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VOL. LXXXVII. RICH MO
Virginia Stale library
Shall Ou. Luucai
By Pres
A bTAUCU.NO UKVELATION !
The National Educational Association, wliicli is
supposed to rctlect the educational sentiment of
the country as laithiully as such an organization
can, lias just adjourned, it suggests in its plat
iorni many needed reforms aud is eloquent in its
pica Lor the rural public scliool, larger aud better
school-houses, beautiiication oi bchool grounds,
practical education, and kindred themes, but does
not even make mention of the religious life as at
ail within the province of education. (J temporal
U mores I
A STUDY IN VALUES?WHIG it WELL !
Our various State Constitutions and our Congress
by the creation of the Bureau of Education
in the Department of the Interior recognize that
education is the duty of the State. These same
instruments, as well as the Constitution of the
United States, alhrm that the Church and State
shall be forever separate and distinct in this counT?
At i ? ' "
tij. in tne popular thought tlie Cliurch has been
accepted as the synonym of religion, and so the
conclusion has been drawn that there must be
no religious instruction in the public schools or
the State institutions of higher learning. If it is
ilie duty of the State to educate that its citizens
may be intelligent and provide livings for themselves,
is it not also the duty of the State to provide
moral and religious instruction that the graduates
of its school system may be law-abiding and
upright? Is it worth while to educate a man's
head and neglect his conscience? Which is worth
more to a State, an intellectual prodierv without
character or an intelligent man of character? Is
it any more the duty of the State to provide for
education than for religion?
A TREMENDOUS BLUNDER.
But this is not the end of it. Not only have we*
seen the Bible and prayer excluded from our public
schools, but we have seen something positively
hurtful to moral and spiritual growth put in its
place. In the public school age the pupil is in its
own home when not in school, and so the evil effect
of the lack of moral and religious instruction does
not appear, the parents' admonition and the home
influence acting as a corrective to any moral or
spiritual laxness that may tend to develop from
ihe school, but even here teachers whose moral
character is low and whose opposition to religion
is outspoken have their depressing effects on their
pupils. I would like to see the time come when
no man who was questionable as to his moral life
and hostile in his opinions to the Christian religion
should be permitted to teach in our public
schools on^ ^ ' 1 * '
mc otntc ruus a great risK ot immoral
infection from this deadly source today. When
will a free people" in the wild clamor for a false
liberty of religions opinion see the fatal error they
have committed in not protecting the fountainhead
of our public school system from moral pollution
?
*
IpgBfrS7 Vjagga/ND,
NEW ORLEANS, ATLANTA, AUG
don Be Christian
ident W. A. Harper, LL. D.% Eton College, f
iUiUOIOUS D1VOUCE CO U UTS?AVOID TIllSVl!
Even worse does the status ol' religious instruction
become in tiie institutions of higher learning, ^
worse intrinsically and worse also because of the
lack of counteracting home iulluences which serve
to nullify the direful elfects of irreligiou in the
public schools of secondary grade. When we send
our sons and daughters oil to college, they are on
their own responsibility. When deadly seeds of
unbelief, of infidelity, of skepticism are sown in
their hearts, there are no parental words to uproot
them. They must be so thoroughly grounded
in their religious life thut they will be able of
their own power to question and disprove to their
own satisfaction the destructive teachings of those
they are supposed to accept as authorities, or they ^
shall lose their respect for religiou. This is not
au idle dream: it is a fact, sad tact, and these state- ^
nieuts are made upon a basis of experience and observation.
I record with solemn allirmation tliat t
I have known many instances where devout Chris- ^
tians have lost their devotion to their church and ^
their Cod through a false step in the choice of the ^
place of their higher education. They went away
religious; they came back irreligious, scolfers.
There would be no such objection to State institu
tions of higher learning as we constautly hear, ii J
they had not really, become divorce courts, divorcing
their students from religion and marrying
them to ir religion. * J ?
