The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1898-08-28

controversy Will luG CHIlSlldu AtNN-
cate and the Biblical Recorder, to both
of whom we tender assurances of our
distinguished consideration. A reply to
the Christian Advocate is precluded by
the narrowing of the issue to the discus
sion of our own good taste, Il question in
which the public generally is very little
Interested We also have IL magnani-
nous motive in refraining from re-
ply. We noticed last week the follow
ing resolution passed by the Shelby
District Conferences: that
men only in known sympathy with it
(Trinity College, shall be appointed as
editors of the North Carolina Christian
Advocate" We cannot strike a man
with his hands tied. As we have no
doubt of our ability to convince these
editors that State aid is not ''inimical
to- Christian institutions" and as such
conviction has already been charac-
terized by the Advocate as 'giving pre-
cedence to State institutions
over UNCONVENTIONAL institu-
ti0ns" of course the editors of the Ad-
vOcate would be considered as not ''of
known sympathy" with their own de-
nOminational college. That would re-
suit in the election of other editors, Il
catastrophe which we sincerely could
not bear to contemplate. But we at
wise the Advocate to drop the subject of
Christian Education for a while, in or
der to discuss the vital one of freedom
of the religious press.
The Recorder is as much distressed
over our lack of culture as the Christian
Advocate over our lack of taste. The
Spanish captain in Manila Bay was
equally distressed at the ungallantry of
the American officer who refused to al
low him time to get more ammunition.
And, in this weeks issue the Recorder
loses it's temper in a way that is not
good for the cause of Christian Educa-
ton, and we do not wish that cause
further damaged, by it's professed
friends. We shall only correct one mis-
representation out of many, and we are
willing to excuse an angry and defeated
man much. We did not make the state
ment that ''the mere fact that one
teacher in Il school is a Christian makes
the school a Christian school" One
Christian professor in the University
would not make the education given
there Christian. We named several, not
one. AS a matter of fact, every one of
the twenty-five full and associate pro-
fessors are Christian men, distributed
among the denominations as follows:
Baptist Professors Gore, Hume, Toy,
Whitehead. Cobb, Howell and Biggs
seven Williams, Wilson,
Harrington, Mangum, Linscott, Bynum
six. iscopalian-Battle, Manning,
Cain, Baskerville, NOble-fve. Presby-
terian-Alderman Alexander, Venable
and Holmes-foar Isn't it pretty
business for a religious paper or re-
ligious denomination to be instructing
its constituency to vote for the destruc~
ton of such an institution, under the
plea of Christian Education! And we
are also inclined to hold the Recorder
to the original contention as to State
aid to State institutions, rather than
State aid to church institutions. The
Jesuits have always opposed the hrst
and welcomed the second.
The Biblical Recorder also has
troubles of it's own. 1t has discovered
Il conspiracy" against our church in
situations. and is hinging its epithets
rather wildly at certain political papers.
We are inclined to doubt the evidence
for the conspiracy, yet we cannot for
pected? Politics is a game at which
two can play, and if our religious or
carnations under the lead of college
presidents are going to advise their adj
hercnts to vote for the destruction of
State institutions, it would be only nat
ural for the equally misguided friends OF
those institutions to combine in an at
tack on church schools, by preiudicing
the people against them.
And while we do not presume to speak
for Davidson college with the same free
dom that the Recorder takes, we feel
sure that that noble institution would
prefer not to have its name used in that
discussion.
The North Carolina Presbyterian, as
the friend of every institution in the
State that is doing the work of edu,:a-
ting the people, deplores such a con-
hict, and has no sympathy with either
side There is room for every college
that we have and more. Let rivalry be
honorable and competition have free
play. Let each denomination conduct
it's own educational system as If none
other existed. and let the State furnish
every educational facility for which the
people are willing to pay.
Says the Recorder:
Little did we dream that the exam
pie of Rome would ever be followed IN
North Carolina, and that the battle for
separation of church and State would
have to be fought out again in this
State and against Il Protestant church.
But slowly, silently and almost stealth
lily, the Presbyterians (Northern) have
gotten their hands into the treasures
of our public schools i'll Western North
Carolina; and to-day men and women
of that church, which boasts this prin-
ciple as no other, men and women not
as individuals, but as representatives
of that church, missionaries employed
by that church, which, according toI
the North Carolina Presbyterian, has
supplied our nation with about all of
its heroes, advocates and defenders of
liberty since the beginning, that church,
has promulgated Il school system in
some of our mountain counties whereby
it gets the public school money for run
ming its own institutions. This is the
Roman Catholic idea identicaly. 1t isl
union of church and State without de-
Tense or apology"
The Intelligent reader will recall thatI