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and theory, and he had considered accepting a teaching
position at Amherst College. As has been mentioned,
he aided Bishop Otey in the establishment of a girl's
school and they had hoped to establish a college in
Tennessee to be known as Madison College.

It should be recalled that there was at that time no
great university in America on the Oxford and Cam-
bridge model, a university that educated not only man
in his fullness but helped to shape the nation, conserv-
ing the best of the past, stimulating the present, mold-
ing the future. It was such a university that was en-
visaged by Bishop Polk, when, in the summer of 1856,
he addressed a letter to the bishops in North and South
Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi,
Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee, asking their aid and
counsel in the setting up of a Church-sponsored uni-
versity in the Southern States.

He addressed the Southern bishops because the
Southern States had special economic, social and cul-
tural similarities that made it feasible to expect a unified
and harmonious effort. There was an agrarian economy
shared by these states. There was the institution of
slavery, which Bishop Polk sought to ameliorate and
which he knew in time would disappear. A Southern
university could train leaders of the region for their
peculiarly Southern responsibilities; and at the same
time, in strengthening education in the South, the uni-
versity would strengthen the nation and the Church.
This was Bishop Polk's dream. Other bishops had at-
tempted diocesan colleges. Bishop Otey, indeed, had
suggested a plan not unlike that of Bishop Polk, but it
was Polk who acted, who enlarged upon lesser plans
and brought the university into existence.

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