private and public schools, through which we have become an
enlightened people. It is impossible to estimate the indebtedness of
popular to collegiate education. There is an intimate and vital
relation between the college and the public schools, which differ not
in kind, but only in the degree of instruction. "The success and
usefulness of common schools," says Professor W. S. Tyler, "is exactly
proportioned to the popularity and prosperity of the colleges, and
whatever is done for or against the one is sure to react, with equal
force and similar results, upon the other."
The colleges have been foremost in advocating that the education of
the youth should not be left to those of meager attainments and narrow
sympathies. They have maintained that, in order to reap the best
advantages of our public schools, it is important to have wise,
competent, Christian men and women to give instruction, as well as to
prepare text-books, and to increase the appliances employed in
teaching.
It has been a difficult task to bring our public school system to the
present condition of progress. The work has proceeded slowly and
steadily under the example and inspiration of great educational
centers. The excellence and usefulness of our school system has
advanced just in proportion to the culture and ability of the
teachers. A collegiate education has always tended to foster and
encourage higher standards of scholarship among teachers, and this
influence has been diffused into the public school system. President
Charles W. Super truthfully says: "That which leads up to the highest
must always be supervised and directed by that which is at the top. A
system of elementary and secondary education which does not culminate
in the university, and make that the goal towards which its efforts
are directed, is an absurdity. There must be good teachers before
there can be good schools, and good teachers can only be formed in
institutions that are chiefly concerned with knowledge at first hand.
This has been a recognized principle in Germany for half a century, or
longer; is now almost universally admitted in France, and is the goal
toward which the whole civilized world is rapidly moving."
The efficiency of our public schools has been felt in every department
of our social organization. They have been a strong bulwark against
the influences of a raw and uninstructed foreign population, who, like
a tidal wave, have flooded our shores. Some of these have not only
been ignorant and infidel, but filled with monarchical ideas and
un-American sentiment. The public schools have brought their children
into accord with our American institutions, and developed intelligent
patriotism. They have taught the youth common rights and privileges,
and helped to generate a union of sympathy and sentiment which leads
to the consolidation of our society into a homogeneous body.
The colleges, working through the public school teachers, have
likewise helped to educate the millions of the manumitted and
enfranchised colored people, and to break up sectionalism, allay party
strife, and make for the peace, prosperity, and unity of the nation.
Our political safety has called for a wise and vigorous effort to
educate the masses and to assimilate the heterogeneous elements into
our body politic. The public schools and colleges, with their
interdependence, have in a great measure met the demand, and given us
a legacy of peace, prosperity, and intelligence enjoyed by all the
people.
Likewise, the colleges have contributed largely to the general
prosperity and material progress of society. They are the real centers
of power of this enterprising and progressive age. "The revival of
learning and the epoch of discovery ushered in the epoch of natural
science, which has made possible the epoch of useful inventions."
College-trained men are the most practical and useful of men. They
have been the creators of material wealth and prosperity. Their
discoveries and inventions have revolutionized business and social
life. Every department of life is teeming with the fruits of science
and philosophy, which have been largely built up by colleges and
college-trained men. Bacon, Newton and Locke were sons of the English
universities. Watt and Fulton associated with college men, and
"derived from them the principles of science which they applied in the
development of the steam engine and steam navigation. Professor Morse,
the inventor of the electric telegraph, was not only a college
graduate and professor, but made his great experiments within the
walls of a university." Likewise, many other scientists, who have
demonstrated the limitless possibilities of steam and electricity, and
other valuable discoveries and inventions, were either trained in the
colleges or received from them the working principles which were
essential to their success. These human inventions are of priceless
value to the people. The steam engine has contributed greatly to human
welfare. It represents, in the United States alone, 20,000,000 horse
power in the form of locomotives, or the steam power of 300 horses for
each thousand inhabitants. Besides all this, 6,000,000 horse power in
stationary steam engines manufacture goods for us. They give the vast
force which toils for us, and the laborer furnishes only the guiding
power. These inventions have enabled us to increase our wealth at the
rate of $2,000,000,000 a year during the last decade, and helped to
make our people sharers in the products of the world, and in all the
blessings of civilization.
Professor Huxley was right when he said: "If the nation could purchase
a potential Watt, or Davy, or Faraday, at a cost of a hundred thousand
pounds down, he would be dirt cheap at that money." Fifty-two of the
inventions now prized by the civilized world were made in Germany, and
within the influence of her universities. All these discoveries are
opening the doors for more wonderful disclosures. All the great
industries of the country require men of trained minds and directive
intelligence to organize and control them, and the colleges are
recognized agencies to help produce them.
Our literature is also largely the fruit of college labor and tastes.
