Page:From servitude to service; (IA fromservitudetos00ogde).pdf/67

Among the educational institutions of the South Berea College claims three distinctions, each of which touches national concerns.

In the first place, it was founded by antislavery Southerners before the civil war. It is perhaps the most conspicuous and the last example of that Southern spirit which survived from Revolutionary days and uttered its unawed protest down to the very time of the Rebellion.

In the second place, it discovered the American Highlanders. Berea's founders and teachers first observed that the mountain region of the South formed one of the grand divisions of our country. They first noted the sociological distinction of the people inhabiting the rugged country where the backyards of eight states come together, and they led the way in devising educational adaptations which should make the mountain region a better place to be born in—make it something like what Scotland is in Great Britain, a storehouse of national vigor and patriotism.

And in the third place, Berea has proved the