espe- cially in the waters under the earth. Ah, the supreme lesson for you, my young friends, out of that crisis - I know what you are thinking of, but it is not that. It is not in the magnificent courage, sublime and steady, of our Green Mountain admiral, Dewey- Dewey, you know, had been down there at Mobile Bay, like Farragut, the old sea dog. It lies not in his sublime courage ; it lies rather, for young people who are preparing for the battle of life, right in the cool, un- wavering nerve, the scientific accuracy of the American sailor and the men behind the guns. They never wearied. Now, boys, don't you weary with the multiplication-table. The American sailor had never wearied with year after year of unceasing target-practice; and the target which he had in 1898 was the medieval civilization, which he knocked off the western continent. Why, your able superintendent talks about the power to do and be. What better illustration do you want of it than that numerical precision of American shot and shell curving over there with mathematical precision, and landing, one after another, right in the vitals of those Spanish monarchs? Ah, my friends, and best of all, what better illustration do you ask, boy or man who knows so much, and so many things which are not so, than was symbolized by the harmless activity of the Spaniards? If you were Rhode Islanders, I should have something to say about our Tea Party there. Now who of you, as a loyal son of Massachusetts, was not reminded, in reading of the impregnable position taken by our fleet - by the "Boston" and by the other noble ships - of that passage referred to in Webster's immortal reply to Haynes? - " Mr. President, I shall not enter upon any encomiums upon Massachusetts. There she is. Behold and judge for yourselves. There is her history. The world knows it by heart. The past at least is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Bunker Hill, and there they will remain forever."
Well, now, a good deal of what I have said has been for the benefit of the young folks, and you must excuse me, for I did not see your program before coming here. I have just one thought in con- clusion. It will not take me five minutes. It is not only true that the eyes of the world for the first time are concentrated upon America. It is also true that young America himself, for the first time, is seeing
CONVERSE MEMORIAL BUILDING - MALDEN PUBLIC LIBRARY
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himself in the mirror of the whole world. Why, he grew a century, he grew to man's estate, in those one hundred and thirteen days of 1898. He realizes now that he is actually within the circle of nations, and henceforth must do a grown-up son's part in the world's work. Besides his phenomenal success, if you believe it on the fourth of July, young America will become more modest as the years go on, learning, as he does, all the goodness there is in other forms of government. Why, think of our nearness to England. That near- ness has been increased by the Spanish war as never before. Shake- speare is common to both these countries, and the English language has been shown to be grander than ever before. It is not only the richest storehouse in history, but it represents the strongest civilizing force in existence. If now these two great branches of the Anglo- Saxon race on both sides of the Atlantic shall stoop to take up the white man's burden, as it is to be presumed that they will, who can estimate the uplift of civilization which will follow ?
As a member of the bar, not because I love teaching best, I am interested in that great thought to which I shall now call your atten- tion. Positively my last appearance. But it is a matter that has been mentioned in all the law books. I think that in the next gener- ation it will command profound attention. The supreme reverence of other countries for America, as they study us, is our unique position in the matter of constitutional law. The framing and interpretation of written constitutions, with penalties to secure their enforcement and the administration of government under them, is the great his- toric differentiation of America from all other countries. Our forty- four written state constitutions support and are supported by the great keystone of the United States, each preserving perfect equipoise in its legislative, executive, and judicial functions. Now the touch- stone of all these great title-deeds is the perfect equality of all men, without the slightest hereditary differences. I veritably believe that it is this principle of equality, infusing itself into this thought of America, which is to be chiefly credited, not only with our political advancement, but with the advancement of this country in all the arts and sciences. Constitutional law here, to be sure, has had great issues to meet. There was at the outset a troublesome question rela- tive to the power of the great states and the small ones. It was happily settled in the plan of our constitution, which gave Rhode Island, for example, as many senators as Massachusetts. There was the crucial test in the early days, when the courts dared to put their feet down and declare a law unconstitutional and set it aside. New grounds when that was first broken, my young friends. Ah, there was a masterly division of powers between the national and the state governments, not recognized, not admitted, until our civil war con-
4
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firmed it, but now established in a law steady as the basis of the social system, our great central sun of local government having not the slightest wish to disturb the local routine of states so long as it conforms to the law of the system. Well, those problems touched upon do not trouble me here. The trespasses of the money power when it becomes unscrupulous, and the differences of capital and labor seem not insurmountable in the light of those things of which I have spoken. The whole people, so long as it is Christian and educated, is wiser and stronger than any class of the people. Abraham Lincoln's definition of our government is scientifically exact, - a government of the people, for the people, and by the people.
