The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1875-06-03
THE BAPTISTS, EPISCOPALIANS
AND NIR. DAVIS. ,5alI

Mr.. Jefferson Davis should be the creator
at the capital of Texas Of an university in
fact as well as in name, and here each de.
nomination should have its college, each
college contributing to the maintenance
and constituting an integral part of the
great university. By no other means and
at no other place can Texas establish a
seat of learning attracting the foremost
sarans of Europe and America. This colo
cation of colleges would liberalize the views
of the youths of the country and which
ever denomination is least founded in truth
will be first to object to this contiguity
Of colleges. Those conscious that they are
not organized in error will gladly have
every opportunity for progressive enhghten-
ment assured, and each college will con-
tribute its share of progressive students, to
become scientists and teachers and profess
ors, to the roll of undergraduates of the
great university. Its laboratories and libra
ries and lectures and polytechnic schools
- --l ont lI1SfrIlnfars and nef;naa--
learned mechanics and practical men, per-
feet masters of philosophy and science and
art, to enlighten and instruct the people and
perfect the civilization of Texas. The
heights about Austin, where epidemics were
never known, where the gathered records
and statistics of American Medical science
and of life assurance associations give to
the people most perfect healthfulness and
most enduring lives, were seemingly up
heaved that great college buildings might
crown the city with usefulness and archi7
tectural charms even as mountains and val
leys and beautiful river and verdgre-clad
plains have invested Austin with matchless
attractiveness. Railways will soon make
Austin as accessible as Houston, and uni
versity builders and founders of colleges
will surely confess that these institutions
are established that they may endure,
They are not of to-day or of tomorrow,
but designed to exert their benefcence
through countless coming years. The COM
monwealth's university should have ex-
istence at the commonwealth capital. The
trainers of laws and of government for the
empire should have constant access to the
libraries of the institution, and thorough
familiarity with the incidents of university
life and progress, and its fortunes should
be ever inseparable from those of the State
to be governed, through all time, like Great
Britain, by graduates of the great univer-
sity. ~
At an early day next month, we believe,
the Baptists, having perhaps greater mum.
Der of adult adherents than any body Of
Christians in the South, have convention
at Brenham.. Its purpose is to locate def
nitely seat of learning to be maintained
by this powerful Christian denomination
It win WELD money enough to create a col
lege having professors, born Of other Ameri
can colleges, but not enough to endow Ol
maintain an university. It cannot gather
learned lecturers and professors from uni
versities of Europe, but can have q small
imitation, in the usual slip-shod American
way, of institutions that give birth to th,
hereditary statesmen and orators snC
preachers and scientists of Germaay anc
Paris, and of old England. American
universities" /" are simply frauds Their
is not, except Harvard, even an limitation
of the English institutions at Cambridg
and Oxford, or Of those German student
crowded cities that have made German in
tellect, whether developed in stateeraft O.
philosophy, tine foremost Of modem times
It is an university such As win draw hithei
the first scholars Of Europe that is wanteG
in Texas. Such an university can only b
upbuilt by the cooperation Of each denomi
nation Of Christians with the State,
each church having its ewn colleges
and professors, teaching, if1need be, It
own peculiar forms and facts Of Christian
faith, and each sending up 70 the universit.
graduates Of the college as acolytess to b
prepared for active professional life in lee
ture rooms, libaries aud p0lytschni'
schools and laboratories Of the gseat uni
versity. II Baptist preachers q Bfenhan
can lift themselves out Of narrow groove
Of local sel6shness, in which they habitu
ally move; If the horizon Of their thought
and aspirations can be 90 Widened that ]
may embracs the empire Of Texas. and /
share Of its magnificent iatares II they cal
iook beyond the fttlenesa 81 today, ans
labor with reference 10 tie fortunes of tel
or twenty, or even forty milliOns 81 poopls
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