“The refusal of the Chattanooga University to admit the colored students who made application for reception into its halls has exposed them to severe criticism, not to say malediction. A reconstruction of its administration is loudly called for, more in harmony with the policy and principles of the Church. The suggestion that the great wrong done should at least be divided with another authority seems not to have occurred to any of the horrified accusers living a thousand miles away from the scene of trouble. Is this as it ought to be? Is it justice? Is it fair play? “In this transaction two things claim attention,—the principle underlying it, and its application. As to the principle: The General Conference of 1876 indorsed the principle of separate conferences and societies. Is the principle of separation right in the house of God, and wrong in the house of learning? The General Conference of 1884 recognized the principle as appropriate also to our schools in the South. Was this done as an abstraction, with no expectation of a concrete application? If so, it ought to have been known. If the principle is wrong, it is but just that condemnation fall upon the General Conferences enacting it, and moral cowardice to visit such indignation on the Chattanooga agents of the Church carrying out a principle ordained by the highest authority of the Church—a principle to be carried into operation under certain contingencies. “The application of the principle is the other matter to be considered. Who was to apply it? Somebody in Detroit or Boston, or the trustees and faculties intrusted with the care of the institutions? To ask the question is to answer it. A mistake in the application of the principle in a given case might be made, but are those making it to be adjudged worse sinners than those upon whom the tower of Siloam fell therefor? If those applying a principle mistakenly be worthy of death, of how much sorer punishment shall they be thought worthy who gave them the principle to apply? But the General Conference of 1884 declared the policy of the Methodist Episcopal Church to be ... that ‘no student shall be excluded from instruction in any and every school under the supervision of the Church because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.’ What of it? Had that deliverance the force of an enactment? Was it true to history? Will any claim it to be history? Who have declared it? When and where was the declaration made? Had such a policy been carried into execution? When? By whom? Had it been at Athens or Little Rock, the only other schools established for whites at the South?