The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-05-10
THE EDUCATIONAL REVIVAL.
Rev. D. Lyman Abbott Review of the Southern Elu-
CatiOnal Conference


bolt, and following the example OF Mr.
Smiley at Lake Mohonk, invited mum
Der of guests to his hotel at Capror
Springs, West Virginia, to consider the
ouestion of Southern education For a
number of years Mr. Robert C. Ogden, oil
New York city. has been accustomed to
invite party of Northern friends to ac-
company him to Hampton Institute, IN
Virginia, of which he is trustee, to par
ticipate in its Commencement exercises.
From these two sources has grown the
Southern Educational Conference, which
met in Richmond, Virginia, week before
last. of which we gave brief paragraph
account last week.
Three sessions were held daily; the
Music Hall was always full and often
crowded. all standng-room being taken;
Northern speakers were heard, and al
ways with cordiality, but sentiments OF the
Conference were voiced chiefly by South
ern men, and, as was proper, all the Of
fees were filled by Southern men, except
that Mr. Ogden was enthusiastically re-
elected President. The houses of the best
families in Richmond were thrown open
to the guests, and the problem how to at
tend all the sessions and also respond to
the hospitable invitations of the hosts was
a wholly insoluble one. The spirit of the
Conference was akin to that of religious
revival in the spiritual earnestness which
dominated it. Problems which two years
ago were discussed with serious apprehen-
sion were treated as theoretically solved,
and the reports from the field indicated
that they were in the way of practical
solution.
1t is apparently no longer questioned IN
the South that the State provision for the
education of the colored race is to be equal
to that for the white; the proposition to
appropriate only the taxes received from
the colored c.s-zens to the education OF
the colored children is not now seriously
entertained and is not likely to be renewed.
The question whether the people will tax
themselves for popular education is being
answered in manner which, if not uni
versally satisfactory, is universally pro-
gressive and hopeful. And the problem
of the rural school is being solved by
a concentration of district schools and a
transportation of pupils. One of the most
significant addresses was that giving an
account of rural school, equipped with
not only the necessary room for a graded
school, but with an assembly hall for popu-
lar use, provided with twelve acres Of
land furnishing means for possible hortl-
cultural and Horticultural education, and
accompanied by provision for bringing to-
gether to the school all children within a
radius of ten miles.
In brief, the Conference which is South
ern. in its territory but National in spirit,
indicates a great educational revival. A
full report of the proceedings of the Con-
ference is to be published hereafter, and
information concerning this report can be
obtained by addressing Charles w. Dab
ney, Southern Education Board. Knox
vile, Tennessee Here we attempt. not
such a report, but an Interpretation of the
movement of which the Conference is an
expression. 1t carries with it hope for
much more than a mere academic develop
ment 1t means a revival of industry, OF
liberty, of home life, of the religious
spirit.
/. Much of the current discussion con-
corning industrial education is based upon
the old and false assumption that indus
trial education and higher education rep
resent different if not antagonistic con-
ceptions that the highest education is that
which issues in the three learned profess
sions; that mechanical and agricultural
education prepares for an inferior calling
and indicates an inferior capability. The
Southern Educational Conference indicates
a healthful reputation OF this narrow and
narrowing conception. The end of educa-
ton is life; the object of life is service;
fha cd, xryhi6 re
the pupil for the best service that he can
render. The first service that he can rem
der to society is to support himself and
so not become burden on the charity OF
others. The second service is to aid in con-
tributing to the life of others. That all in
dustry is honorable. and all idleness is a
disgrace, is the first postulate of the new
educational movement; that no industry
is drudgery if it is intelligently performed,
and no industry is ennobling if it is per-
formed unintelligently, is it's second pos
tulate. 1t is a far higher and better thing
to make table intelhgently than to
preach a sermon, write an editorial or
teach school mechanically. The old edu-
cation prepared for three learned profess
sions, the new education prepares for in
telligent activity In every department of
life the old education was literary and
professional, the new education is indus
trial and universal. Thus the revival of
education means a revival of industry: a
humanizing and so an ennobling of all vo-
cations; a transformation of all by the IL
Illuminating power of a quickened intelli-
gence; the abolition of drudgery by mix
ing the labor of the hand with the labor
of the brain; an ultimate revolution in in
dustry SO that "the man with the hoe
shall no longer by synonym for stunted
intelligence, dwarfed affections. and
deadened ambitions Education means life;
and universal ducation-universal not
merely in the persons admitted to it, but
in the vital topics with which it deals
means universal life-a vitalzing OF the
farm and the factory, the full recognition
of the truth that all toll can be intelligent
and therefore all toll can be itself educa-
tive.
III. The revival of education involves the
revival of political liberty, because in uni
versal education it lays only enduring
foundation for universal freedom The
Outlook here reaffirms what its editor-in-
chief said on the platforn af Richmond