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The Presbyterian Church wishes to see the young people of every generation provided with the best means for their intellectual and spiritual progress. It wishes to see them prepared, not merely for active and successful participation in the onward work of the world, but also in full and hearty sympathy with the great work of Christ and his people, for the spiritual salvation of the nations. It knows there is no good reason, why a stirring leader of men should not be a Christian; nor why a Christian should not be eminently successful, in taking his place among men as a forceful factor in the life of the world.

The Presbyterian Church believes in the system of state schools from the primary, public and high schools, to the University. These schools provide for general education. Millions of children would never be in school, were it not for these state provisions and for compulsory public education. These schools are however not all perfect, since they do not provide for moral and religious training, the great underlying principles of reverence and righteousness, that must enter into every life in order to fit it for the performance of Christian and patriotic duty.

The Presbyterian church takes a patriotic interest in our whole public school system, and believes that all the children should be trained in those that are under public direction, so that all the children and youth of the nation shall be a united, intelligent and patriotic body, fitted for good citizenship.

At the same time it believes in special church institutions of higher learning, that shall be adapted to train our young people for intelligent leadership in the church, and enable them to become doubly useful in the home, social circle and in public life. Our Christian academies and colleges are valuable institutions. These furnish to the church and the world the greatest number of ministers, missionaries, college presidents and Christian statesmen. Parents everywhere, find these Christian institutions furnish the best advantages, and that they are the safest and most economical. No institutions furnish higher or more profitable culture. They combine all that is best in real culture and education of the intelligent faculties, with a true religious conception of life; so that all who yield to their best influences go forth from them pure-hearted, stronger and better prepared to engage in life's duties successfully; for they take with them the personal assurance of the gracious presence and abiding blessing of our Father in Heaven.

In a christian educational institution, the spirit of the instructor is one that regards the student, as of more value than the subject taught. Its aim including the christian college, is not research, the work of a university, but to make men. The ordinary branches that are taught are regarded as instrumentalities, for making a well trained man of the student.

The key to success in the battle of life, is found in the struggle, which insures control of one's self. This is the secret of a good education. In an important sense, all education must be self-education. Professor Huxley gave good emphasis to this thought when he wrote: "Perhaps the most valuable result of all education, is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson which ought to be learned, and, however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson he learns thoroughly." An eminent educator used to say to his class: "He, who will become a scholar, must learn to command his faculties."

The Presbyterian church honors God and exalts him to the throne of absolute supremacy over all his creatures. It honors Him by using the instrumentalities he has appointed. It receives the Bible, as the very word of God, and adopts it as the only rule of faith and practice.

The Presbyterian church from the beginning has been a zealous missionary organization. At the meeting of the First General Assembly arrangements were made to send the gospel to "the regions beyond,"—the frontiers and the various tribes of American Indians. The agencies, then organized as committees, have become the great Boards of Home and Foreign Missions, that now receive and distribute, each, more than a million dollars annually.