French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1916-1919, 1918-11-07
CHRISTIAN
=, I'd gA.I
EDUCATION
ITS VALUE
(By DR.. E. E. Bomar).

4 III VIC" VI ZIG M1111Ou DOlIdE
for education now being conducted by
the Baptists of North Carolina, il is
pertinent to ask: What is Christian
/ Education? The answer is well pat fy
Prof. Chas. E. Brewer:
1.-The aim of education in general is
efficiency. The State educat IS With a
view to securing trained citizens;
Christian education is for the lurpose
of training efficient Christian ciiiZeEs."
1t is obviously impossible for the
state to teach Christianity. But that is
exactly what Christian schools ana
colleges do, and that too, in addition
to all the curriculum of state CT priv
ate schools offer. The avOwcd Chris
tan character of all officers and each
erS i'll Christian institutions counts
for a very great deal. Teachers III
state schools may be Christians and
most frequently are because Christi
anity is the accepted religion of most
| people in this country. But not Of ell.
A Christian school or college MUST
have Christian teachers Of the highest
character. A boy or girl going to
these institutions of necessity falls
under their influence so that, in add
| ton to the lessons taught, they get
| UQ6 character anu luuuSuC6 VI I4lG
teachers. This is of surprising i'm
| portance because an education is not
| chiefly what one learns in school blu:
the type of life, the twist benz,
ideals which a pupil absOrbs. Educa-
IJtiOn is measured by the character anG
efficiency which the pupil actually.
makes his own. Christian ideals are
ever before the student and a Chris
tian atmosphere always envelopes him
Or her. The direct teaching or
the Bible, and Christian ethics, evan
geIIstlc meetings., foreign and home
missions are ever before the pupils
mot as optional matters, but as fUnda-
mental. If q boy goes wrong III c
] Christian school he does so in the
face of all the forces of Christianity
which can be brought to bear on the
making of his character.
All Christian education is alike to
the extent that the fundamental prin-
ciples of all evangelical denominations
are the same. Therefore Christian:
education is essentially the same in ali
| Christian schools and colleges, but
with the differences of the denOmina-
tions maintained and properly empha
sized.
l went through a Methodist college,
| Wofford-but there was never any at
tempt hv either teachers or pupils tC
4 make me a Methodist. There was,
however, every attempt to hold up
| Christian ideals and to mould me into
an aVOwed Christian. The~Presldent
was a marvellous pastor to h students
although he was MOI a minister. n
Methodists were everywhere evident,
but the college never lent itself to try
ing to make me turn from my Baptist
training to their fold. In conversation
with the Rev. Mr.. Hudson, a d1stln-
guished Presbyterian missionary, VINO
went through Furman UNIVERSITY IN
Greenville, S. Ca Baptist college,
he told me he had the same expert
ence. Nobody ever tried to make him
la Baptist though everywhere he hearc
LOT Baptists, their character and aims.
The emphasis, there, as at WonorG,
was on essential and exalted ChlstlaE
character. This explains how grea;
Christians, men like our hOnOred Gov
! ernor Beckett and Senator Simmons
are both graduates of Wake Forest but
4 are not Baptists.
But UNCONVENTIONAL colleges do per-
4 form an indispensable service to tnel
denominations by training men to be-
come officers and leaders and teachers
in their home churches and Sunday
/ schools. This is obviously Impossible
in any state institution, or, II, not I'M
POSSIBLE, only an incident. .Recently
Rev. DR.. Graves, pastor OF the 6aptis|
church. in Wake Forest, sent out a !os
of letters to pastors OF baptlst
churches, asking where their omcers
land teachers received their training
and of fifteen replies the answer was
Wake Forest SO, Davidson l, Trinity L,
CLoooI Hill & and A x r ID.
Another, and indispensable, service
is the making and training of mission
aries. Eighty-five per cent OF our
missionaries come from our W
Christian schools. Most Of then re-
ceiyed their impulse while in such IN
tense and decided high schools as
FruitIand and Mars Hill. l KNOW for
I was an official of the Foreign Mis-
sion Board of the Southern Baptlst
Convention for nearly ten years ano
thus came to know the training ano
life of more than 200 missionaries. II
it were not for the denomlnatlonal
schools mission work would prooaply
die because of the want of applicants
And then there are u preachers VINO
are dependent for their training al
most wholly on the schools and col
Ieges of their denominations.
If we want men and women tor mis-
sionaries, officers of our churches ano
teachers, not to speak OF hfst-class
preachers, we must support enlarge
and endow our schools n -co1eges
OF course, we can make out IN lShOf-
ance but who wants ignorance and
incompetency in the churches in such
a time as, this in the world for which
i Christ died. We want more citizens
of the type of Governor Beckett Sen
ator Simmons, President woodrow
Wilson, Speaker Clark and Vice Pre-
sident MarshaI-an ~of the. gradu
ates of Christian colleges; more mis-
Isionariesf like Mathew.T. Yates, a grad
uate of Wake Forest, and more preach
ers like DR.. Powell, of AsheVille, a
graduate of Fruitland, and more men
and women who are leaders in our
churches such as we now have VINO