The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1888-02-09
Higher Education-A Most Praisewor-
thy Undertaking.
Wilmington Morning Star. I

Raleigh BibHfaI Rec0Ner, young
minister of good education and
promIs has been put in charge of the
" North Carolina Students Aid Fund 3"
with headquarters at Wake Forest Col
lege. The organization, of which Mr..
Farrss is agent, is designed to promote
higher education in North Carolina.
The friends of the movement profess to
be desirous of putting it in the power
of every worthy boy in the State who
is possessed of good natural parts, a
sound body and good moral char
acter, and who desires an education,
to secure it if he is willing to work for
1t. The association called the "Stu-
dents Aid Fund is organized to pro-
mote this end. BY the aid Of the as
ISOLATION he can prosecute his studies
at Wake Forest College, now an insti-
tuition OF learning Of high grade, where
the morals are watched over and dis
ciplined, and where the facilities for
learning are ample. Wake Forest
College for forty years has been doing
most important work for our Stale.
Other States have shared in the bless
ing to some extent. Men in the high
est calling of life, and who are reading
faithful service now to the cause of
humanity, were educated at Wake
Forest College.
The Star believes in education, and
especially in higher education. By
higher education we understand that
system which trains the soul for the
blessed life to come, enlarges the men,
tai faculties, disciplines them and
trains them to think, and supplies the
mind with ample furniture and ap-
paratus for the life that now is. The
Star does not believe that necessarily
the best educated people are the purest
and most useful. There are some
splendidly gifted and educated devils
in this country and in Europe. The
States boasting of the most colleges
and greatest number of students have
not the highest standard of morality.
In fact, the morality Of Harvard Uni
versity, with its nearly two thousand
students, is Ioaoe,- this day than that
of Wake Forest with its nearly two
hundred students, or with that of any
college in North Carolina. So num-
bers do not tell the story always. We
say this, as preparative to the follow
ing from a communication from Mr.
Farriss in the Raleigh Chronicle. He
writes:
"But even admitting that it is greater,
the question would be pertinent as to
which is the greatest part of the Uni
ted States. Let us answer the ques-
ton with our Southern prejudices
wrapped up in a ma, KIN. New York
is our greatest State. What is the
fact about New York? One sugges-
tive fact is sufficient on this point-it
has thousand more young men in
colleges and schools of science than Of
the States. The next greatest State Is
Pennsylvania. In 1880 she had In
colleges and schools of science 4,7S8
young men. The next in order are
Ohio, Massachusetts and Illinois, the
first two having nearl y 5000, the last
not quite $500. The Southern States
are meagrely represented, except Ten
nessee in twenty years. Vanderbilt,
its greatest, was established in 1873.
Louisiana is the smallest, with g..
North Carolina has GIS. 1t would
not be difficult to prove, then, that
the greatest and wealthiest States Of
our Union are really those which have
the most young men pursuing higher
education"
The Star may be old fashioned.
We rather glory in the fact. We hold
to the old Bible, the old truths, tie
old theology, the old Constitution,
the old traditions, the old principles,
the old virtues, the old faiths, the old
system of ethics, the old friends and,
last but not least, 20 the % Old South. "
We take no nezv South in ours, with
It's contemptuous filings at the fathers
and heroes with its new theology OF
Munger, Mulford, Smith and the other
new lights; with ITS worship Of the
:" almighty dollar; with its prostra-
ton before Northern materialism and
ideas. There is something greater
than wealth, greater than numbers,
greater than power. 1t is truth, honor,
virtue, pure morality, benevolence,
love of home, love of family, of ira
ditions and ancestral faiths. The
great peoples of the earth were great
est when they were simple, as history
shows. 1t is against m0dtyu mateFT-
aiism that we would protest. There
is nothing noble and great in material
ism. Its tendency is to increase the
lower, sordid, coarser proclivities oi
our being, and to proflne the highest
sanctities of our falIeE nature. The
spirit Of the age IS mate51aiisdf. The
tendency is all earthward and no;
Heayenward, to exal- the material
above the spiritual" Says an elo-
quent Southern Presbyterian divine,
Rev. DR.. T. D. Witherspoon:
" Material prosperity is its (utilita.
riauisml highest goal. Civilization /: