The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1903-05-05

Nleges, but Of colleges and universities
that have comparatively large endow-
ments and equipments, but have not de-
veloped an educational conscience With
regard either to standards Of admission
or graduation, College presidents, instead
of being educational experts, thoroughly
familiar with the most recent educational
progress, have thought that enthusiasm
for the masses might atone for the SeTi-
Gus neglect of the more technical, but
none the less important, phases Of higher
education. That this movement is today
as successful as 1t is due primarily to
the untiring energy and wisdom Of Chan
cellor Kirkland of Vanderbilt University,
who for ten years in his own institution
and among the other institutions of the
South has stood for the highest ideals OF
educational work. He and men like him
have appropriated the best results of ed
vocational work in other parts Of the coun-
try. We have all been gratifed to hear
the sincere tributes that have been paid
to Thomas Jefferson as an educational
leader; what he has lone for American
institutions has been adequately appre-
ciated at this conference. Southern in
stitutions, with the same open-minGed-
ness need to reap the benefits Of werk
done within the past twenty-five years
by Presidents Eliot and Hadley, Gilman
and Harper. The followers of Jefferson,
in both education and politics, frequently
miss his prime virtue-oper mindedneSs
and progTeSsiveness; he went everywhere
for ideas ard institutionS-to France,
England and New England.
Public sentiment is growing In the
South in the direction OF an insistence
| on the demands made of a modern we'll
equipped college. Men are beginning to
see that e~ndowments and libraries and
laboratories are absolutely essential for
the development of scholarly work and
are working to thwart those Institutions
of learning that have perpetrated frauds
upon the public in the name of higher
education. I nave often regretted that
Garfield said what he did about Mark
hopkins and the log, for the remark has
done valiant service in the South and
West for the maintenance of colleges and
universities that had no right BY the
common standards Of honesty to exist.
The member of the Southern Education
Board have turned the light Of publicity
upon the country schools; men are also
turning the light on colleges and fnd-
ing that many Of them are unworthy Ct
the names they bear. You have raised
the cry of consolidation Of schools. we
need also to work towards the consolida-
ton or abolition OF colleges. Let US
not in our efforts to secure the adoption
OF local taxation as a fundamental prin-
ciple OF American democracy forget to
urge upon the State legislatures the prime
necessity of allowing State institutions
the best possible chance for the pursuit of
scholarly ends. Nor in our enthusiasm
over the recent remarkable gifts for
school purposes, fail to appreciate duly
the men, many of them Southerners. who
are providing for the endowment of COL
leSes and the establishment of libraries
and laboratories. There are fewer peo-
pie in the South today han ever before.
who believe that because North Caro-
lima or Ohio has more colleges than Mas
sachusetts, they are for that reason the
more fortunate.
Out Of this demand for proper educa-
tional standards and facilities is comma
a new sense OF the dignity and worth OF
scholarship. When the University OF
Virginia was organized Thomas Jefferson
induced five English scholars to become
member OF its faculty, because forsooth
talent had not developed in this country.
The time has been in the South whe,
ern men to fill the chairs of instruction
but in recent years more and more south
ern men Of first rate talent have been
preparing themselves in the best univer-
sites Of this country and Europe for the
highest grade of work. A few years apo
a good many of these brighter men went
to northern institutions where they