The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1882-08-05
Dun STATE UNIVERSITY.
A Correspondent of the Ka.
nawha "Gazefte'' ON the Umfs

A Correspondent of the Ka.
nawha "Gaxette'' ON the Uni.
versify.
Editor Gazette.
/ know of no time more appropri-
ate than the present to give q
thought, through your columns, to
that institution upon whose success
West Virginia has so largely to rely,
for her development, her intellect,
and her future, her State University.
Often the butt Of unjust and Hitter
ate criticism, by those whose knowl-
edge of her real workings and char
acter was as small as their motives
for incorporating her, she has by
her success amply shown the falsity
of their charges and the insincerity
Of her calumniators. Through neg
ligence or ill-will scanty too has been
the interest manifested by the State
press, that is usually so patriotic in
its bowls for development and inter
nal improvement, losing sight of the
fact that it is West VIrginians that
must put West Virginia where she
belongs, and the way is to educate
her sons. Not in other States, with
different ideas and needs, but in West
Virginia, where under the pail of
their own State they will 'mingle and
grow up with number of young
men who are destined to fill import
ant positions in life, while the chan
nels Of their lives lying within the
borders of the same State, makes
their friendship at once valuable
and available to each other in after
life.
The election of an able and talented
man to it's vacant Presidency, to-
gether with the final change in it's
curriculum, which sets it upon the
true University basis, the needed adj
vance in the salaries of Professors,
and the purchase of much new ap-
paratus for experimental and practi-
cal instruction, all promise to make
the ensuing year the most valuable
and thorough of any previous; while
the increased attendance of last
year, the success of its work, and the
spirit of improvement that is abroad,
promises to swell its rolls and fill
its halls with knowledge seekers as
they never have been filled before.
The action of the Regents at their
last meeting, in abolishing the cur
riculum and in establishing a num-
Der of special schools, has the effect
to make the schools essentially like
that of the University of Virginia,
where an opportunity is offered not
only for a liberal education, but
special chairs allowed the student to
prepare himself most thoroughly in
those departments which he after
wards intends to follow. The great
need of West Virginia to-day is for
specialists; men who know each one
his own business and that fully.
Many men have not the time to take
a full course in the classics, or chem
istry, in order to be practical sur
veyor; or intricate Mathematics and
Psychology in order to be chemist,
for such special causes are necessary,
and for such the Regents have made
provision, and it is to be hoped that
the people of West Virginia will in
the future commercially build up
their own institutions rather than
patronize those of other States, whose
colleges excel ours only in their
boosted age, and the venerated moss
that has gathered through the de-
cades of a few centuries upon their
battered and weather stained walls.
West Virginia can boast to-day in
her University,a college with course
of study, as we'll selected, as high in
grade, and as extended in scope as
any school in the land, while it's corps
of professors, equipments, buildings,
and actual result of work, compare
more than favorably with the ablest
colleges in this section of our coun-
try.
But let the citizens all over the
State, take an interest and active
part in it's affairs and workings, as
well as encourage it with their due
patronage and we will see our already
prosperous University like the APP
proach of some startling comet,
sprung from the rock bound haunts
of the traditional mountaineer, and
with West Virginia holding securely
to it's trail, flirt before the eyes of
the American people beacon light
to lead them ever forward through
the unhonored corridors of the flu
ture.