The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 49
No Colleges But State Colleges
No Colleges But State Colleges.
"Next, as to State policy, I would have it go in the same direction as heretofore, but with a liberality and steadiness showing far more foresight I would have each of those States build up higher, upon the foundations laid by national grants, their public institutions for advanced instruction as distinguished from private sectarian institutions.
"I would have each State build up one institution under its control, rather than the twenty under the control of conferences, and dioceses, and synods, and consistories, and presbyteries, and denominational associations of various sects."
There can be no mistake about the learned President's meaning, nor is one denominational organization omitted from his comprehensive catalogue. He advocates Secularism, pure and simple, in our colleges and universities, page 32 paid for by taxes levied on the laborers, mechanics, and farmers of the country. He excludes from State aid all institutions in which any religious tenet, even the existence of an overruling Providence, is taught. If, on the establishment of these secular State colleges, their authorities should permit the reading of the Bible, as a book of spiritual or religious truths of more value than the Koran, it will be the cheerful duty of the Liberal League to protest against the abuse and infraction of the law, as the League protested in Philadelphia, "The use of the Bible in the public schools is a violation of the recognized American principle that the State and Church ought to be absolutely separate."