“That there should be a difference of opinion among good men, in so important a matter as our work in the South, is by no means strange. That even a General Conference of grave divines and honored laymen, while navigating so dark a sea without compass or precedent, should occasionally run against breakers, is not to be wondered at. The only wonder is that, in twenty years of unremitting effort, the Church has not seriously embarrassed herself by her own action. The Church has had the wisdom and the grace to enter this unexplored field with her evangelizing agencies, and by her wisdom and success commend herself to the continued confidence of the people. For the first time in the history of this great work we are brought face to face with a problem, the solution of which is taxing the best thought of the Church, and exciting somewhat grave apprehensions in the minds of good men. The difficulty is in the interpretation of the action of the last General Conference upon our educational work in the South. It is not strange that there should be a difference of opinion; for there does really seem to be a want of harmony in the action of that body. “On the nineteenth day of the session of the conference it adopted a carefully prepared report, presented by the Committee on Freedmen’s Aid and Work in the Church on our educational work in the South. The third resolution of this report (No. 3) says that ‘the question of separate or mixed schools we consider one of expediency, which is to be left to the choice and administration of those on the ground and more immediately concerned.’ On the twenty-fourth day of the session the conference adopted a report presented by the Committee on the State of the Church, which declares the policy of the 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.’ These two resolutions do not seem to be in harmony; each declares a distinct and different policy. The one declares the policy of the Church to be, that ‘no student shall be excluded from instruction in any of our institutions of learning,’ while the other just as distinctly declares that the ‘question of mixed schools is one of expediency, to be determined by those on the ground.’ How it is possible to harmonize these two resolutions it is certainly difficult to see. The theory that the one provides for the admission of a sprinkling of colored students into a white school is not satisfactory. This interpretation still leaves the question open, what per cent of sprinkling can be accommodated; which, in effect, breaks down the theory. Neither is it satisfactory to say that mixed schools is the policy of the Church, and separate schools the exception.