Clinch Valley News

THE DEBACLE IN DANVILLE.

On Friday, March 11th the Board of Trustees of Averett College, Danville, Va. by a small majority vote, fired the President of the College, Dr. Clayton E. Crossland, formerly President of Fork Union Military Academy, in this State.

Dr. Crossland is thirty-five years old, a Rhodes Scholar who stands at the top, or near the top, of the ladder, among men of his age. What was the trouble? According to newspaper reports, Dr. Crossland was "not sufficiently orthodox for a Baptist school." Not that he was inefficient. Under his management the income of the school was increased four fold, and attendance more than 50 per cent. It was not a question of efficiency or lack of success in the school, that caused the trouble.

The height of his offending seems to have been, that he "smoked cigars, and allowed the girls to dance." This is all, so far as the public has been informed. The public has nothing to say as to what rules and regulations any Christian denomination sees cause to establish as its rule of faith and practice. However it is pertinent to ask, why the denominations, all of whom have rules on their church books forbidding dancing, do not enforce the law in the individual church and at the same time forbid it in a seminary in which there are pupils of all denominations and of no denomination at all? The general public will naturally conclude that there is a screw loose somewhere. The first Baptist Church, Danville, the Y. M. C. A. as well as the students in the college, showed unmistakably their disapproval of the action of the Trustees in dismissing the popular and efficient President of the school.

But here is the suggestive and inexplicable part of this whole proceeding:

The Chairman of the Board of Trustees wrote Dr. Crossland, four years ago, the then President of Fork Union Military Academy: "We are sadly in need of a man of culture and refinement, like yourself, and also of your push and progressive spirit. * * * I believe God has directed us to you." Dr. Crossland accepted the position. Now he is dismissed. Some one was mistaken.

Dr. Crossland smoked cigars when the chairman wrote, "I believe God has directed us to you." Did God order his dismissal? A mistake seems to have been made somewhere.

Some years ago the pastor of a prominent church, sent in his resignation, stating, that after "prayerful consideration" he had decided that the Lord wanted him in another church to which he had been called, which would afford him a wider field of usefulness, and that he had reluctantly decided to accept the call. On the next Wednesday evening the officers of the church met and voted an increase of $500.00 to the pastor's salary, and the resignation was withdrawn.

It is not an easy matter to judge of the ways of Providence, Boards of Trustees and church officials. It is easy, however, to conclude that the Lord wants done the things we want to do. The debacle in Danville has its lesson.