The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1915-09-08

ninety per cent of the students. ]
myself am working overtime doping
,ut the easiest way so that l can
maintain my present 'ultra-active'
part in dramatics; and I am only one
of thousands in the same sideshow of
ineficiency rubbed to a fine polish"
Other writers speak very much af-
ter the same manner, and their state
ments make out a bad case for many
Of the largest institutions in the Uni
ted States. The subject has attract
ed the attention of the editor of the
New York Sun, who has published a
scarifying editorial OF the subject.
We of the South should not take
pleasure in these manifest defects of
Northern and Western institutions;
but we should be careful that our COL
leges and universities do not initiate
them. 1t may be claimed that these
evil characteristics promote what is
vainly called college SPIRIT" bit
let it be said in reply that they do
not promote the real objects for
which institutions of learning are
founded. A college or university is
not an end in itself, but a means to
an end; and the object to its exist
ence ought not to be sacrificed for
the shadowy and snoddy thing parad-
ed as college spirit"
In view of the world-conditions to
which reference has been made the
Southern people should awake to the
duty of strengthening and improving
their institutions of higher learning.
This is a matter of urgent necessity
which is enforced by conditions of
both interest and duty. But while
we make our >institutions stronger
and richer, let US see to it that they
maintain a high and ~elevating quality
for mere bigness. Unless the faculties
of our institutions of learning seek
the conversion and spiritual develop
,ment of their students, grounding
them in the essential doctrines of the
Scriptures, and leading them into the
Christ life, they forfeit the claim Of
these institutions upon public bene-
violence and favor.
It is regretable that secularism in
education has gone too far in the Uni
ted States. AS a people we are in
danger of deifying knowledge and
minifying moral character. Knowl-'
edge is good, but when it is separated
from religious principles it becomes
positively evil. Nothing is worse for
a nation than over-wise ~wickedness.
Our example of se~cularism in edu-
cation is bearing bad fruit in the ORR
ent. The Imperial government Of ia
pan recently proclaimed a programme
of educational secularism for Korea,
and avowed that the example of the
United States inspired this misguided
policy. The Japanese government
even threatens to secularize the
schools of the Christian churches in
Korea. This would be nothing less
than both a calamity and a crime.
The Christian people of America,
who are concerned for the welfare
of the Orient, should lay this matter
to heart. They have slumbered too
long while this growing peril Of seoul
arism in education has been advanc-
ing. The poison has infected many
of our own institutions, and is now
spreading to heather lands. Who
can overstate the dreadful signif-
canoe of such a fact?
The awful state of things in Eu-
rope is the ripened fruit of
s%ecularism, and, if similar conditions
extend to the Orient, especially to
Japan, which bears a peculiarly in
.fuential place in the Orient, there is
before mankind a more, dreadful
chapter in its history than that which
is now being written on the bloody
fields of the barbarous conflict of Eu-
rope.
: We are reaping, some of the fruits
of secularism in our own country.
Men are inquiring the cause of social
restlessness and moral disorder in
u land. What every secondary
u may enter into the case, we
may be sure the final and fruitful
cause of it all is the departure of
man from God. This is the root of
the lynchings and STAINLESS deeds of
violence which have disgraced US so
often. Human life is held cheap be-
cause the Creator and Redeemer of
man is despised. Fierce passions run
unreStrained because the authority