Dr. Sears was an unusual man, who comprehended conditions in the South and was disposed to improve them in every feasible way by using the resources at his command. He had no inflexible program and was willing to modify his plans to fit changing conditions. The income of the Fund appears small in this day of munificent foundations, but it seemed large then; and its effects were far-reaching. Sears was not an educational reformer in the modern sense. He seems to have had no new philosophy of education but took the best schools of the nation as a standard and strove to bring the schools of the South up to that standard. Through the aid of the Fund model schools were established in every State. The University of North Carolina opened its doors to the teachers of the State for professional training during the summer and was apparently the first of the summer schools now so numerous and popular. Direct appropriations in aid of schools were made out of the Fund, provided the community by taxation or subscription raised much larger sums. The Peabody Normal College at Nashville, Tennessee, was founded, and no effort was spared to develop a general interest in public education. Advice to legislatures, trustees, or communities was given when asked but so tactfully that neither resentment nor suspicion was aroused. Before his death, Dr. Sears had chosen Dr. J. L. M. Curry as his successor, and the choice was promptly ratified by the trustees. Dr. Curry was a thorough Southerner, a veteran of both the Mexican and the Civil War. He had first practiced law and had sat in the House of Representatives of the United States and of the Confederate States. At the time of his election to the management of the Peabody Fund he was a professor in Richmond College, Virginia, and a minister of the Baptist Church. He had a magnetic personality, an unyielding belief in the value of education for both white and black, and the temperament and gifts of the orator. As a Southerner, he could speak more freely and more effectively to the people than his predecessor, who had done the pioneer work. During the years of his service, Curry therefore gave himself chiefly to the development of public sentiment, making speeches at every opportunity before societies, conventions, and other gatherings. As he himself said, he addressed legislatures "from the Potomac to the Rio Grande."