The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1902-01-07

"
A private letter from a g~entieman-a
superintendent Of education I'm his
county-makes inquiry as to the effect
of education In eIevatng humanity Il
the moral and religious scale. He asks
does education really make a better
heart, or a wiser heart. or does it really
effect the heart at all" We answer
education, has advanced the nations.
and none is governed now as ~unjustly.
oppressively, wickedly, cruelty as in the
past. It is said by enthusiasts that ed
ucation OF the mind does that
But you annot eliminate h great fac
tor and power Of Christianity. Leave
out Christianity and you see in educa-
tional results what you may find in all
European and American penitentiaries.
You will find in them all men Of good
education; some Of scholastic training
of the better kind. o will find in
southern penitentiaries today more
thar half of the negro convicts can read
and write.
We do not believe that the mere edu-
III ~ AAAA4 SsGA a(AA AK
heart. 1t certainly has no regenerating
power which is the work of the Holy
Spirit. Our intelligent correspondent
SAYS.
81 know that education trains the
head and the hand and max a good
man a far more useful man by making
him more able to conceive right. and
therefore. to do right, but what I wish
Tn knnyV iG 6nGz If mako one whn haQ
a a heart to have a better one. 1t,
sometimes. seems to me that education
just develops the faculties. or develops
the true character that is born in one
thus. If one has q bad heart 1t develops
him into a more powerfully bad one: If
one has a good heart it develops him
into a far more useful one"
The writer of this is very near the
truth. The natural man is carnal and
is at enmity with God. Hence the Son
of God told Nicodemus that Eye must be
born again." The plan Of alvatio is
easily comprehended, and it shuts out
all possible mistakes IS to the power of
education to transform, to re~generate,to
lift up man to higher plane of holy liv-
Ing and full conservation to God. We
do not go into this fully here because
in the past we have sometimes written
of it. We have not the statistics our
correspondent seeks or we would sup
ply him. They woul be instructive.
New York abolitionist told us some
fifteen years ago that he had visited
every southern p~enitentiary, and he was
shocked to find that more than two
thirds Of the negroes confined could
read.
We remark farther. that education
In n by itself has no power to lift up
men and make them better or more
honorable citizens. Nearly all of the
slick and sly rascals can read. Before
h war the whites as q whole, includ-
ing rich and poor, educated and inlet
tered, were as good citizens as this
country ever had. The poorer and
more ignorant class was freer from
crime and immoralities than the more
circles in the educated CEN
tiers in the north are at this day-in-
Guiding Boston, New York and Phila-
delphia. 1t is well to remember and
know these things. Education to make
men cleaner. better, purer, juster and
fairer in their dealings with their fell
low men must be surely of the heart"
Mere head culture will not mean safer
citizens, although it will make them
more potent factors in the building up
of a country. Let education be moral
as well as Intellectual. Let the heart
be cared for first, and then develop and
train the intellectual faculties. That
is true education-and there is no other
the education that saves and MAKE
alive and ~elevates men to the high and
commanding plane of honesty and
truthfulness and sobriety and useful
ness and success. Forty years ago or
more Horace Mann, Of Massachusetts,.
In his infatuation as to the results and
power Of mental education forgot the
moral and spiritual part, and held that
the edcation of the mind was quite suf-
fcient to make men every way better.
A very false and binding view of it.
Millions Given Away.