Judge Clark introduced the President, who said:
Ladies and Gentlemen—It is very pleasant to meet here, mingling with the citizens of this neighborhood, the pupils of your Normal School. One of the most influential characters in the history of the United States is the New England school-teacher. If we could follow the track of these intelligent men and women who have gone out from the New England States into the West and South; if we could trace those strong, yet slender and hard-to-be-discovered, threads of influence which they have started in the communities to which they went; if we could know how they have impressed on the minds of the pupils brought under their care the great lessons of self-respect and love for free institutions and social order,—we should have a higher thought than we have yet had of the power and dignity of these pioneers of education. [Cheers.]
[BRANDON, VERMONT, AUGUST 25.]
Brandon gave the travellers a hearty reception at 11 A.M. Ex-Gov. J. W. Stewart, of Middlebury, Hon. Aldace F. Walker, of Chicago; G. G. Benedict and C. S. Forbes, of St. Albans, joined the party here. Ex-Governor Ormsbee welcomed the President on behalf of the residents of Brandon.
General Harrison said:
My Fellow-citizens—The kindly pelting which I have received at the hands of some of your ladies and of these bright children reminds me of a like experience on the California trip, when we were so pelted with bouquets of handsome flowers that we were very often compelled to retreat from the platform and take cover in the car. These gifts of flowers which you bring to me here are the products of your fields and not of your gardens. The beautiful golden-rod! It is pleasant to think that in this plant, so widely distributed, slightly diversified in its characteristics, but spreading over nearly our whole country, we have a type of the diversity and yet the oneness of our people; and I am glad to think that its golden hue typifies the gladness and joy and prosperity that is over all our fields this happy year, and, I trust, in all your homes. I thank you for your pleasant greeting this morning, and bid you good-by. [Cheers.]