EKl.lUION OU lltliELlUlON?WHICH? I
It amounts to just this: Shall our sons and t
daughters go to institutions where religion or ir- ^
religion is taught? There is no midway ground. t
Religion is not a separate department of life and c
cannot be set olE from other vital questions by s
strict lines of division. Religion enters into every t
relation of life and must be provided for at every ^
step. It is impossible to arrange a college cuvri- ?
culuru in such way as to exclude religious instruc- j
tion so as not to be forced to take position on cer- (
tain vital religious and spiritual interests. History (
and the Social Sciences simply cannot be taught j
without involving instruction favorable or iniini- (
cal to religious growth. The same is true of (
Natural Science. Literature has a tremendous (
bearing on the spiritual life, and it makes no dif- ,
ference whether this literature is ancient or mod- ]
ern. Philosophy cannot be touched without in- j
volving spiritual interests. Even mathemtaics lias j
its religious aspect. Since there can be no educa- i
tion that does not have its religious bearing, how \
can we escape the conclusion that our young peo- (
pie during the fateful four years of college life t
are developing an intellectual bias for or against j
the religious life? There is no escape; we are A
providing them a wholesome religious atmosphere
or they are breathing miasmatic germs destructive
of the spiritual life. Our education shall be Christian
or Unchristian, and each individual parent t
shall settle that issue?it cannot be avoided. t
3AL PRESBYTER/AN <T
THFfPAJ PfPF <=; & VXJT nt A a/
iUST 13. 1913. NO. 32. 33
or Unchristian?
/. c.
TILE FltUE TUITION BAIT?A FAliCE.
What will the outcome be? Will Slate college
ut-ii christian college to liic wall? Ostensibly
hey ha\e the advautage because they can put their
lauds in my pocket and in yours and take thererum
the money to perpetuate themselves 1 When
hey lose a student in open, fair competition, they
an carry the contest still further and award
chuiursliips without limit, relying upon the power
if taxation within their grasp, and they are doing
t every day, though e\eu with free tuition it costs
ilore to educate at these schools than in the Chrislun
colleges and pay tuition. Ostensibly these
cholarsliips are given to those who expect to
eacn or to tnose who deserve them, which latter
lass are limited in number supposedly, out actually
anybody who lets it be known that he will
ome 011 no other condition will lind the scholarhip
"availableand more often they are given
o the scions of rich men aud politicians than to
hose who most need them. Shall this public
ilunder continue forever? Never! But why not?
iVkat reason have you to believe that the Christian
:ollege shall continue in the face of the tremenlous
odds against it?
.'HE CHRISTIAN COLLEGE IS THE PLACE POU THE
I>I*S\T> LM? irvrmmrvTA ??
...v.m. ?jr>.rw.L-UA.?Vj Uif C-tlAKACI'ISU IN YOUTH.
I believe the Christian college is here to stay
md to grow and to increase, because it furnishes
hat element of life without winch there can be no
mduring estate or state, character. If the time
vtre e\er to come, wherein the great majority of
>ur intellectual men were without character, the
leath knell of the State would already have been
iounded. But that day will not come. I am
:xceedinglv optimistic over the situation. There
vill always be some to whom the monetary coulideration
of fee tuition in a State college and
lie false supposition that it will make education
uoaper lor them, will outweigh the cliaracterleveloping
process in the Christian college, and
f the product turned out by the State college
iould in any way compare with the product in
Christian character of the Christian college, it is
:onceivable that eventually the Christian college
vouid cease to exist. Of those who accept the
?arcial monetary bait, many will return moral
)crve:ts and religious scoffers, and the obscrvaion
of these unfortunutes will steel the thinking
parents around them again8t any such appeal in
heir case. The Christian college, the product
f Christian hearts for the Christian end of cdu
rating the heart as well as the head, is destined to
ill a larger place in our educational system and
vi 11 make our education safely Christian.
OUR EDUCATION IS TO BE CHRISTIAN !
But I ought to add, in conclusion, that this opimistic
view will not make it less necessary for
he friends of christian education to do their