ITS NECESSITY AND ITS PRACTICABILITY: ESPECIALLY AS IT REGARDS COLLEGES. AN ADDRESS, DELIVERED BEFORE THE THALIAN AND PHI-DELTA SOCIETIES OF OGLETHORPE UNIVERSITY. BY THE REV. THOMAS SMYTH, D. D. Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat.-Cicero. CHARLESTON, S. C. PRINTED BY B. JENKINS, 100 HAYNE-STREET. 34-VOL. V. CORRESPONDENCE. DEAR SIR, OGLETHORPE UNIVERSITY, As a Committee of the Phi-Delta Society, we respectfully solicit a copy of your very appropriate and profound address, delivered by you before the Thalian and Phi-Delta Societies on yesterday, that it may be published, and its very important views of Education be widely disseminated. Hoping that the interests of the University, and the general cause of Denominational Education may be advanced by a publication of my Address, I cheerfully comply with your request, and remain, with sentiments of the highest respect, Most sincerely yours, MESSRS. WOOLFOLK, IVERSON & HALL. THOMAS SMYTH. PREFACE. It is high time that the public should be made acquainted with the distinction between DENOMINATIONAL and SECTARIAN Education, two things essentially distinct, but, in the common understanding, even of intelligent men, one and the same. Το point out, however, the difference, and not merely the distinction between these two things, will be one object in this address.* It is equally necessary that the public mind should be led to discriminate between denominations who cannot, or, at least, do not, teach christianity in all its essential credenda, or things to be believed, and its agenda, or things to be performed, without indoctrinating the minds of their pupils with all the peculiarities of their ecclesiastical and ritual system,-and those who can, and do, leave these things in their proper sphere, and imbue the minds of their pupils only with the essential spirit and principles of christianity. On this point, also, some hints will be offered, which may give to many a new and encouraging aspect of the much mis-understood system of Presbyterianism. But the entire argument will be found as applicable to other evangelical denominations, as to the one of which the author is a member. This discourse is addressed, with whatever ability the author possesses, and with whatever force the facts and arguments may wield, to the thinking minds among our people. With them the question of Education rests; their interests it involves; and by them must it be decided. And while the author would most respectfully solicit the attentive consideration of our rulers, legislators and politicians, as well knowing how mighty is their influence in moulding the opinions of their constituents, yet he is also aware how irresistible are the united and intelligent opinions of the wise and prudent among the people. Let, then, the fathers and mothers of our land study and examine this matter. It will soon be forced upon them. Already is the controversy it involves making progress, and, ere long, it must become a great, if not THE great national question. It may well be asked, "Do ye not understand the signs of the times?" And we may well hear the twice repeated *This confusion runs as a latent sophism through the whole of the arguments used against Denominational Education. Denominational Education, however, is used to define a Religious Education, which, to be secured, must be under denominational direction and control, though it is not designed to teach denominational or ecclesiastical peculiarities. See latter part of the Address. instruction of the wise man, "a prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself, but the simple pass on and are punished."* For the reasons stated, and the nature of the occasion, the subject is not treated on religious grounds, but only on grounds of political and general expediency and necessity. To christians, however, there are reasons in favour of the system advocated, which make it imperatively binding upon them, and demand their united energies in carrying it forward. For if a direct, efficient and distinctive religious influence can be secured in the government and instruction of any institution IN NO OTHER WAY, then every motive and command by which the Bible urges parents to "train up their children" from infancy to independent and mature manhood, "in the way they should go," that is, "to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," "teaching them all things whatsoever Christ has commanded,"-obligates them to patronize this plan, and to give to it their prayers, co-operation and support, until it is rendered adequate to all the wants of our growing republic. If these divine requisitions include all that is essential to secure the greater blessing, that is the establishment of religious principles, habits and character, they must also include that constant and thorough religious culture and influence which can alone lead to such a result; and if they include the great end, even the personal and everlasting salvation of the soul, they must make necessary that continual enforcement of "line upon line, and precept upon precept, here a little and there a little," by and through which God works in the hearts of men. "Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth." And God, therefore, in making it the duty of his Church to provide for the attainment of these ends, has also made it her duty to use diligently all the means by which education, like godliness, "may be profitable for the life that now is, and also for the life that is to come," and to secure, therefore, for the young, a certain and an efficient religious education. And if there is any one part of education, more than another, which requires to be imbued with the restraining and sanctifying influences of the gospel, it is a college education, for then passion is strongest, temptation greatest, and restraint weakest. The author would not have felt warranted, notwithstanding his own convictions of the importance of the subject, in presenting it to the world, had it not been suggested for his discussion on this occasion, and had not the publication of the address been requested by many highly influential men, and also by the prefixed communication, to which he felt bound to yield an assent. *Prov. xxii. 3, & xxvii. 12. See the quotations from the N. Y. Evangelist and New Jersey society, in the Appendix. |