We have intrusted to your care the moral and intellectual training of those who in their turn, are to be the instructors of our children."
In reply, Principal Welch spoke in substance as follows:
"I receive with deference this commission and these symbols of authority which you have presented. In so doing I am invited to make some brief remarks expressive of my own sentiments, and befitting the occasion. It may savor somewhat of enthusiasm, yet in my humble judgment, this day’s work will form a prominent item in the history of western progress, This side the Empire State it is the first experiment of a similar character made under the auspices of legislative enactment. Who will venture to predict the influence which its success will exert upon the educational interests of the entire Northwest.
And it seems to me, sir, that in giving this edifice an elevation above the noble thoroughfare which threads our State, you have happily symbolized the relative rank which your enterprise should hold, when compared with the great physical improvements of the age.
It is no less than a systematic effort to give impetus to that cause upon which all other causes for human improvement are based, which indeed forms the very elements of all genuine progress. It is to aid those labors which though vitally essential to our prosperity, have been hitherto comparatively neglected. By giving mental refinement to the teacher, it is to create and strengthen a bond of sympathy between his and the other professions of learning. It is an effort to make the teachers’ duties as desirable in practice as they are elevated in theory, and important in result. We may then regard this occasion as one of the harbingers of that day when all schemes for mental and for moral advancement shall have a firmer and closer alliance. When a universal conviction that vice and ignorance are inseparable, shall disclose the true position of the teacher, and elevate his profession to its true rank, Is it not precursory of the time when the preacher and the patriot shall regard the teacher as an equal and indispensible auxiliary; when the evidence of such estimation shall be visible everywhere—in the schoolhouse and the church exhibiting equally in their structure the proofs of elegance and taste— both rising in such equal proportion towards heaven that the last rays of the sun as he sets, shall gild alike the cupola of the one and the spire of the other.
With such views, sir, I can give but feeble expression to the sense of responsibility which weighs upon me as I enter upon the duties of so noble an enterprise. Whatever imperfections I bring with me, (and from these I can claim no exemption,) I may still, with propriety perhaps, pledge myself ever to be actuated by an earnest and an ardent zeal to use the authority thus delegated, with an eye single to the interests of this institution, to be prompted in every effort by a strong unswerving attachment to the cause to which I have devoted the labor of my life. I