The colleges, as centers of intellectual life, have fostered literary
tastes in those who have built up and enriched literature. Their
libraries and lectures have gathered together men of literary aims and
ambitions, so that the seat of the college has become the home of new
and grand ideas, which at once encourage literature and science. This
congenial intellectual atmosphere has incited many a young person to
project noble literary plans.
The majority of great writers have spent years at the university. Lord
Bacon outlined his gigantic plan for "the Instauration of the
Sciences" during the four years spent in the University of Cambridge.
Milton laid the foundations of his classical scholarship in the
university. "Newton was matured in academic discipline, a fellow in
Trinity College, Cambridge, and a professor of mathematics. He passed
fifteen years of his life in the cloisters of a college, and solved
the problems of the universe from the turret over Trinity gateway."
The literary influences of our colleges were early manifest in our
nation. The scholarship, classical taste, and fine literary style of
the superior men in public life led the Earl of Chatham, in the House
of Lords, in 1775, to pay "a tribute of eloquent homage to the
intellectual force, the symmetry, and the decorum of the state papers
recently transmitted from America, which was virtually an announcement
that America had become an integral part of the civilized world, and a
member of the republic of letters."
The colleges have nourished the conditions out of which a pure,
classical literature may grow. Such men as Edward T. Channing, of
Harvard, and Webster, Worcester and Goodrich, of Yale, have performed
an inestimable service in preparing the way for our mother tongue to
be spoken in its purity.
In the line of history, the American colleges have given the nation
such men as Bancroft, Parkman, Palfrey, Prescott, Motley, Winthrop and
Adams. In the sciences, there are Dana, Gray, Cooke, Walker, Porter,
Woolsey and Agassiz. In law and political science, we have Hamilton,
Jefferson, Adams, Evarts, Webster, Chase, Choate, Everett and Sumner.
These men have been the true architects of the state. The pulpit is
represented by such men as Mather, Edwards, Dwight, Storrs, Warren,
Beecher, Talmage, Cook, Thomson and Brooks.
Literary genius has been displayed by men like Longfellow, Bryant,
Lowell, Holmes, Hawthorne, Mitchell, Holland, Emerson and a host of
lights scarcely less brilliant. These men, who have written in a terse
and graphic style, received their stimulus and training in college,
and are among the bright examples of classical scholarship, and the
results of their genius have enriched character and enlightened the
world.
The periodical literature reflects the prevailing ideas, sentiments
and spirit of the American people. The college-trained men have been
especially quick to utilize this throne of power to guide the public
mind to right principles and inspiring motives. The colleges must
continue to be fountains whence shall flow a pure, earnest, and
truthful literature, which will, in a great measure, determine the
destiny of the present and future generations.
We are especially indebted to the colleges for the maintenance of the
ascendency of the moral and religious principles which have done so
much in unfolding and shaping our national life. The religious
sentiment has been the controlling spirit of the nation, and our
patriotism has issued from a meditative and religious temper, which
the colleges have been foremost in fostering. Nearly all the great
religious and reformatory movements have proceeded from the colleges
and universities, whereby great good has come to society. "It was
through the interchange of students between the Universities of Oxford
and Prague that the teachings of Wycliff passed over into Bohemia and
issued in the splendid work of Huss. It was from college students of
Florence that Colet, and Erasmus, and More caught somewhat of the
spirit of Savonarola, and felt the power of truths that emerged in
the Italian Renaissance, and made them contribute so grandly to
religious liberty in England. It was in the presence of the college
students of Germany that Martin Luther nailed his thesis to the doors,
and burned the papal bull, and lit the watch-fire of the Reformation
that has awaked an answering brightness from ten thousand hills. It
was from a little circle of Oxford students that God led forth Wesley
and Whitfield to shake the mighty pillars of unbelief in the
eighteenth century."
President William F. Warren says: "By means of the great religious
movement called Puritanism, the English University of Cambridge
shaped, for nearly two hundred years, the intellectual and spiritual
life of New England. Emmanuel College, the one in which John Harvard,
Thomas Hooker, John Cotton, and many of the early New England leaders
were educated, was founded for the express purpose of providing a
nursery for the propagation of Puritan principles. Never were the
hopes of founders more fruitfully fulfilled. The New World, then just
opening, furnished a field of unimagined extent, with motives and
social forces and ranges of opportunity which even yet are a marvel.
By founding a new England beyond the sea, and planting a new Emmanuel
College in a new Cambridge, English Puritanism was enabled to
transcend itself, to exchange the attitude of a struggling
ecclesiastical party for that of an Established Church. It gained the
opportunity to originate a new social order, and to impress itself
upon a new age, built upon new and democratic principles. The initial
and fundamental covenant out of which grew the chief of all New
England colonies--that of Massachusetts Bay--was formulated and signed
in ancient Cambridge. In fact, in American Puritanism, with its
social, civil, and religious results, may be seen the high-water mark
of the intellectual and spiritual influence which, in the whole course
of history, have thus far proceeded from the banks of the Cam." The
church, in harmony with the genius of Christianity, has always
fostered education. It assumes to guard Christianity by directing
education as one of its most powerful of organized forces.
