s been Superintendent of our school work, this month
severs his connection officially with the A. M. A. He goes to take
charge of the State Normal School at Whitewater, Wis. This is the
school in which we found him as a professor, when we called him to
our ranks, and now we are called to give him up that he may go back
to stand at its head. We can ill afford to spare him. He is not only
a master in his knowledge of everything connected with schools, in
respect to organization, discipline and best methods of teaching, but
he is also a man of remarkable executive ability.

When he entered our work he certainly came into the kingdom for a day
that had been providentially prepared. The work had taken on massive
proportions. All over the South our schools had been planted. These
schools were branches of the same tree; they had a common trunk and
drew their life and spirit from the same soil. But, separated so far
from one another, as many of them were, there came to be a felt
necessity that some one competent to care for their common interests,
while recognizing at the same time their separate prerogatives and
rights, must be found. Multiplied variety necessarily had
characterized their development, and as a consequence, the unity of
their origin and aim had been endangered. That is a law of nature. We
had been brought to see and feel this. We looked around to find the
man equal to the task involved. It was not easy to find him. We
realized the difficulty. Our workers realized it. It would not have
been strange if we had made a mistake. A rare combination of
qualifications was demanded. We believed that Professor Salisbury
possessed these qualifications. We invited him to take up the work.
He accepted. He entered, and continued in it down to the last moment
he held the office, with all his heart and soul, and now that he has
felt constrained to leave us we are glad, not only on his account,
but also on our own, unreservedly to bear testimony that, we believe,
no mistake was made when he was appointed.

He has rendered the American Missionary Association signal service,
and when we remember how intimately the work of this Association is
connected with the welfare of the nation, it is not too much to say
that he has in these three years of hard and faithful work rendered
signal service to the whole land. Our school work has steadily grown
in efficiency and power ever since he took it up, and the general
cause of education al