Aims and Purposes of Abilene Christian College
Aims and Purposes of Abilene Christian College AIMS AND PURPOSES OF
ABILENE CHRISTIAN COLLEGE
Jas. F. Cox The aims and purposes of any college are its reasons for its existence. The founder and builders usually determine these aims. The purposes of any college should be well-known, definite, very worthy, and justifiable. If there are no good reasons for the existence of any particular institution of learning, then it just should not exist; and it will not exist for very long.
Builders of colleges usually set forth their purposes in their charters or their prospectuses. It is well for V those who direct and administer a college to hark back often to the original aims of the institution and try their very best to carry out those purposes.
Schools of various sorts have always existed: parental schools, community schools, private schools, state schools, and church schools. All of these schools have had their aims and purposes—varied and different, yet fundamentally the same, that their pupils might be enabled or prepared to live happier and better lives. For a long time most of our schools among western peoples were dominated by the church. Then the state or nation took the schools and because of sectarianism and religious prejudices, the Bible was forced out of all state-supported schools, even in those nations claiming to be Christian.
Because the Bible could not be taught in the state schools, many private and church owned or church governed schools were built where the Bible could be taught and therefore be given a fair chance.
Many such schools were built by Christians, among these was Abilene Christian College. In the early part cf the school year 1905-06, Bro. A. B. Barrett, a graduate of the old Nashville Bible School, came to West Texas and interested a number of brethren and friends in the establishment of a school in Abilene, where the Bible and other subjects could be taught by Christian teachers. This school was known as Childers Classical Institute, the forerunner of ACC.
Below I quote Articles I and II of the charter of ACC, which declare the purpose of ACC:
“Art. I—The name of the corporation shall be Abilene Christian College.
“Art. IE—This corporation is created for the fol- * lowing purposes, to wit: the establishment and maintenance of a college for the advancement of education in which the arts, science, language, and the Holy Scriptures shall always be taught, together with such other course of instruction as shall be deemed advisable by the board of directors, and which shall be deemed advisable by the board of directors, and which shall be managed and controlled as hereinafter set forth, by a Board of directors, each of whom shall be a member of a congregation of the Church of Christ which takes the New Testament as its only and sufficient rule of faith, worship, and practice, and rejects from its faith, worship and practice everything not required by either precept or example, and which does not introduce into the faith, worship, and practice, as a part of the same or as an adjunct thereto any supplemental organization or anything else not clearly and directly authorized in the New Testament either by precept or example.” In these quotations I wish you to note three things especially. First, “Abilene Christian College.” The word college in America means an institution of learning above high school level. When any qualifying ' terms are used such as agricultural, industrial, medical, Methodist, or Christian, etc., they tell what kind of college. This is a Christian college, not just a college. It is different,-it is Christian as stated above. The original charter name was Childers Classical Institute. During the sixth session (1911-1912) of the school, I was President and we called it “Abilene Christian Training School.” The Board and I believed that the wording of the charter was such that the word Christian would be an appropriate, qualifying term. We did not call it a college that year because the school was not at that time doing any college work. My successor, Brother Jesse P. Sewell,' changed the name to Abilene Christian College in 1912 which was finally made legal in 1920 by an amendment to the charter. So, for more than three decades, this school has been known as a Christian College, and there have been very few who have ever objected to that name. The second thing I wish to emphasize is that: The charter states that “The Holy Scriptures shall always be taught along with other subjects.” Through-out its history this has been done, in fact, the Bible is given and should ever have the most prominent place in its curriculum. On the seal of the College, the word Bible is given the most prominent place. We require our students to study the Bible. More hours aie required for graduation than of any other subject in ACC. This should always be true. As an executive of the College for sixteen years, I never had any serious difficulty in enforcing this requirement. I|f at any time in the future history of this school, any sub versive element should get into the faculty or the student body and should try to have the Bible department given a less prominent place, such persons should be overruled and, if necessary, dismissed. The third statement in the quotation that needs emphasizing is that this “College is to be managed and controlled by a board of trustees, everyone of whom must be a member of a congregation of the Church of Christ.” Such congregation to be free from hobbies and innovations. This statement emphasizes further and very strongly that the school should forever be Chrisian.
Another quotation from our charter which further emphasizes and makes manifest the purposes of ACC is as follows:
“This charter shall never be changed or amended as to qualifications of the Board of Directors defined in Art. 6 of this charter.” From this quotation, we see that the trustees, (the ultimate authority in ACC), must, every one of them, be citizens of Texas and loyal, faithful members of the New Testament Church. And their faithfulness must be passed on by their home congregation. Since all these men must forever be Christians, we could harldy expect them to have any other purpose than to maintain a Christian College.