The existence and support of colleges are largely due to the Christian
Church. They are the offspring of a dominant desire to promote the
cause of Christ, and make them powerful agencies for a positive and
aggressive Christianity. In the middle ages the pious princes,
Charlemagne and Alfred, established schools for the elevation of the
clergy. Oxford, Cambridge and Glasgow Universities were established
and fostered by the church to educate more fully the clergy. The
founders of Harvard College thus described their motive: "Dreading to
leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our ministers shall
lie in the dust." Yale College was founded by preachers for a like
purpose. Princeton College was founded "to supply the church with
learned and able preachers of the Word." The fact is that prior to the
eighteenth century there was no university founded save those
established for the glory of God and the good of the church.
The chosen mottoes of the colleges indicate the spirit of the
founders. That of Oxford is, "The Lord is My Light;" Harvard, "Christ
and the Church;" Yale, "Light and Truth." Eighty-three per cent. of
the colleges in our land were founded by Christian philanthropy, and
are under denominational control. The spirit of infidelity does not
lead men to make the sacrifices to found colleges. Perhaps there is
not more than one in our nation.
The majority of colleges are positively religious. According to Dr.
Dorchester, even Harvard, the oldest college in the United States,
that wishes to be understood as non-denominational, has been, for more
than half a century, "under the direction of a Board of Fellows, all
of whom have been Unitarians, except one elected within a few years;
and, besides, the theological school of Harvard College is usually
mentioned in the Unitarian Year Book as a Unitarian institution."
Leland Stanford University is one of the youngest and richest of our
American colleges. The regulations declare it to be the duty of the
trustees "to prohibit sectarian instruction, but to have taught the
immortality of the soul, the existence of an all-wise and benevolent
Creator, and that obedience to His laws is the highest duty of man."
Both of these colleges, reported as "non-sectarian," generously
provide buildings and pastors for religious services and lectures. Dr.
Dorchester believes that one-third of the State universities are under
the presidency of evangelical divines. He further states that "in 1830
the students in the denominational colleges were 76.6 per cent. of the
whole; in 1884, they were 79.2 per cent."
All the foregoing facts show the strong and enduring progress of
Christianity in the United States; that it is "identified with the
highest educational culture of the age; that the denominational
institutions are incalculably leading in number and students all the
undenominational colleges, and that the great principles and blessed
experiences of Christianity are voluntarily and intelligently adopted
by a far larger proportion of college students than ever before."
The colleges have upheld the vital truths of the gospel by expounding
the scriptures, and setting forth their ethical and religious
teaching. They recognize that the divine order in saving men is
through the inward working of the truth and spirit of God in their
souls. Since knowledge is essential to salvation, it is a duty to
enlighten men and bring them to understand the divine plan of
salvation. The Bible has been communicated to us in foreign languages,
and requires prolonged study and extensive knowledge in order that
these oracles of God may be known and accepted among men.
The colleges have given a higher efficiency to the Christian ministry.
There are those who have obtained their training and knowledge outside
of the college who have accomplished great good. There are pious and
devoted men who are illiterate, but whose Christian work has been
attended with more apparent results than some college-trained
ministers. These, however, are the exception. The rule is that those
who combine with their piety scholarly acquisitions exert by far the
greatest influence for good. The history of Christianity shows how God
has raised up a multitude of scholarly men to uphold the supremacy of
the gospel over all its foes. Paul, Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, Knox,
Cranmer, Wesley and Fletcher were all college-trained men. These men,
with others, endowed with mental vigor, great learning and executive
force, have been used by God to accomplish His great task of building
up His kingdom on earth.
The church has learned that there is no need of antagonism between
knowledge and spirituality. Knowledge and intellectual training may
work evil in an undevout mind, but when consecrated to the service of
Christ, learning becomes the handmaid of piety. The strength and power
of the Christian Church of to-day are attributable in no small degree
to the Christian colleges, that have not only encouraged mental
training, but have fostered refinement and humble evangelical piety.
The union of scholarly training and a holy life has raised the
ministry in the public estimation so that it commands more respect and
influence for good than ever before. The cause of Christ never took
such hold on the popular mind, and its influence never penetrated so
deeply the foundations of our social organism as it does in our day.
