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President’s Annual Address 
H. Harold Hume 
We refer to our various crops, to their 
size and importance in the agriculture of 
the State, to the number of carloads we 
ship, to the amount of revenue we derive 
from them, and this Society is interested 
in all of these. But there is another crop, 
which, measured by any standard we may 
set up, surpasses in value potential or ac¬ 
tual all these—our boys and girls, the 
youth and children of Florida. No one 
can measure their value in the develop¬ 
ment of the State. We speak of our broad 
tilled acres, of our undeveloped resources, 
but what are these without men and wom¬ 
en? And these boys and girls are the fu¬ 
ture men and women. What they do, what 
they will become, is what Florida will do 
and become. Granted they are well born, 
as they have a right to be, their value is 
potential, it is not active. They are only 
possibilities; they are not developed and 
their development for usefulness in va¬ 
rious lines of endeavor, depends upon 
ourselves and the training we give them. 
In Florida, compulsory education has 
recently come into effect. It should have 
come long ago, and no citizen with the 
right point of view would have it other¬ 
wise. But the very fact that we have 
compulsory education puts an added re¬ 
sponsibility upon us. If, as in the past, 
we said to a child, “Here is a school, you 
may attend it or stay away from it,” we 
might with some show of reason be less 
concerned about the conditions in that 
school than we can be now, when we say 
to the child, “Here is a school, you must 
go to it.” Operating under compulsory 
education, we have undertaken an added 
obligation to see that proper buildings 
and equipment are provided and that 
trained teachers are placed in charge. 
Moreover, if we are to measure up to 
the needs of our cosmopolitan population, 
we must see that our educational facili¬ 
ties are of the best. We are anxious to 
attract to our State, as more or less per¬ 
manent residents, the best people from 
other sections of the country; but these 
same people have the welfare of their 
children most at heart and will not come 
unless we have schools of the right stan¬ 
dard to take charge of their education. 
In many of the rural districts of Florida, 
a school year of six months is the rule 
and we cannot expect people to relinquish 
the opportunity to send their children to 
better schools which are open nine or ten 
months and come to Florida. Ways and 
means must be provided for putting our 
public schools on the proper footing. Do 
not mistake me, the improvement in our 
public schools in the last two decades has 
been very marked and in many parts of 
Florida, the schools rank with the. best. 
But we should not rest in our efforts un- 
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