State

A Mighty Methodist Such is №. Lawrence's description of Dr. Braxton Craven, and u hen you read of the latter's achievements, we believe you'll agree that the description is an apt one. Duke university is a mighty institution. Its numer¬ ous buildings represent the last word in architectural design and its campus is a prose poem in beauty, wrought bv the genius of the land¬ scape artist. Tho classic lines of its majestic chapel rival those of the Parthenon in Athens, recalling the rhetorical declaration of the German philosopher, Schclling, that archi¬ tecture is frozen music; and from its lofty tower “tho pealing anthem swells the note of praise” when the bells of its great carillon send forth tho cadence of their sweet sym phony. In fact tho entire setting, ensemble and effect of Duke is worthy of the genius of Sir Christopher Wren. All that is mortal of James Bu¬ chanan Duke, whose munificence made all this magnificence possible, rests within the deep crypts of the chapel his architects created; but to look for the real builder of Duke University, the inquiring mind must seek elsewhere. Religious Pioneers Every religious denomination has possessed great pioneers, of whom those of that faith instinctively think when reviewing the great names which constitute their heritage. A Presbyterian would naturally think of Rev. David Caldwell, whose Guil¬ ford County log schoolhousc was at once “an academy, a college and a theological seminary," out of which came a procession of preachers, law¬ yers, physicians, educators and lead¬ ers in the life of our state for a gen¬ eration, including five governors. A Baptist would no doubt think of Rev. Shubael Stearns, and point with pride to the fact that he traverse*! the state, founding a train of Baptist churches in his wake. An Episcopalian would probably refer to Charles Pettigrew, first elected Episcopal Bishop of North Carolina, whoso work laid broad and deep the foundation of the faith of his fathers. But the informed Methodist would undoubtedly refer to Dr. Braxton Craven as the mightiest man Methodism ever pro¬ duced in Carolina. I take it that the real builder of a By R. C. LAWRENCE Commonwealth is the educator rather than the statesman. Tho lofty elo¬ quence of Daniel Webster has not been translated into the sequence of the ages; but the foundations laid down by such a man as Charles W. Eliot at Harvard or by Woodrow Wil¬ son at Princeton, are still being erected into lofty monuments which will not pass away. 1 therefore refer to Dr. Craven as tho builder of a Commonwealth in a very real sense. A Powerful Intellect По had one of the most powerful intellects our state has ever known; and the two most naturally gifted men of his day and generation were undoubtedly Dr. Craven and Judge David Schenck, both of whom pos¬ sessed intellectual gifts which have never been surpassed within our borders. Dr. Craven came from humble parentage and his great intellectual attainments can no more be accounted for than can the genius of an Edison, a Marconi, or an Einstein. His father was an ordinary farmer seeking to wrest a livelihood from the rugged red hills of Randolph County, and here in 1822 his sou Braxton was born. Garfield said that a University con¬ sisted of Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other end; and the same statement might, with propriety, have been made con¬ cerning l)r. Craven, for lie was a natural educator, with the inbred tal¬ ent of the educator, and when he was only sixteen we find him teaching a subscription school in the neighbor¬ hood where he was born. His own education was secured at the famous Quaker Academy at New Garden, which educated so many famous men. Here he soaked up the Latin and Greek classics for he had a mind like a sponge which retained everything it once acquired. He read in four languages fluently; and his amazing memory was such that he memorized tho whole of Abercrom¬ bie’s Moral Philosophy, so that he could repeat the entire work! Later in life he took his academic degree from Randolph-Macon. Other aca¬ demic honors camo to him as the fame of his great work ns an educator be¬ came known throughout the educa¬ tional world. Our University de¬ clared him Muster of Arts; Andrew College in Tennessee conferred upon him a Doctornto of Divinity; and the University of Missouri created him a Doctor of Laws, also offering to him the Chancellorship of that in¬ stitution, which he declined. But these honors were to come to him later in life. He became a powerful preacher in his ’teens and was licensed to preach by the Methodist Conference when he was only eighteen. The fame of the “boy preacher” spread abroad, and people flocked to hear him; yet ho only held one important pastorate, that of Edenton Street at Raleigh, and that for two years during the Civil War. His heart lay in tho ministry of the educator rather than in the ministry of the pulpit. Served the Confederacy During the Civil War he also saw servico in the cause of the Confed¬ eracy. lie became Captain Craven, and was attached at the large Con¬ federate military prison at Salisbury. We now come to his life’s work. Upon leaving New Garden Academy, the young preacher became assistant to the famous Dr. Brantley Yorke, who had founded and was conducting a small school in a frame building, a short distance from what became the site of “Old Trinity” in Randolph County. Two years later Dr. Yorke retired, ami Dr. Craven became the principal of the little school, then known as “Union Institute.” In 1851 the school was chartered by the Legislature and became a “normal college.” That same year saw its first connection with tho Methodist Conference, when that body lent its "moral support” to the struggling college upon the under- ( Continued on page twenty-four) 5