Your friend and fellow-lover of the truth,
William C. Wilkinson.
[EDITOR’S OUTLOOK.]
The C. L. S. C. as an Educational Force.
This is an age of educational activity. Universities, colleges and seminaries are being multiplied. The public school system is being perfected and in some form is in effective operation in all parts of the Union. Lectures on science, literature and religion impart instruction to the masses, so that this generation is highly favored with facilities for acquiring knowledge. The result of these advantages is already seen in the increased intellectual quickening of the times, in the wide diffusion of information among all classes, and in the spirit of intelligence which characterizes the average citizen.
Among these educational forces the C. L. S. C. has won its place. It is of recent origin, but its growth has been rapid and vigorous, and its power is being felt everywhere. Institutions of learning exert a direct educational influence mainly upon those who are, or have been, enrolled as actual students in their various departments. This number must always be comparatively small, inasmuch as but few persons can command the time and means necessary to enable them to pursue the courses of study laid down in a college curriculum. And if any desire to do this, they must be present in college halls and at educational centers. Hence the educational force of schools of learning is for the most part confined to the locality where they exist, and even there are concentrated mainly upon those enrolled as students.
But the influence of the C. L. S. C. is felt in almost every hamlet in the land. Every circle, however small, is an educational center, which exerts an educational influence, not on its members alone, but on the community as well, through the books and periodicals used, lectures given, and the higher culture attained by the individual members.