The semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1882-1886, 1886-01-20
SMALL WESTERN COLLEGES.
Gath Defends TIL, IN Against the Sneers of
Eastern Editors.
in Cincinnati ENQUIRER.

Gath in Cincinnati Enquirer.
I observed in the New York Post a few
days ago a reference to Delaware College in
Ohio %singularly expressive OF this ill-bred
contempt fer education in it's living re-
atty. Delaware College is, | think. the
most successful institution in Ohio. 1t has
as many pupils as any college in the State,
and, l think, more. Having been at the
town a year ago. to lecture for the college,
or some society OF it, | beheld bright-eyed,
thorough-going young men, such as old
Bryant or Godkin, or any of these cranks,
might be proud of as sons. Recently the
college disciplined some OF the boys for
going to the theater. The Post newspaper,
which expects to be influential by being
disagreeable, and to be at the summit OF
wisdom by having all the iberality OF the
Jesuits in the fifteenth century, immediate
ly expressed it's contempt for Delaware
College. The President wrote a letter ex-
planatory of what he had done, and then
the paper said: 'This is just what we ex-
pected from a man who would call a boys
boarding-school a university
You can see where the piety toward edu-
cation is in this scribe. He has no pleasure
in education, but a great Indignation that
the word university" should be used ina
new place and by a new organization.
There is nothing in this word emitting it to
the respect Of anybody but a fool. The
word "college' means nothing but a collec-
ton OF persons bent on mutual improve
ment. The word university means moth
ing at all connected with education neces-
sarily. 1t simply means a corporation or
corporate body, and in Rome 1000 years
ago they had universities OF tailors and
bakers.
The first unworthy in Europe g~lorying in
that name was the University of Paris
which was chiefly exploiting itself at that
time on the silliest matters of the monks
and other dialecticians. What was called
scholastic philosophy was their little game,
about whom we knew. He was telling the
boys that there were only two kinds of per-
feet virtue, and in the meantime he was
getting hold OF old Edwards niece %illegiti-
mately a member Of the same, church, as
our Brooklyn friends will remember. Har-
ward University for many years was a little
school OF ships where they classified the
boys, as John Adams relates in his life, ac-
corling to the stations OF their fathers.
Delaware College or University, has prob
ably It the present time one-half or one
third as many pupils as are at Harvard.
Indeed. Harvard was originally all Indian
school and received Indian boys. They had
a little more charity in those Puritan DAYS
thai any one in a college of long endow-
ment- Indeed, one OF the largest collegiate
institutions in the world, like Delaware, is
sneered at for calling itself a university.
The moment the New England people got
to Ohio they started their schools, and gen.
orally called them colleges and universities.
II the man who edits the Post had told old
Thomas Ewing, the elder, that he was a
fool for having called Athens College a uni
Verslty, the old man would rave looked at
him, and that would have been equivalent
to kicking MIN. Mr.. Ewing went to that
little college when the wilderness still in
closed 1T. 1t was at a time of life when he
had never seen an auger, and remarked.
after inspected that weapon: "Why, with
this thing and an axe a man can make any,
thing"
The university Mr.. Lincoln went to was
a borrowed book, seated under "a tree by
the wayside. The university Washington
went to was on a mountain side, with a
bear on one side OF him and an Indian on
the other. b.
The first important fool we had in this
country among our Presidents was John
Adams, who had made a careful study of
the word university, and WAS sure he had
got it in him. He was like the man in Haw.
thorne's story OF ETHAN Brand" who had
heard somewhere that there was one sin
God would never forgive, and he set to
work with all his might to find it out. He
finally presented himself among his neigh
bors, slapped his breast and said: Me
Mugwump, me big Indian: 1 am the man
who has got the unforgiven SIM "Well,
what is it," said the i%ncredulous neiehhors
1T is the thing [ have got" said he, and
explained no further"
So it is with education descending upon
a coarse, Inbred, illiberal heart; instead of
warming the man to liberation and philos-
ophy, it makes him the depository Of con-
ceit and Indigestion.