8

to perform them “without some good degree of mental training.n In order to preserve “this great American Republic,’1 therefore, the Methodists said that they were called upon “to seek for them the means at least of

a primary and elementary education."7 A fourth reason, stated by Frank

Kenneth Pool in a 1939 Ph.D. thesis, was to strengthen the cause of

the Union in the South.8 ’A fifth reason for the Southern thrust of the Methodist Episcopal Church was the desire to help Southern Methodists.9

Their poverty and disorganization prevented them from some work which

‘0 At the same time, the Northern

church could help the Southern church to restore social order".H In

they might have ordinarily done.

addition, the Northern church wanted the Southern church-to reunite

with them into one Methodist body.12 A sixth reason that Northern heth- odists established themselves in the South was to provide “a center about which whites who were unsympathetic with the Southern attitude

might congregate."I3 A seventh reason, evident in the l876 document,

7Ibid. 8Pool, op; cit., p. 300. 91bid. -

. 10Charles T. Thrift, Jr., ’Rebuilding the Southern Church," The History of American Methodism, edited by Emory Stevens Bucke (New York:

Abingdon—Fress, l§6h),"II,W281. HPool, 22. £13., p. 300.

12Ilm'cl.

1. .' f , 3Thrift, 23. 513., p. 28]. Also see Pool, 33.’£i£., p. 300.