" Yet, God, we thank Thee for this bounteous birthright of the free, Where wanderers from afar may come and breathe the air of liberty. Still may her flowers untrampled spring, Her harvests wave, her cities rise ; And yet, till time shall fold her wing, Remain earth's loveliest Paradise."
MARCH OF OUR NATION.
SCHOOL CHORUS. ADAM GEIBEL.
Onward, march onward, dear land of the free : Spread thy proud flag over land and o'er sea. Sing it with glory, and sing it with might, Virtue, and honor, and freedom, and right.
God, Father of nations, unto Thee we sing : Guard, guide, and protect us, - our almighty King. Still e'er may we follow Thy precepts divine, And may sweet Freedom's bright star on us shine.
THE CHAIRMAN. - From the days of Horace Mann to the present time the state has manifested a deep interest in our public schools, and never more so than now. Always welcome where educational matters are discussed, equally at home in college hall or primary schoolroom, we deem it high honor to have with us the secretary of the State Board of Education, Hon. Frank A. Hill.
ADDRESS BY THE HON. FRANK A. HILL.
I HAVE to give fifty years of Malden's history in five minutes. I give it up, Mr. Chairman. It cannot be done, at least by myself. So I propose to limit myself to the heads of my discourse, and to those heads only. Here they are, in all their baldness and possibly in all their shininess, if they have that quality.
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1. The boys and girls of Malden in 1649 by no possibility could have foreseen the wonderful development of Malden during these two hundred and fifty years. The boys and girls of Malden to-day can survey it all. There is where you all have the great advantage.
2. The Malden of 1649 had faith in public schools, but lacked the administration. The Malden of 1899 has faith in public schools and does not lack the administration. Witness this beautiful and hopeful occasion and all that it signifies.
3. Exclusively for the Malden girls. In 1649, girls did not attend the public schools. They were not forbidden to do so, so far as I can find out, but it was not the custom. They went to dame schools, and learned their letters, and that was enough. One hundred and fifty years later, the girls began to appear on the outskirts of the public school systems, in summer schools, like Alpine flowers bridg- ing the glaciers. To-day, nobody dreams of asking where they are in the public schools, but rather where they are not.
4. The idea of a cultivated, educated girl in 1649 was scouted.
5. There were some good people in those days who even thought that the woman who had literary tastes was on the verge of insanity. Just a bit of history to clinch.
6. Governor Winthrop, in his history of New England, 1640 to 1649, - my notes say he began to stop writing history when Malden began to make history, - Governor Winthrop tells in that history a very pathetic story about Mrs. Hopkins, wife of the governor in Hartford, Conn., how she was fallen into a sad infirmity, no less than the loss of her reason from the reading and writing of books. If Mrs. Hopkins, said the good governor, had minded her household affairs and such things as belong to women, and had not gone out of her way and calling to meddle with things which belong to men, whose minds are stronger, she had not lost her wits.
7. Teachers, my young friends, in themselves, will never insure a noble womanhood or a noble manhood.
8. It is imperative that there shall be a right use of teachers. Alone they count for nothing - nay, I sometimes think that they are worse than nothing.
9. These are times for trusts, gigantic trusts, organizations, steel trusts, coal trusts, wool trusts, bicycle trusts, and what not. Let me commend to each one of you a trust. The trusts of the time will some of them be solid and good. But some of them are mere rain- bow bubbles, that are destined in time to burst. Each one of you can be the promoter of a trust. Who and what shall be the parties to that trust? Let me name a few. Your parents or school teachers, then the goodly system of Malden, your integrity, your ambition, your zeal, your persistency, your determination, your indomitable
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pluck to make the most of yourself. Organize all these things in a trust. It is not necessary to go to New Jersey to do it. The stock of this trust is all preferred, the dividends are guaranteed, as they say in the stock market. The world is short, so far as the stock of such a trust is concerned. Be long, as they say, in that stock. The stock is certain to rise above par. It is above par already. I am sure that such a trust can never be an iridescent bubble. But my time is up.
Two hundred and fifty years from now your great-great-great- grandchildren - how many greats shall I say? - will undoubtedly assemble just as we are assembled here to-day to talk it all over. Let us hope that in that far distant time the Malden of those days will look back with as much pride upon five hundred years as the Malden of to-day looks back with pride upon her two hundred and fifty years. You are here, my young friends, to celebrate the past, to welcome the future, to give this goodly city a send-off on its second quarter- millennium. Let that send-off be a magnificent one. You can give Malden such a send-off, if you only will - a magnificent send-off, that will be a credit to your ancestry, an honor to yourself, and an inspiration to those who come after you.
THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER.
SOLO BY MISS MARIE E. LUCHINI.
SCHOOL CHORUS.
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous figlit, O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Chorus : Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave - O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses ? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam ; In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream.
Chorus : 'T is the star-spangled banner : oh, longmay it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
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Oh, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the wild war's desolation ; Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation ! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto : " In God is our trust."
Chorus : And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
CAPTAIN DODD'S TROOPERS.
IT was owing to the timely and energetic action of Chairman Cox and the hearty assistance of Senator Lodge that permission was obtained from the War Department for the presence of troop F, of the third U. S. cavalry, at the celebration.
This noted troop, which has distinguished itself by its service in the West and at El Caney and Santiago, is considered the best drilled troop in the regular army. Capt. George A. Dodd, its commander, one of the best cavalry officers in the service, lias brought it to a highi state of discipline and efficiency, which was well shown in the several drill exhibitions which were given here.
The troop arrived in Malden on the afternoon of Monday, May 15, and proceeded to its quarters at the stables of the Lynn & Boston R. R. Co., at Broadway Square, where all the necessary conveniences for the comfort of the men had been provided by the committee on athletic and field sports. On the afternoon of the next day it started on a march through the surrounding country, camping the first night at Wakefield, and returning to its quarters in Malden on Friday. The soldierly appearance of the men as they passed through the city made a good impression, and their order and manly bearing mnade many friends while they remained in Malden.
The first public exhibition here was given at Ferryway Green on Saturday afternoon, in the presence of a large crowd of spectators. Stewart's Military Band was stationed upon the field and gave a short concert previous to the arrival of the troop, which came upon the field while Sousa's El Capitan was being played. The Malden Evening News said of this drill : -
" Captain Dodd and Lieutenant Howard rode on to the field the cynosure of ten thousand people, who gave them a roar of applause. The crowd was probably the largest ever gathered in Malden. The
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field is just right to drill in. The rough riding that followed the musical drill was a great sight, and every small boy who saw it declared it beat a circus.
" The band was stationed in the corner of the field, and to its music the troop then executed the silent musical drill, which has made it so renowned. Being in line, right by file was executed, and about the field in single column galloped those intelligent steeds, on whose backs sat their gallant riders as though a part of the horse. Then followed a series of evolutions, which it almost passes belief could be executed by horses and men ; and the thousands of specta- tors were so completely surprised that it was some time before they could bring themselves to applaud.
" Captain Dodd, superbly mounted on his chestnut mare, Cadet, directed the whole by a wave of the hand, and the eye of the first sergeant was ever upon him. Being in line, distances were opened to the front, and the horses circled to the right and left and then assembled backwards. Right by twos was executed sideways, each horse sidling to the right, and then by twos on the gallop in double circle about the field, halting, forming an arch of drawn sabres, under which the lines passed in reverse, Squads of eight were formed, and, after evolutions of much grace and finish, column was formed and more of the intricacies of fine evolutionary riding exhibited. All kinds of paces were exhibited, the horses assuming the different steps at the pressure of the knee and rein. Ambling sideways, galloping, trotting, loping, and walking were shown in all the degrees ; and the unison between man and horse was indeed beautiful to see. The drill closed by three love-pats on the horses' necks, and amidst the plaudits of the assembly they galloped to quarters for dinner."
Similar exhibitions were given during the forenoon and afternoon of Monday ; and the troop participated in the parade on Tuesday, occupying a position of honor in the line as special guests of the city. On Wednesday the command broke camp and started for its post at Fort Ethan Allen, Vermont.
RECEPTION AT THE FIRST CHURCH.
REV. HENRY HUGH FRENCH, D.D., Pastor.
THE church at Malden was gathered, on a date now unknown, a short time previous to the action of the General Court which established the new town. Its existence, therefore, is coeval with that of Malden ; and the completion of its first quarter-millennium was made the occa- sion of a series of interesting commemorative services, the first of
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which was held on the evening of Saturday, May 20. This was pre- ceded by a pleasant social reception, in which many of the past as well as of the present members of the church participated. After a season of introductions and renewal of old acquaintance, the company proceeded to the auditorium of the church, where the service began with a Song of Welcome, arranged for the occasion by John Langdon Sullivan, M.D.
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