These three statements then in our charter, viz, the name Abilene Christian College; second, Bible always to have the most prominent place in the curriculum, and third, Every trustee to be a faithful member of a congregation of the Church of Christ,” suggest the aims and purposes of our school.
These statements if ever kept in mind and faithfully observed, are safe guarantees that ACC will forever stress the spiritual and that it will never be swerved from its accepted goal: that of developing boys and girls into happy, useful Christian men and women, able and willing to build real Christian homes and to be worthy, useful, loyal citizens of our well-beloved America. The standard four-year American liberal Arts College is a character forming institution. It has our boys and girls during the character forming period of their lives. It is the aim of ACC to develop Christian character from this raw material that is ours. These young people come to us with plastic minds ready, and willing to be led. After four years, we send them out with the stamp of ACC upon them. It is our purpose to make it Christian. The Board of Trustees, the President of the College, and every teacher of the school should realize their responsibility more keenly after hearing this poem,—The Sculptor:
“I took a piece of plastic clay
And idly fashioned it one day
And as my fingers pressed it—still It yielded to my will.
“I came again when years were past.
That bit of clay was hard at last:
The form I gave it, still it bore,
And I could change it never more.
•“Then I took a piece of living clay,
And gently formed it day by day,
And moulded with my power and art
A young child’s soft and yielding heart.
“I came again when years were gone.
It was a man I looked upon.
He still that early impress bore,
And I could change it never more!”
It should ever be our purpose to mould our students into happy, useful Christian men and women prepared well to live the abundant life, the happy, useful life of service to others whether that life is lived in the shop, on the farm, in the office, in the pulpit, or in the class room. Everywhere we would have our graduates live the religion of the meek and lowly Christ. ACC wants every one of its products, every one of its students, whatever else they may be, first of all to be Christians. It is not our primary purpose here to make our students into preachers, teachers, lawyers, doctors, farmers, salesmen, etc. On the contrary, our primary purpose is and should ever be to mould Christian character. A secondary consideration and purpose is and should be to help our students to learn some useful vocation well so that they may obey efficiently Paul’s command found in Ephesians 4:28, “Let him that stole steal no more, but let him labor working with his hands the thing that is good that he may have whereof to give to him that hath need.” From this we see that people ought not only to be good, but they ought to be good for something. They must not only be willing to give to others, but they need also to know how to labor efficiently at some good work so that they may earn their own way and have something to give to others. Our business is to give an all-round college education. It is our purpose here not only to teach our pupils how. to think but we should teach them what to think on. Php_4:12. Here we must lead our pupils into the full, complete, abundant life that is life indeed. This rises above the material: for, “It is written that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God.” ACC, then should be a standard senior college, but different and superior in that it stresses spiritual development by teaching and practising Cod’s Word. It would have its students grow as did the Christ, “in wisdom, in stature, and in favor with God and man.”
ACC does give and should always give most attention to, and put most stress on its Bible Department. It should provide for it plenty of helpful classroom material in the way of maps, charts, pamphlets, etc., and an abundance of library reference material. It is my judgment that ACC should have a Bible reference library superior to that of any college in the country, rich in helpful, carefully, and prayerfully, selected religious literature.
The faculty of the Bible Department should be com-posed of humble, faithful disciples of our Lord, well- trained in the art and science of teaching and with superior spiritual and academic training. No hobbyist, no know-it-all and no religious dictator should be a member of such a faculty.
It should be the purpose of the Bible Department to teach the Holy Scriptures: the Bible, not as any other book, but to teach it as God’s Word. It should always be taught as God’s Eternal Truth, and His revealed Will to man. We may question the truthfull- ness of other books, but not of the Bible.
It should be our purposes to lead our students to know God and Jesus Christ, his well-beloved Son, so that they may be prepared to enter that eternal home he has reserved for us in that land of everlasting felicity.
It is our purpose to teach the Bible so that our students will like it, be interested in it, and will want to continue to study it. They should be so taught that they will be willing and able to teach it to others.
If this institution maintains such a Bible Department, functioning as indicated above, and if a genuine Christian environment is maintained and every teacher is a Christian—teaching his classes from the Christian view-point—then and then only will it carry out the purposes of its founders and builders and be worthy the name Christian College...