AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF INSTRUCTION. THIRTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING. FIRST DAY'S PROCEEDINGS. BOSTON, MASS., July 31, 1867. The AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF INSTRUCTION Commenced the First Session of its Thirty-eighth Annual Meeting, in Tremont Temple, Boston, at half-past. two o'clock this afternoon. The Association was called to order by the President, William E. Sheldon, Esq.; and prayer was offered by Rev. L. H. Rockwood, of the American Tract Society. ADDRESS OF WELCOME BY DR. J. A. LAMPSON. Dr. John A. Lampson, a member of the Boston SchoolCommittee, welcomed the Institute to the City of Boston. He said, Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen of the American Institute of Instruction, — In behalf of the School-Committee of Boston, it is my privilege and my pleasure to extend to you a most cordial and hearty welcome to this city. We appreciate the magnitude of your mission, the indispensa bility and dignity of your vocation. Wedded to our schools, in which we take an honest pride, but still constantly seeking new light, and striving for new and improved methods of training; recognizing the power of association to accu The AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF I the First Session of its Thinyent Al mulate energy, to kindle the heart and create new warmth and greater earnestness in our work, when the best educators of the land, from city and country, all moved by one and the same inspiration, come to our metropolis and assemble in this hall, the first words that must leap to our lips are the words of welcome, warm and strong. Judge Russell, the other day, told a story of his visit to a city on the Mississippi in the night, and, though the occasion was a festive one, he found it wrapped in darkness, the gas unlighted. The fact was, the people, weighed down by a large debt, had thought it best to dismiss their teachers and stop their schools, and thus lift the burden; but, when the matter was in debate, a Yankee, who had there erected his domestic altar, thought it better that the feet should stumble in darkness, rather than the minds of his children be shrouded in the black mantles of ignorance, proposed not to cut off the schools, but to cut off the gas. That man was the true representative of the New-England idea,-education first of all things; comforts, luxuries, and elegancies, afterwards, - the true inheritor of the idea of our fathers, who, before comfortable shelters covered their heads, planted the foundation of their schools in the interest of sound learning. The subjects which are to engage your deliberations on this occasion are of transcendent importance. Were you a body of statesmen convened to consider some matter of state, the lightning would take your words as they dropped from your lips to every house in the land; but, while they would be shaping the superstructure, yours is the more important business of laying the foundation. While they attended to outward interests, yours is the holier function of quickening the soul. To do this well, you must penetrate human nature to its core; the laws regulating the intellectual and moral machinery must be as familiar as the alphabet; you must |