The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1896-07-25
WHY CITIES ARE BUILT.
And Why a Thriving
City
WILL GROW HERE on THE MONONGAHELA.

WILL GROW HERE ON THE MONONGAHELA.
Retrospective and Prospective Con-
ditions Point to Busy and Prosper.
Gus People I'm the Near Future. An
Enviable Record Already Made but
1t is Only an Earnest Of What Is to
Come.
Ordinarily in all the countries
of the world, towns grow into cities
of greater or less magnitude and
Importance only by reason of GER
tain manifest conditions. A law
decreeing a city shall be founded
in a certain place does not neces-
sarily make it city, not even SO,
if the law should compel people to
go and live within its limits. The
largest cities and towns in the
world are commercial cities and
grow more or less rapidly because
they have more or less favorable To-
cations on the highways of trade.
These constitute the great CONNER
cial cities Of the world. Other great
towns and cities, it may be of less
magnitude, but not of less impor-
lance, are largely devoted to man.
ufacturing, others are educational
centers, others national or state
capitals, others county seats &c.
All these in their several rela-
tions are subject to the conditions
that fit them for the purposes,
which cause them to grow and de-
velop more or less rapidly into
Importance and to occupy greater
or less space ON the map in the
eyes of the world. The old adage
that Rome was not built in d
day" is not only true as to Rome,
but equally true of all centers of
population whether large or small
and whether they existed in an
CENT times or exist now. Angus
tus Cesar, did not find Rome a
city of brick and died leaving it
city of marble, simply because it
was located on the miasmatic
swamps of the Tiber and was the
chief city of his empire, but be-
cause, he and his predecessors had
made the world tributary to it and
all the roads of "all the world" led
to Rome. Just as the towns and
cities of the old world, splendid in
location, wealth and power, had
their foundation by the foresight
of their founders in the selection
of sites on capacious and safe har-
bors of the seas and on large fer
tile valleys and plains and were
wholly indebted to the constant eff
forts and enterprise of them and
their successors for their progress
in growth and development, SO
like conditions have created in our
own land in comparatively few
years, our magnificent populous
and wealthy cities and towns, cap
itals of Nation, States and coun-
ties, centers of commerce, manu-
features and learning.
All things earthly have begin
ming. Time was, and not in the
very remote past, when the site of
Morgantown was a wilderness. 1t
would take twice the years to grow
an oak from an acorn as measure
the life time of Morgantown which
bore the proud distinction of being
the county seat of Monongalia
county, Virginia, from its birth.
A distinction not thereby greater
than any other county capital, but
greater, because at the time of its
legal birth in October, 1888, the
territory of which it was the capi-
tai was then vastly larger than
some States of the Union and
which now by subsequent subdi-
visions, forms many large popu-
lous and wealthy counties in West
Virginia. This distinction is shared
alike with it by many other older
and younger county seats in this
great country of ours, but compar-
atively few of them however can
boast of their early settlement by
people who brought with them not
only the sturdy writes then COM
mon to all the citizens of this
country, but higher order of in
telligence and a greater apprecia-
ton of education than the early
settlers of Morgantown possessed.
So that scarce generation had
passed away until it became the
educational center of Northwest
Virginia by the founding of Mo-
nongalia Academy, from whose
classic halls for forty years and
until the West Virginia Agricul-
tural College was founded-now
West Virginia University, 1867,
hundreds of thoroughly educated
young men from the northwestern
counties and the adjacent states of
Pennsylvania, Ohio and Maryland
were sent forth to adorn the learn
ed professions and to become lead
ers in the social and political
world.
Contemporaneous with the life
Of the Academy was Morgantown
Female Seminary and later Wood
burn Seminary where the young
ladies' of adjacent counties and
states, while at school were the
charm and delightof the social cir
,les of the town, and who. after
graduation carried to their homes
md families not only the liberal |
culture, but the name and fame of |
The celebrated seat of learning.
And now in lieu of these by the
generous policy of West Virginia
fostering education, aided by the
National government, we have
he w. Virginia University taking
Up the noble work of these older
schools of learning and for thirty
years past annually sending out
arge classes of graduates land
atterly of both sexes) many of
whom wear the judicial ermine,
their districts in the Ma
ional Congress and in State Leg
slatures, give higher tone and
more efficient service at the bar, in
he sick room and around the al
ars of religion, many more entered
he fields of science and have won
name and fame in civil engineer
ng, geology and literature, others
II high places as Presidents, Pro-
essors and teachers in the JJniver-