The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-06-21

the fathers for prominence in a maga- zine article and the name of forgers of thought.
 We. as Baptists and as American eit- izens. have met to discuss a subject
 which, in importance to the home, the church and the State. Is second to no
 other subject of our time. education.
 Education has been defined as the de-
 velopment of the various physial. mem
 tai and spiritual faculties" If we ao-
 cept this as the Interpretation of the ] purpose of education, then education
 can have no more faithful exponent
 than the Denominational College.
 whose aims are to bring to the fullest
 development the physical properties of
 man. to expand to the last power the
 force of mind. and to foster the evoiu- | ton of the spiritual, to the end that.
 however sound the body may be, how | ever broad the expansion of intellect.
 the spiritual may control the physical ana appreciation of its noblest func-
 tions, service for fellowman and obedi.
 ence to Almighty God.
 | Tn an earlier time tho fathers
 founded the denominational college for
 the purpose of training men for the
 ministry: and for this end certain
 American colleges, which are today | .. For this purpose chiefly Harvard was
 brought into being: Yale came into ex- lstence; Princeton knew its earliest &C.,
 tivities; Brown began its work. l on the authority of pr. Wallace
 Buttrick, executive secretary of the
 General Education Board of New York. may state that of the 500 colleges
 whose records are kept on the books 1 of that board fifty were founded by
 religious bodies, sixty-five by States,
 and the rest by individuals or in some | general way
 l Thus we see what vast debt
 American civilization owes to the de-
 nominational college and It's promoters,
 Christian men and women.
 without fhis intention, which was primarily religious, not one of these great factors in education, whose in- | huence IS national, whose names are
 known in every civilized land. would
 have come into being.
 While many of these institutions
 of learning have grown far beyond the
 original plan. and while the purposes
 of many of them now find realization
 in secular education. not one of these
 old American colleges could afford to | forget the prime object of it's establish
 ment or to ignore the lives fashioned
 in its halls, while 1t was still in a class distinctly religious and while it's work l was moulded according to the will and
 plan of its particular denomination.
 Coming South. we find practically
 every denominational college founded
 primarily to educate preachers; and
 all of these schools have prepared for
 service men whose activities have added inestiniable strength and vital ity to civilization in the South.
 Had the preparation of preachers been their sole work, they would have given ample evidence of their worthi-
 ness to exist, and they would today command the reverence of every pa- triotic Southerner.
 Finding that their mode of training was successful in sending forth men who would preach the Gospel ,the | forces that controlled these colleges | preacher was equally beneficial for the layman; and so they threw wide open their doors for all who desired educa- l tion.
 "The wisdom of their act has been amply vindicated.
 These colleges have continued to train preachers, preachers for service at home, preachers to carry to the re- motest lands of the earth the finest civilization in all history, the civiliza- tion which began with the advent of an uplifting Christ, and whose viviry- ing force today is a pardoning Sa- vior.
 '"They have trained also men whose lives have brought to the homes of our l land a Amer culture of mind and soul, l to the social organism higher impulses and nobler deeds,, to the State purer conceptions of ciyic righteousness and very real patriotism.
 "The South is today the abiding place of the truest Americanism, the finest
 patriotism, and the most luminous faith in God on all this continent; and in the existence and maintenance of these priceless blessings no force has been, no force is, more potent than the denominational college.
 Say what you please in favor of deep research into the mysteries of | philosophy, of an exact scholarship
 which chooses for. long-continued | study and elaborate discussion the uses of Latin conjunctions and Greek par
 ticles. of a profound eruditon which l translates with flying tongue choral ! ode of Aeschylus or a sonorous period of Demosthenes, and the denomina-
 tional college encourages all of these | studies--still the most valuable asset of a college is its ability to turn out | sane, sound men, who believe in | virile Americanism, in safe, happy homes, in the God in whom fathers trusted, when they redeemed from the wilderness this land of ours and made ready for a nation of imperial grandeur, men who stand for every reform which means a cleaner country. men who are not ashamed to march in the far-fiung battle line of Jesus Christ; and in this ability the denominational college owns no power superior in all the world. "A mistaken conception of the mis- sion of the denominational college Is that it educates only men who are pre- 1 pairing to preach.
 This is naturally part of its work. and a noble part; but its service ex- tends far beyon the preparation of preachers.
 From the denominational colleges | of our country for 100 years have gone l forth men whose voices in the Nation al Congress have rung out for the right,
 whose minds have framed laws that | safeguard the. integrity of the Ameri- can commonwealth; men who have giv- en larger dignity to the gubernatorial | office in many a State; who as jurists | have lent to our land greater fame in