3

that great man Leonidas Polk, Bishop of Louisiana, and im
-pressed by him upon the other Southern Bishops in a letter addres
-sed to them in the Fall of 1856. He referred to the fact "that existing
educational institutions at the South, were either established by
state patronage, or by one or other of the religious denominations.
That in the minds of many, they were not upon a scale sufficiently ex
-tended or full, to offer advantages, comparable to those to be had
abroad, or at the institutions of the highest grade at the north, and
for that reason were set aside, and our children expatriated
or sent off to an inconvenient distance beyond the reach of our
supervision or parental influence, exposed to the rigors of an unfriend
-ly climate to say nothing of other influences, not calculated it as to
be feared to promote their happiness or ours."
He outlines its plan of government through a Board of
Trustees, compared of the Bishops ex-officio and clerical and Lay
trustees, elected by the Diacesaro Conventions. As a cardinal princi
ple of the whole movement he laid down distinctly that the [???} should be out and out a church Institution founded by the church
for the special benefit of her own children for the advancement
of learning generally, and for the propagation of the gospel as