When John Wesley lay dying in 1791 there were only four Methodist schools in England—three small ones at London, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and Bristol, and the Kingswood School, near Bristol. The latter is still doing most excellent work at Bath. English Methodism has no university or college empowered to grant degrees. It sadly lacks secondary schools. The Leys School at Cambridge is its nearest approach to a reputable American college. But it has a good share in the elementary education of the people. Colonial Methodism excels in respect to secondary and higher education. Of American Methodism in general, and of the Methodist Episcopal Church in particular, it may be said, in this respect, "Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all." Whilst some of our colleges are somewhat prophetic, yet the long list of our institutions and the honorable records they have made place us in the front rank of American educators. It has been well said that "The Methodist Episcopal Church began the century with the ashes of one college." In 1900 it had 56 colleges and universities, 60 academies and seminaries, 8 institutions exclusively for women, 4 missionary institutions and training schools, 25 schools of theology, and 99 foreign mission schools—228 in all. These schools have more than 3,000 instructors, and about 50,000 students. The total value of property and endowment is about $30,000,000. "The Board of Education" in 1873 began its noble work of placing the first steps to these institutions very near to the feet of any young man or woman who has the ability to climb them, whether a Methodist or not. President Warren, of Boston University, puts our educational work in the strongest possible light, and in the briefest space, thus: "The Banner Church in Education."
That the Methodist Episcopal Church is indeed "the banner Church in education" the following facts bear witness:
From 1784, the year of its organization, to 1884, the Methodist Episcopal Church established 225 classical seminaries and colleges; in other words, established a classical seminary or college every fifth month through a hundred toilsome years. No other organization in human history ever made so honorable a record in the higher education, or was entitled to celebrate so jubilant a centennial. If we go back through the stormy period of the Revolution to the first feeble beginnings of American Methodism in 1766, we must add to the above-mentioned 225 institutions belonging to the Church the 58 known schools of more private ownership, to get the true aggregate of Methodist institutions for the higher education, namely, 283, a little more than one for every fifth month through the first 118 years of our existence as a Church, infancy included.
Is it not time to bury the ancient allegation that the early Methodists were indifferent or hostile to learning? If the long-standing slander must live on to the end of time, let us once in a hundred years lift it gently into the pillory of ecumenical publicity and placard it as an instructive example of immortal mendacity.
CONCLUSION.
What shall we now say of universal Methodism?
Of the millions reached by her ministry we have heard. The sun never sets on her domain, for it is "from the rivers to the ends of the earth." Her people are found in every land and are at home in every zone. "All climates embrace them—the winters of Hudson's Bay, and the sun-scorched plains of India. The Pacific waves break upon their shores, and peaks crowned with eternal snow shadow their dwellings." As she enters upon the twentieth century there should be no "wrinkle upon her brow, no haze in her vision, no stoop to her form, no halt to her step, giving signs of wasted energy or declining vigor;" and this will be her history if the anointing of her founder abides upon her. Her sanctuaries will be Bethesdas, and her prayer meetings Bethels. "She will gather in the street Arab, and send missionaries to Orient fields of toil and death." Her doctrines will be as when Wesley died; her philanthropy as broad, her relations to other churches as catholic, as when he said, "The world is my parish."