The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-12-08
WAKE FOREST COLLEGE-A GIFT
TO THE STATE.

Time it was one OF the perpIeXed
questions which the world contested
holly with the church. So vexed a
question was it, indeed, that except
for the training of the ministry even
the test of practice. The resulting
vindication of the principle that belief
was corrolary of knowledge has been
so complete that today the progress
of denomination may be figured al
most in exact proportion to the ex-
tent of its educational activities. To
educate the youth of a faith and
place them in the world with the op-
portunity to see and the liberty to
choose is a fine display of confidence
and a practical manifestation of the
golden rule in UNCONVENTIONAL life.
The wonder is that in so short a time.
springing from simple people of
child-like faith, first that the idea
should have originated at all; and.
second, that it should have grown from
toned duty. 1t may we'll be believed
that things which take such a course
have their meanings in the deeper
pulse of life, poisoning in their prop
err season into the cpochial flowers
which now and again redeem with
mainly.
OF this brave and trustful adven-
ture Wake Forest College is one of
the finest and most useful examples.
faith, it has grown in less than three
quarters of century into an institu-
ton which, surviving the storms, is
i'm this day of the educational awaken
ing which it has so helped to produce.
gathering from it's momentum for
the final stride towards the attain
ment IF it's ideals. The work that this
college has done in the State and for
the Baptist denomination is indeed in
calculable. The creature of a poor
and feeble branch of a young move
ment, it's marvellous success has Gre
ated a product which has made the
movement great Constructed from
the gifts of the poor and the igno-
rant, it has brought knowledge and
wealth. Struggling star of the few,
it has created the many. In very
real sense the Wake Forest Baptists
have been missionaries. not only of
their denomination but of better
thought and purer lives and higher
hopes. Peculiarly did they come, in
the main, from the people whom it
Many came from ignorance and re-
turned with knowledge without pride.
Each man touched the circle of his
friends with the power of one whose
advantages are recognized as incident
to effort rather than unattainab.e OPP
portunity Thus ambition spread
among Baptist people. The lawyers
and the doctors and the preachers adj
vertised the college among those who
had known them as Toms and Bills
and Jonathans. Humble fathers
caught the contagion of success from
other humble examples for their sons
The ambition worked practically. 1t
expressed itself in a beautiful loyalty
which, in turn, manifested itself in an
enthusiasm and sacrifice which moth
ing could head off. The leaven of the
college caused the mass to turn over
The college was the product of the
mass 1t has been actually devel-
opment from the inside.
This could not have been had the
college been founded for the purposes
of the ministry alone 1t is denomina-
tional in essence; religious only as an
incident of it's life. It has sought to
prepare grist for the pulpit, to set
the mass to thinking, to make for
strong and purposeful laiety. SO
has it become popular and so, by
making a new level for the people,
has it made the denomination new
power for righteousness
1t is significant of a people ever
broad in their simplicity that in Wake
Forest College, a church school, the
Baptists should in the very beginning
have laid stress upon the sciences.
Their faith hesitated before nothing
that nature could show. 1t has been
a proof of the practical character of a
religion that has depended almost not
at all on symbols for its expression.
What is in the heart nothing can spoil
because it happens to exist. The edu-
cational impulse of the Baptists was a
magnificent display of their liberality.
AS the years went by more and more
did the college send out big men in
all the professions Its representa-
.tives becames leaders in a thousand
fields 1t gave great teachers and
preachers who famed through the
land. 1t endowed a remarkable pro-
portion of it's graduates with an I'M
conquerable enthusiasm. It's sons went
to the Legislature and to Congress.
They sat upon the bench. They
wrought at the bar with the judiciary
and the juries. They ministered to
the sick. Gradually Wake Forest be-
came in North Carolina a synonym
of earnestness and of purpose. De-
nomiuatiopaI in fact it became llni-