It is farthest from our aim to exalt and magnify the knowledge that
"puffeth up," or unduly to glorify the human faculties, but we do
plead that the widest opportunity be offered our youth to enlarge
their knowledge, and strengthen and train their mental powers, and
make the most of themselves, and that they may be consecrated to the
Master's service. Men and women thus trained in our Christian
colleges, and eminent alike for learning and piety, will more and more
esteem the divine revelations, and through them help to hasten the
establishment of the Kingdom of righteousness on the earth.
The Students' Volunteer Movement began in 1876. It aims to awaken a
deeper interest in foreign missions among college students, and to
enlist their services. Within a brief period, more than 4,000 students
consecrated their lives to this heroic Christian work. Already, since
the movement began, 600 young men and women have entered the mission
field, and thousands of others are waiting on a hesitating church to
furnish the means to send them to work in foreign lands. Well did
Ex-President McCosh say that the Christian Church had not witnessed
such a spirit of consecration since the day of Pentecost.
The colleges have done another valuable service in awakening and
strengthening in the national life a deeper sense of the value and
importance of human knowledge. They are monuments of the dignity and
worth of ideas, and the aspirations of the human soul.
In a new country, with its marvelous possibilities, the danger has
been in having an excessive and exaggerated estimate of our national
advantages, and our civilization has tended to take on a too
mechanical and material character. We need to have more time to
cultivate the nobler nature, and, by Christian and scholarly
associations and more intimate friendships, discover and prize the
fineness and sweetness of character in others, which may enrich our
own life and incite us to worthy action. It is the province of higher
education to help foster those conditions of mind and heart whose
flexibility and natural aptitudes lead the individual "to draw ever
nearer to a sense of what is indeed beautiful, graceful, and
becoming." Such wisdom and goodness are of the highest practical
utility in the life of a nation. The colleges have helped to offset
the material tendency of our civilization by holding up high ideals
and emphasizing the supremacy of the unseen mental, moral, and
spiritual forces in our life. Through their leadership in the schools,
and through the press, platform and pulpit, they have introduced into
the fomenting mind of the republic the noblest ideals and the most
generous incentives, which have, in a large measure, transformed
public sentiment for the better. We have, at least, learned one great
lesson in our history: that if we would have peace, contentment,
happiness and prosperity, we must give the people a Christian
education, and put all we can into character.
The college receives students from all ranks and conditions of
society, and holds open to them its great opportunities, and worthily
trains them to go forth into those professions and higher walks of
life where their generous character and refreshing influences may be
of larger service to the whole community. In the language of President
Thwing, it may be said that "it is to the people that the college and
university desire to give more than they receive from the people. It
is not unjust to say that the people are debtors. The community has
given to Yale, and to Princeton, and to Harvard, much, but Yale, and
Princeton, and Harvard have given to the community more. For the
college and the university are set to hold up the worth of things to
the mind, and these things are the worthiest. In an age democratic and
material, they are to represent the monarchy of the immaterial. In an
age of luxuriousness, they are to declare the words of Him, homeless
and pillowless, who said: 'A man's life consisteth not in the
abundance of things which he hath.' They stand for the continuity of
the best life, intellectual, ethical, religious, Christian. In the
realm of thought, they stand for the value of ideas; in the realm of
morals, for the value of ideals; in the realm of being, like the
church, for the value of character."
Next to the home, the college has been the ruling spirit in private
and public life. The colleges have rigorously upheld the principles of
piety, justice and sacred regard for truth as the best foundation of
social order. The true wealth and power of the nation are the great
and good men produced by the colleges whose example and influence have
been to promote intelligence and good order in society.
We look over our vast territory, with its multiplied resources and
growing population, and rejoice in our material possibilities and
social privileges. But what is better and grander than all these, is
the fact that more than 300 Christian colleges are scattered over our
land as beacon lights in our national life, building up Christian
character as the best legacy for present and future generations. Some
of the colleges are yet weak and struggling, but they glory in their
aspirations and prospects of future grandeur. The great fabric of our
national life is radiant with the golden threads of good influences
emanating from these centers of superior intelligence and instruction,
where time is given for careful thought and reflection on the great
problems of life.
Education by the Christian college is essential to the largest growth
and progress of the state, the church, and all humanitarian movements.
"The progress grows more rapid," says William T. Harris, "as the
Christian spirit which leavens our civilizations sends forward, one
after another, its legions into the field; for great inventions, as
well as great moral reforms, proceed from Christianity."
No one can afford to be indifferent to the power and influence for
good of the Christian college. These are immeasurable. The Christian
Church and all the friends of human progress and welfare must, more
and more, emphasize the lesson that, if we educate in our colleges the
leading minds of the nation, we will be able so to control the
prevailing habits and modes of thought throughout the country as to
secure the permanency and glory of Christian liberty and religious
institutions.