The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-09-23
SCHOOLS AT WAR
Indiana State and Sectarian
Educational Institutions
Place Their Fight Foremost in
the Campaign.
CONTEST is BITTER.
Gree Education is the Slogan
of One Element.
Equality Under the Law" De-
is BITTER.
Equality Under the Law" De-
manded by Opposition.

Indianapolis, Sept. 2S.-Public schools
versus private schools. That seems to
be the overshadowing question in In
diana just at present. To state it more
accurately, state colleges versus non
state colleges. Higher educators on
both sides hard at work. Presidents
and superintendent hitting one another
hard raps. Preachers and politicians
and legislators drawn into the fight
Wllly-nllly. Bureaus Of information or
gained and thousands of pamphlets
sent broadcast over the state. Church
meetings held. Issue forced on con-
gressiona1 and legislative campaigns.
Free education" the cry on one side.
"Sectarian interference the cry on the
other.
Such is the situation in Indiana.
w men side will win man can not say.
1t is an old fight, but it was never so
general or so fiercely fought as now. It
touches the vitals of the state organiza-
ton 1t has mighty men engaged on
both sides. New politicians are looking
II up Old ones are restudying it.
Though the controversy was at first
confined to the official representatives
OF the colleges fostered by the several
denominations and those fostered by
the state, it has now Widened the circle
of its influence till it may be said to
embrace the state and to have gathered
to itself the energies of a tremendous
conhagration whose fires were permit
The men who have placed themselves
upon opposite sides of the controversy
and who are recognized as leaders are
presidents of the various institutions of
learning, and for years have been send
ing out into the state men and women
who look back to them as oracles and
to their alma mater as benign mother.
Hence when the day of pointed contro-
Versy arrived it was not strange that
each side found itself REINFORCED by
hundreds of the brightest intellects in
the state, each ready to employ every
available weapon of fact and logic in
defense or attacks, as occasion de-
manded.
The controversy between the state
and nonstate colleges is new only in the
intensity with which it is being waged.
in the broader field it occupies and in
the vast number that are engaged in
it. The fight was waged in the conven-
ton of 1851 that gave to Indiana a new
organic law, and there the nonstate
colleges won, but in after years the
state institutions came forward with
energies renewed by a season of rest
from strife, and power was added to
power till the nonstate colleges have
come to realize that the contest must
be made more pointed, and recognition
must be demanded and obtained from
the state itself if they would compete
in the great fields of learning with the
state endowed institutions.
Those who have buckled on offensive
aTmOr declare that the grounds of their
complaint are so old that their evils
are self-demOnStratiVe and so just that
they ought to appeal to every man, wo-
man and child in the state who is broad
enough to desire free and untrammeled
competition in educational work between
all the factors engaged in it. The non
state college men deny that they ask
for privileges or that they desire ad-
vantages which have so long been &C
corded to the state institutions, and
say that their demands are only for
w and official
recognition of the fact that they, too,
are engaged in educational work.
The men who lead the opposing sides
in the controversy are recognized in
side and outside of Indiana as teachers
of great ability and men of sterling
character. For the cause of the non
state or UNCONVENTIONAL institutions the
men who have taken up the cudgel are
Dr. w. 7. Stott of Franklin college,
President Scott Butler of Butler uni
versity, President Goblin of De Pauw
university, President Burroughs OF wa
bash college, President Fisher of Han
over. President Mills of Earlham, and
President Martin of Moore's Hill. These
institutions represent every denomlna-
ton in the state, and, Whatever may
be their differences on theology, they
are in perfect accord in their fight
against institutions in their attitude
toward all other educational work
On the other side of the controversy
are President Parsons of the State
Normal school, President Swain OF the
state university, President Smart of
Purdue university, David NJ. Getting,
SUPERINTENDENT of public instruction; D.
K. Goss, superintendent of the Indian
apolis public schools; Superintendent
Hester of the Evansville public schools,
and Superintendent Study of the Fort
Wayne public schools, By virtue of the
posftions held by these educators they
with the governor, constitute the state
board of education, and it is against
fine constitution of this board and
against laws now in force which the
hoard will not consent to agree to re-
peal that the nonstate colleges are
waging war.
WINS BY ELOQUENCE.