Kansas History - Spring 2008 (Vol. 31, No. 1) Scott N. Morse,
editor. "Knowledge is Power": The Reverend Grosvenor Clarke
Morse's Thoughts on Free Schools and the Republic During the
Civil War." The Reverend Grosvenor Clarke Morse, a pre-Civil War
emigrant to Kansas, founded the First Congregational Church in
Emporia and was instrumental in bringing the State Normal School
(now Emporia State University) to Emporia. He was typical of New
England emigrant churchmen in his belief in the superiority of
New England institutions, most importantly the common school. In
his "School Lecture," edited for publication in Kansas History
by his great-great-grandson, the Reverend Morse denounced the
South for failing to educate the poorest of its citizens. As a
consequence, Morse believed, uneducated Southerners became
pliable tools in the hands of the slave-owning aristocracy. Had
a system of common schools been in place, educated Southerners
"would have utterly frowned" on secession and the resulting
Civil War would "neve