Putnam patriot., 1914-06-26

ognize and inculeate belief in God. It
 cannot properly recognize and ineul-
 cate the truth of the Christian religion.
 Our public schools are for the Hebrew,
 the agnostie and the unbeliteer, as
 well as for the Christian. In the bidding prayer at Oxford University. Gods aid is asked in rear ing up there men to do God service in
 church and state There, we'll stated,
 is the prime object of Christian educa- tion.
 was struck in looking over the cen
 tennial number Of the "Woodsloek
 Academy Cleaner" at the words of
 one of The alumni, who for many years
 was the state uperintendent of schools in Iowa. He believed in the old fash
 toned academy, as productive institu-
 lion, in the twentieth century, as fully
 as in the eighteenth or nineteenth it
 wa- characterized, he wrote, bY ta free
 dom from red tape, an appeal to the
 responsibility of 4 student, respect
 for conscientious work, recognition
 of duty as an incentive to right living,
 in all Of which our modern higher ed-
 ueation i. deficient
 lis this moral tone which is one Of
 the vital forces of the New kngladd
 academy. IL responds to deep chord in New England life.
 At the last census one state, it was found, had fallen back in population. It was the state over whose schools the alumnus of Woodstock Academy from whose letter l huve quoted, sery- ed so long as the superintendent.
 1t was not Connecticut. IL was not Vermont. New England, with her en- dowed universities ana colleges and | academies, continues in healthy | growth 1t is Iowa, .the state Of rich prairies and great farms, that has stood still, or rather that has gone back ward. She gave a good education, no doubt, in arithmetic and spelling and general literature, but where was her appeal Lo the personal responsibility of the student, in the light of the gospels of the New Testament2 Where was her of duty as an incentive to right living? If there be deficiency n such things, there Is deficiency in ,very thing.
 Iowa has for her public schools the ,ecularized instruction of our times. Connecticut, in her academies, has the Chfistianized instruc. ion of earlier times.
 There k somethlny of inspiration In he very thought Of studying at an in- founded in former age, and rom which those have gone forth ,dur ng long stretch of time, who were destined to do good work--to render good sereiee-for God and country. From yon who are graduated today, .hc state, which gave Woodstock Academy its charter, expects no iesss
 Never was there period in Ameri. gan history when that sound judgment
  education gives, were more needed than now, as Il counter weight to has. ty generalizations and half hollow knowledge that so often find expres- sion on the public platform or in the public press.
 This is an age when novelties are | pressed in every quarter on the atten ton of the young. IL k peculiarly an age of cheap magazine literature-a literature that seeks for what will sell, rather than for that which ought to sell, The newspapers are struggling for scoops, startling headlines, with little beneath them, eoneocting and rumors today to be denied tomorrow. The monthlies, most of hem, are seeking for anything which will stir up a sensation.
 Besides all this, new profession has sprung into life. IL is that Of the so. ,ial expert, the social worker, the paid secretary of reform societies, the re- search and survey commissions sup ported by vast endowments from pri gate beneicenee. The natural post lion of th.> class Is one ot criticism of the existing order of things. If they 'ound nothing to cfiticist, there would be Httle reason for the existence of their organizations. A you of the graduat. ng class start on on the active journey ot life, We who have already become Iamiliar with its course are glad to as- sure you that most of what you Will find by the wa4>ide, or marching with you, k taifly good.
 Our father, dld not leave Europe for America without a settled purpose to better their condition. They did bet ter it. They founded here 8 New Eng land, where they could make human more equal and just and pure than they had been in old Eng land
 The Woodstock, situated near the English Oxford, after which Chief Justice Sewall named this Woodstock, near the Massachusetts Oxford, was not 10 be the site of a great manor house such as that which at the Eng fish town was the scene of royal reyels under Henry 1, and once held Queen | Elizabeth a prisoner, It's great dis tinetion, as time went on, was to be