EDGAR EVERHART—THE EDUCATIONAL NEED OF THE SOUTH. 25 
THE EDUCATIONAL NEED OF THE SOUTH. 
By Edgar Everhart. 
Read May 14 th, 1892. 
During the past fifty years two factors in our present civilization 
have been so developed that they have practically revolutionized the 
world. These two factors are steam and electricity. 
They have enabled man to overcome space and time, and have 
almost brought the whole civilized world into the relationship of a 
single family. So potent has been the change effected by these agents 
that hardly a condition exists to-day that existed one hundred years 
ago. Politics, religion and education have felt this revolution. All 
have been modified by it, and none of the three more than education. 
Education no longer means simply intellectual acquirements or 
training of the intellect. It means a great deal more ; it means now in 
a narrow sense preparation for life, in a broader sense it means life 
itself. 
Universities have nearly always been the centers from which spring 
those influences that shape the destiny of man. They have been the 
nurturers and exponents of the greatest of all the possessions of man, 
freedom—freedom in thought, freedom in politics and freedom in re¬ 
ligion. A remarkable instance of this fact is to be found at the present 
day in Russia, where the universities are doing more for that oppressed 
country than all else in the land. 
The power of institutions of higher education permeates every nook 
and corner of a State. The students attending them are exposed in a 
transition period of their life to influences that mould their thoughts 
and destines, and therefore it behooves every university to cultivate 
those faculties of the mind of its students that will best subserve the 
interests of their fellow-men. It should send out from its halls young 
men ready to take an active part in life, ready to battle with wrong, 
ready to teach the truth, and ready to add their contributions to the 
welfare of their kind. This I believe to be the aim of all institutions 
of learning. 
The most beautiful feature of the Christian religion is its doctrine of 
unselfishness and doing good to others. This doctrine is carried nearer 
to perfection at the present day than it has ever been before, and I 
firmly believe that I am right when I say that science has had more 
to do with this happy result than anything else. For centuries after 
the beginning of the Christian era the whole world presented scenes of 
war and famine, destitution and oppression. The mass of mankind 
