The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1869-08-21

Universities, endowed with princely
munificence in the old times, are break.
ing loose from their moorings, swing
ing round with the popular current,
committing to the depths of oblivion
the trirism and quadrirism, and con-
forming to the last French fashion in
Polytechnicism. The new Universities
(there are no more colleges now-a.day
are Ienouncing Latin and Greek az
Fetichism," and creating Chairs of all
the ologies, conchology and entomology
and herpetology, with adjunct profes-
sorships on the snails and the feas and
the wiggle:waggles, till we almost wish
for q grand Department of De-
monology, that would take them
all to the Devil together. How are our
great institutions to avoid these errors,
and yet not only keep abreast with the
stride of the age, but borrow from the
wisdom of the future, the prerogation
that gives genius the sway in this reel
ing worldf The obligation is placed
upon them to realize the true line be-.
tween q slavish idolatry of the past and
drunken foot-race for popularity. This
line is not an imaginary one, but rather
that royal road to learning which may
yet have meaning, and place en- the
map of the human mind. Our institu-
tions in the South, under the conserva-
tive, yet advancing influences that now
sway the Southern intellect, and with
the newly awakened zeal for Southern
education, are perhaps more likely to
strike the exact medium than the bolder
experimentalists of the North. We do
not propose to reopen the question,
which the sober judgment of seventy
prosperous years affirmed, and four
years of revolutionary agony claim to
have reversed, that the South in prsc-
tical administration is broader, wiser
and iuster than the North. Let these
comparisons 60. We must try to work
out onr own destiny, not unmindful of
our past, not regardless of our present.,
full of solicitude for our future.
We claim that Southern colleges and
institutions are catching a clear view of
the true line of advance. We recognize
it in the changes and increased vitality
and energy of the Universities of Ken
lucky and Georgia, and of the various
institutions of this State, the Univer-
sity, the V. NJ. Institute, Randolph
Macon, William and Mary, Hampden
Sidney, and others, and especially in
the large material expansion and bold,
yet safe adoption of every true element
of progress by Washington College
Without the aid or prestige. of State
funds, without the backing of sect or
denomination, with all the dead weight
that a fanatical, partisan hostility could
bring to bear against it among our Rad
ical rulers, Washington College is rising
to position Of fame second to none in
the land, and of usefulness equal or su-
perior to others of far greater wealth
and power. This has been effected by
recognizing the demands of the age
aud yet not ignoring the traditions
of the past. We can hardly 60
estray in naming it as (" the
the representative institution" of the
South. The New York World, in its
structures on Mr.. Hollands speech, calls
it's students "the representative boys
of the South. 1t has had to bear the
brunt of Radical malice and misrepre-
sentation for four years. Its teachers
and students, since the reorganization,
have been the soldiers and orphans of
the Confederacy; and its central point
of unity; its chief organizer, admins
traitor and teacher; the director of its
discipline, the guide of it's morals. the
onnseryatOr of its principles has been
that hero, whose splendid genius is so
fairly balanced that evil criticism can
not find in it where withal to carp at
the embodiment of Southern virtues,
the representative man of ouf surviving
soldiers. Yes the College with which
be has identified himself has been re-
cognized by friends and foes as "the
Representative Institution" of the
South.
1t is in this spirit and not in that of
invidious comparison with sister insti-
tutions, emulous and honorable in what
may be called partnership rather than
a rivalry in good works, that we pro-
pose to consider her efforts for the edu-
cation of the Southern youth. Others
are pursuing parallel roads, some to-
wards special ends, some towards the
same general results, but none have
stepped forth with fuller confidence in
the future, and yet with a profounder
memory of things not to be forgotten.
In our next issue we propose to con-
slider what changes and reforms Wash
ington College has adopted.-The Vir-
0inid Gazette, Lexington, Va.