The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1882-07-06
Better Education Wanted.
BY C. c. KINBALL, d. d.
N irc.c; r..n.,,,., a4rrac CITE

All itupOslHS StiuCtuiO oOoi.eN
attention Bright. lofty and or
nate, it was the chief architectural
glory of Il city of Ten thousand peo-
pie.
A friend, in whose carriage l
was riding. said: That is our
public high school building. We
are quite proud of it"
r ding on into another street,
my eye fell on a building, scarcely
but somewhat dingy and
time-worn. 1t stood empty and
fororn in the midst of its beautiful
but neglected grounds THAT ex-
planned my friend. lis MI Blanks
old seminary building. The term
has just closed there, and the
school is abandoned forever"
Surprised, | asked: How can
that be? That school has been for
a quarter of century the chief at
traction and great glory of your
city, and the. principal cause of its
unusually high reputation for moral
ity and culture. How can your cit
liens suffer such school to be
abandoned?
at has been strangled by the
public high school. Our citizens
have been compelled by taxation to
pay for the high school building
and to provide the salaries of its
teachers, and they have not felt
able to support the seminary also.
And therefore its attendance fell off.
Mr.. Blank became discouraged, and
finally resolved to abandon his
school altogether. If the people
who have always supported the
seminary could have their choice,
they would greatly prefer it; but
the tax gatherer does not give them
any option"
And so it came about that an es-
tablished christian academy, the
blessing and glory of a thriving
young city, was relentlessly crushed
by the development OF secular edu-
cation. The explanation was
clear.
In that school the principal has
been man with the heart and
aims of the christian pastor. The
influences potent within those now
desolate walls, has been the in
spring and holy Influences of the
christian family.
Every instructor was q living
devoted follower of Christ Daily
the bible was opened and enforced
and the voice of prayer hallowed
both the place and the hearts of the
assembled youth. The education
furnished there was not q mere
whetting of the intellect, but an
even and symmetrical development
of the mind, the manners, the NOR
ais and the spirituality of each
pupil.
From every part Of the country
the pupils of this institution are
looking backward with unspeaka
bic gratitude and sadness to this
now abandoned, sacred school
which was to them at once the gate
to mental power, social culture, and
more than all, to spiritual blessing
1t is all ended now. Secular ed
ucation has replaced christian edu-
cation in that town. In the new
high school building the voice Of
prayer will never be heard; and
there the bible will be suspected
dishonored book There the
teachers will never be selected be
cause of their burning love for
Christ and his church, and their
zeal to train up generations of pure
and noble youths in the fear OF
God.
In that high school building
there will doubtless be teachers who
will be able and acute Some of
them will be cultured and refined.
A few will probably be genuine
christians, but unfortunately, they
will be prohibited, by the secular
character of their position, from be-
ing teachers of christianity.
The religious and spiritual edu-
cation Of his child is what the
christian parent chiefly prizes He
will get none of it there. Spiritual
and religious education is not pos
sible in secular school; but intidel
education, unhappily, is possible;
and it would be difficult perhaps to
find secular high school anywhere
in which some furious, church de
spising agnostic is not breathing
upon the susceptible hearts of its
pupils the whitening breath of his
hatred and scorn of all that chris
tian parents hold most dear.
The writer knows of city of
10000 population, the principal of
whose "high" school has been
wont to read the bible for the ex-
press purpose of ridiculing its holy
pages before his laughing pupils. r
The people of that town might go
back and learn wisdom from heath
en- Plato (Republic, 1917. They
might learn from Schiller how the
non christian culture of his day
augmented, not lessened, immortal
ity. They might learn from Charles
Hodge how ''those who seek to ex-
alt men by the mere cultivation of
the intellect are striving to make
satans of them.'''
They might learn from any
thoughtful statesman that secula-
rized higher education, is an intru-
sion upon parental rights, fraction
al in its results, inferior in itslchar-
acter, and no safeguard for popular
suffrage. And from the bible they
should have learned that, in the sec
ular higher education of the land,
they have forsaken and forgotten
all that the eternal Sovereign has
commanded them concerning the
education of their children.