Rev. Edward F. Green

Rev. Edward F. Green

When an air of pessimism seems to envelop in gloom many worthy enterprises in these modern days, it is cheering, encouraging and invigorating to look upon the marvelous work that is being quietly but effectively carried on by Rev. Edward F. Green, president of the Carolina Collegiate & Agricultural Institute at Star, North Carolina. Through his philanthropy, wide and deep, are borne to the ocean of happy knowledge and lives of usefulness those frail human barks that otherwise would ever rest in the shadows and shallows or merely dash futilely upon barren sands. His whole life has been more or less devoted to educational work, but at no previous time has his success quite equaled his present great achievement.

Edward F. Green was born in 1865, in the city of York, England. His parents were George G. and Mary (Milner) Green. For many years his father was a stock farmer and on his estates bred the fine sheep for which England is noted. The youth attended the public schools and remained with his parents until the age of twenty years, when he came to the United States. In 1885 he entered Wooster University, at Wooster, Ohio, where he pursued both academic and collegiate studies and subsequently took post graduate work in pedagogy. Graduating in 1893, in that same year he came to Concord, North Carolina, where he took charge of Sunderland Hall, a philanthropic educational enterprise that had just started on its career of giving a practical education to worthy young women. He remained in charge of this school for three years, during which time he practically originated and organized the church and school work in connection with the Patterson Mills at that place, a form of welfare work in which Mr. Green was one of the pioneers in North Carolina, but has since been quite extensively taken up by the cotton mill owners in other parts of the state.

Following his work here Mr. Green entered the theological seminary at Auburn, New York, from which he was graduated three years later with the degree of B. D. and subsequently received the degree of D. D. His first pastorate was at Oriskany, New York, and one year later he went to the Pacific Coast and during the succeeding ten years held other pastorates, but during the larger part of that decade was college pastor connected with the Oregon Agricultural College at Corvallis, Oregon. While there he was also a student, not only taking the general agricultural courses but devoting study and experiment in bacteriology, biology and chemistry.

In 1910 Doctor Green returned to North Carolina with plans matured for the founding and erecting of what has become the Carolina Collegiate and Agricultural Institute. He located at Star in Montgomery County, in the central part of the state, where he secured twenty-one acres of beautifully situated land, on which there is a fine growth of oak and other forest trees in their natural setting. The grounds forming the campus are being systematically improved after designs submitted by a landscape artist. Writing in the fall of 1917, Doctor Green has the main college building now completed, besides a handsome and commodious residence for himself on the college campus. The college building is a handsome brick structure consisting of two stories and basement, fashioned, especially in its interior arrangement, after the designs furnished by the Government for schools of this character. One is impressed with the idea of spaciousness and wide roominess in the building, while its perfect ventilation and modern lighting makes a wholesome and cheerful atmosphere. The main floor is given over to class rooms and a large hallway. On the second floor are additional class rooms, but the main feature of this floor is the auditorium with a large stage, as in a theater, this being flanked by class rooms that, on occasions of entertainments, may be used as dressing rooms. All these details of construction were carefully worked out.

While this school officially has the backing of the Congregational Church, of which Doctor Green has been a member since 1910, it is in reality his own private enterprise, having been built by Doctor Green without a cent of financial aid from the church. He passes much time in the North and East in the interest of the school, and through his own personal worth and high character has been able to secure substantial aid for the enterprise.

The Carolina Collegiate & Agricultural Institute is intended, primarily, to benefit boys and girls, teaching and training them in vocational work so as to fit the boys for agricultural and other useful industrial pursuits and the girls for useful lines suitable for their sex. The school is located geographically in about the center of a large extent of country that has lain practically undeveloped agriculturally. It contains a large population and the children here have never had good educational advantages. In Doctor Green's school many grown students may be observed and a number who are married and heads of families themselves, and so eager are some of these students that they willingly begin in the first grade work and if possible remain through the twelfth. In 1916 Doctor Green graduated two girls who had daily walked a distance of six miles for six years. It is gratifying to him that they are now attending the Greensboro Normal School with the design of becoming teachers. As he reviews what has already been done his spirit must be refreshed. His reminiscences are exceedingly interesting, especially when he recalls the boys who at different times have drifted in here from almost "nowhere" and after enjoying the advantages provided here, not the least of these being the example, advice and encouragement of Doctor Green, have gone out pretty well equipped for the useful and honorable lives they have led, in professions as well as industries.

Doctor Green was married to Miss Florence M. McDowell, a lady with great musical talent who is a graduate of the Conservatory of Music of Wooster University. Mrs. Green is in full sympathy with her learned husband a philanthropic enterprise and assists through her musical gifts, having charge of both the vocal and instrumental music departments in the institute. Doctor and Mrs. Green have three children: Hubert, who is a graduate of Oberlin College, Ohio, and Isabel and Catherine, who take prominent part in the town's pleasant social life.

In October 1917, at the annual meeting of the state synod of the Congregational Church of North Carolina, a great honor was conferred on Doctor Green when he was elected moderator of this governing body.

Source: History of North Carolina, Vol. VI, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago and New York ©1919