The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1895-10-26

rupt, if the South is to outgrow years OF
economic misconception, if the teachers
In our schools are to be true teachers,
educated men rather than party chief
tains or unframed place-seekers, they must
lead our civilization. The potential Of
trained mind must constitute the test OF
true leadership in the South hereafter.
The popular contempt for higher educa-
ton and the popular pride in the self
made man is always widespread ana
strong among unframed people
The feeling is a sort or ret
ribution upon scholarship and
educated power for its cOwardlce
and selfshness, but it is none the less
defiance Of common sense. The edu-
Gated man may not always be in place,
but he is sooner or later in power. The
higher education is the dynamic clement
in the life of the community, inylgorating
the scho lis of the people, bravery strug-
Cling to elevate the common standard OF
living, supplying the State with its
teachers in the school room, the press,
the pulpit, the family.
Out of the universities Of the world
have come its creative movements and
men-religious freedom in the old world
and civil liberty in the new. Modern Ger
many is the child of her universities and
relies more firmly for her permanent
power upon them and their %, 900 stu
dents than upon her inVincible soldiery.
Blot out the inf fences of Harvard and
Yale and the colleges of the Atlantic
seaboard, and what art can estimate the
loss in moral elevation, practical power
or national character. The great Oolum
bian Fair, with It's splend0r and beauty,
will fade away as dream, but its
neighbor, the University, will shape
western life for unnumbered generations.
Wherever tyranny has sought to Cypress
the weak or ignorance to rule the wise,
wherever the borders of light have
needed to be enlarged, or ancient and
prosperous shapes Of wrong to be cleansed
from the land, the gray walls of the
University have yielded up its spiritual
batallions strong in the steadfast pur
pose and cultivated, brain discoveries or
thought, conservators of truth, stlmula-
tors of mind, sowels of seed that will
bear fruit in fairer time
The feeling is instructive that
men of this stamp and quality
must serve a state in epochs of downfall
and trial The South has not failed in
this feeling as its brave efforts to estab-
lish and maintain schools and colleges
for both races quite eloquently show,
but the needs of Southern society are so
great, her young men seeking training
are so countless, the work of all the col
leges is such fraction of what is left to
be done, the disheartening rivalries and
chickering's among the colleges themselves
are such distressing proofs of the need
of higher education that it has seemed
best for me to leave the questions Of
technique and administration to wiser
men and, even in this presence, to plead
for the thing itself
We are not all of one mind as to how
the great need shall be supplied. There
are those who insist that this vital thing
is not concern of the States whose
highest functions they declare are sym
bolized by the pollceman's club or the
laws penalty. And, then, there are the
prosperous communities, with amassed
wealth and settled material skill who
say to US that we must wait upon the
impulses OF philanthropy or the activities
o. the church for our educational foun
dations But the nature of the State is
at variance with the limitation of its
powers to civic regulation and the in
stinct of civic self preservation decides
against trusting wholly to individual
generosity or ecclesiastical agencies for
an universal social necessity. The State
is not the government aione-it is
the will of the people expressing itself in
benefcent institutions as well as in penal
or protective codes. The protective
function of State, indeed. may disap-
pear as reason advances, but the loftier
educational function will increase as So
cial relations grow in complexity.
From the standpoint Of right, there is
no power to which the State can dele
gate its duty and power to educate, for
there is no higher power than the State.
II there is higher power in the State
than the State then that power is the
State. From the standpoint of political
Common sense, the agent Of social saliva
ton should be at least as potent as the
extent of social peril. Our social peril
is superlative involving education or mi
Etdb4O4 lCSNlhtAOus A1G tCSS4S
conceivable agent is the State which is
concerned about, and surely is RESPONSE
be for its own life. Therefore, it is the
all powerful State that must maintain
itself against vital danger. IL it be con-
coded that the youth of Commonwealth
have the same right to be educated
that they have to be free, then
it must also be conceded that
the State is responsible for and
alone has the power to guarantee the
granting of this sacred right. To those
who concede the States night and duty
to educate in the primary education and
deny it in the higher, it may be answer
ed that an argument for any education
is an argument for all education. If the
State has right to educate at all it Ike
wise has the right to determine the ex-
tent and character OF that education. All
knowledge is comparative, the higher ed
ucation of one age becoming the lower Of
the next and there can be no dead line
in learning at which knowledge ceases
to be good and becomes useless. The
three "Rs" are indispensable. But mere
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