The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1895-10-06
DIR. KILGO AT WAKE FOREST.
His Lecture Friday Evening on Christ
as an Educator.
WAKE FOREST. N. O. Oct. 8
Special to the News and Observer.

Special to the News and Observer.
WAKE FOREST, N. c., Oct. 5.
At o'clock last night large audience
in Memorial Hall greeted President
Kilgo, of Trinity College, with eDthu
slasm, as he rose to speak after DR.. Tav-
lor's presentation. After some intro
ductory pleasantries and the expression
of his delight at being in Wake county,
the home of his grandfather and
grandfather, and at Wake Forest College,
he announced as his subject, "Christ 9s
al Educator" 1t was not customary, he
said, to think OF Christ as man, q citi-
zen, patriot, an educator, but rather
as more or less removed from our ordi-
nary life and enveloped in the mysteries
of the redemption which ne wrought
out for mankind. Nevertheless, the secret
and efficacy of his work in this latter re-
lation were dependent upon his unique
fulfilment of the former relations. DR..
Kilgo announced his belief that the
greatest issues involving our civilization
are connected with education, and passed
to the analysis of Christ's principle and
method.
Christ produced the greatest energies,
and initiated the widest and most per-
manent influences, that have ever come
into human history. Our present civil
ization is its immediate product. Why
pass him by for such educational theo-
rists as Rousseau His influence as a
teacher was the result of his conception
of the dignity and the dsstiny Of man, a
conception which found early utterance !:
"Man shall not live by bread alone, but
by every word that proceedeth out of
the mouth Of God" There is somewhat
in mans nature which is above ma
terial satisfactlons, and it is
that which characterizes him. Ev-
cry educational institution and system
is marked by the view which it takes of
human nature. The industrial" and
the practical education" about which
many are so wild, in reality debauches
man and degrades him from Christ's
high ideal to beast of burden and a
vacuity to be filed with bread.
The aim of Christ as an educator was
to give life and to give it more abun-
dainty. That life had its source in his
own living personality, for he said,
Because | live, ye shall live also"
The aim of all education is to produce
more life, and that depends, not on
piles Of bricks, and air-pumps, and dead
fish in bottles, and gas bags, and bones,
but on the personality Of the teacher
able to arouse and influence the whole
being of the pupil.
But the education which is animated
by the Christian spirit and based upon
the Christian ideal is said to be sectarian
and narrow. "Show me the man who is
broader than Christ, who thinks more
universally than Christ, and / will leave
Christ for him, and the Master will bid
me go. Socrates thought for Greece,
Caesar thought for Rome, Buddha
thought for the east, Mohammed thought
for his own qualification. Christ thought
for all men of all times"
A Christless education, in the speakers
view, was the peril of our civilization,
and, of much that was said, it was the
clear implication that institutions sup
ported by public taxation could give no
other.
These were perhaps the main ideas of
the address; but they were elaborated with
SO n4uNu VI FIfih NCtdlis dLIu OnlAF OnGu Wlbu
wit so keen and viri!e, and Illuminated
with such graphicness of illustration,
and suffused throughout with so warm
glow of elevated enthusiasm, that this
report appears quite lifeless and ineffec-
tual.
1t was not plea for Christian educa-
ton, but triumphant assertion of its
essential dignity and necessity.
For an hour and three quarters the
audience were in that delightful condi-
tion of unstable equilibrium wherein
gravity and elevation of thought are
ever on the verge of tumbling into an
abyss Of laughter.
Prof. Jerome Dowd, of Trinity Col
lege, accompanied President Kilgo. They
arrived on the afternoon of Friday and
left by the early train next morning.