“A few weeks ago we expressed the opinion that the Chattanooga University case would not be settled until the next General Conference. We thought there was ground, untenable indeed, for the position of the trustees, and that they would have a hearing before that body, and then the question of ‘separate’ schools would be discussed on its merits, and the Southern side would have the opportunity of presenting its views. But the action of the trustees and faculty in regard to Professor Caulkins revealed a state of affairs that no one suspected, and for which there was no defense from any point of view whatever. So great a misapprehension of the feeling and conviction of the Church in regard to her colored members had never occurred before. The path of duty was so plain that no one should have had a moment’s doubt about it, nor should the university for one moment have hesitated to follow the suggestion of the authorities of the Freedmen’s Aid Society. But the university party could not so see it, and declined to dismiss the offensive professor. This placed the whole affair in a new light, and the board of managers of the society were literally compelled to take the action set forth in their report which we printed last week. “That they will have the support of the Church there can be no doubt. For while the Church may be willing to yield something to prejudice and custom, and agree that some of its schools may be properly classified as white, and others as colored, it will not sacrifice the principle of equality of rights among its members. No General Conference could be convened that would rescind the action of the last General Conference, when it declared 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.’ We do not call in question the desire of the authorities of the Chattanooga University to secure the highest interest of the Church and of the two races. They do not design to perpetuate caste, but to bridge over the present till a better condition shall be established; and the Church intended to assist them in so worthy a work. But they did not take into account, as they should have done, the feeling of the Church. They misinterpreted the phrase ‘expediency,’ when they attempted to establish a rule which excluded all colored persons from the university.