Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 57:227 (Jul 1900)
Article: The Ideals Of Christian Education: The Argument For The Christian College.
Author: John Henry Barrows

BSac 57:227 (July 1900) p. 494

The Ideals Of Christian Education:
The Argument For The Christian College.1

Pres. John Henry Barrows

Oberlin is a college great in history and great in hope, and there are many who love her. The past, whose record has gone into books and into living history, and into living men and women, is glorious and secure. There is no need to-day to rehearse familiar things. In speaking of the Christian college we shall find a good illustration of its spirit and achievements in the institution which we serve. Oberlin, happy in name, heroic in origin, fruitful in service, was as bold a venture of faith as that which launched the Mayflower, or sent the first missionary ship to the shores of Asia. The pioneers are mostly gone; but one, a boy when the ax of the first colonist rang amid these woods,—student, teacher, president, citizen, leader, philosopher, friend,—is yet with us, the completest embodiment of the Oberlin spirit. May wisdom and faith and love like his never depart from among us.

If we should pause a moment to summarize or suggest the past, the chief service of such a comprehensive sketch would be to inspire thankfulness to God, whose hand has been our guide, and to renew our sense of the greatness of the trust committed to our keeping. The history of Christian colleges in the West, as in the East, has been a history of courage and self-sacrifice on the part not merely of a few, but of considerable numbers. The early history of Oberlin reads like a chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, or

BSac 57:227 (July 1900) p. 495

like a page from the annals of Massachusetts. Oberlin was the most advanced outpost of the highest moral development of America. One cannot read the early story of Oberlin without honoring the tremendous moral energy of the founders, who not only came to the wilderness with the express purpose of glorifying God in doing good to men “to the extent of their ability,” but who achieved their purpose and made their college a power for education, for political reform, and spiritual regeneration in the Valley of the Mississippi and over the nations of the earth. There are so many visionaries without the wisdom and courage of success, that we applaud those visionaries who really make a lasting mark on the world. The history of Oberlin is aflame with the light of the Holy Spirit, the very energy of the loving God. We read that history and are touched by the burning heart of the greatest of modern evangelists, one of the epoch-making forces in the kingdom of Christ. We meet vigorous thinkers and stalwart debaters, who tested the many spirits who were so urgent and fleet in the third and fourth decades of our century, whether they were of God’s eternal day, or goblin...