The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-02-22
PRESBYTERIANC
ADDRESS BY THE BOARD OF
 TRUSTEES.
What Has Been Done and What is Yet to Do Toward Establishing the School-Ministers Have
 Subscribed $1O,OOO.
The Action of the Synod.

4ho ACIlou or the SYuO0.
 The following address to Alabama Pres byterians has been issued in behalf of the synods College for men by the Board of Trustees:
 Resolved, That the Synod of Alabama, Tor the purpose of owning, building and maintaining a college for the educa ton or young men. elect board of nine trus- tees from the members of the Presbyte- rian Church
 That the said trustees lave full power to act for Synod in tke establishing of said college.
 That the Synod pledge itself to raise $lOOOOO for the establishing of a college for males, of which amount 1t will require the community in which 1t shall be lo- cated to give suitable site and $25,O0O in money, or its equivalent in suitabl buildings, reserving the right to reject any undesirable location which might meet these conditions.
 It further asks its ministers to subscribe s1o,O0o. its ladies' societies to subscribe $lO,OOo, its Sunday Schoo's s5,OO0, and its people not included in these classes to subscribe $5O,000, all of which subscrip- tons shall be payable In five equal an- nual installments without interest The first annual payment shall be due after the college is located and the Synod makes call for the payment of sub scriptions and the deferred payments shall be paid on the same date annually thereafter.
 Our Educational Status.
 The action of the Synod of Alabama quoted above definitely commits Synod to the founding of a college for men and devises the way for raising the means necessary to do this.
 IT any Justification of the wisdom of the Synod be needed before the minds of Alabama Presbyterians or the public at large, We hope that 1t may be found in the following statements:
 Alabama has much to be proud of as to her great resources. She is destined to be rich and powerful. But the incubus or ilnteracy rests upon us. This State, although well endowed, and early settled, Is among the lowest in the scale of edu- cation Of its general population 10 years old and over, 40 per cent. are illiterates. Of its white population over 10 years of age, IS per cent. neither read nor write And this white population is almost en- tirely native-born-only an inconsiderable part being foreign. Here is a great ob- stacle to our progress as well as a great blot upon our fair name.
 In all those tests which indicate the in- tellectual state of people such as pub lie libraries periodicals and educational journals, etc., We are we'll down towards the bottom of the scale. The number and size of high schools and colleges is small, and their number grows slowly. The people are in need of larger number of educational institutions. so that higher education shall be more accessible to them.
 Let it be remembered that colleges ere ate both the demand and the supply of college students. When the State of Ala bama had only its University at Tusca- loosa the number In attendance there was not much larger than 1t is now, although there are now several State schools which divide the patronage of the people of the State. When the Methodist Church of Alabama had only it's Southern Univer- sity at Greensboro the attendance there was scarcely in excess of the present n m Der. although the college at Owenton now divides the patronage. To multiply col leges Is to multiply the number of col lege students, and by these processes does education advance.
 How Relieve the SituationP
 It may be suggested that the proper way to relieve this illiterate condition is to increase the efficiency of the public schools rather than to multiply institu- tons of higher education. But If the Leg islature should largely increase the amount paid Its teachers that would not take any single teacher out of his pres ent grade and put him in a higher one It would not change the second class cer-