The news & observer., 1897-01-28

through its halls-not the freedom of liz
cense and scoff-but that thrilling liberty
of trath which makes one free, and the
truth here sought whether of nature or
of man shall be sought that men may
come nearer to God and to good. A Uni
yersity cannot be irrehgious unless its
teachers are. 1t cannot ignore religion,
for religion will not ignore it. Religion
is life and truth and that is what Uni
!, versity seeks to make and to find.
| cannot here analyze the courses of
instruction offered here. There are three
general courses leading to the bachelor s
degree in Arts, Philosophy and Science
There are advanced and graduate
courses, and professional schools in law
and medicine. There are three brief
courses for optional students and sum
mer school for teachers.
/ 1t is sometimes asserted that our stand
ard of admission is not sufficiently high.
1t is one year below Yale and Harvard
and TO make it higher would be to put
it out of the reach of the average South
ern boy The wiser course seems to be
to enrich and strengthen the courses of
fered after entrance.
The University is committed to the cleo
tive system in the upper classes on the
principle that a young man of twenty
should know his likes or, at least, his dis
likes, and when this revelation comes to
him, let him welcome it reverently, thank
God and work his way to some sort Of
usefulness in life.
We bear ON our rolls 543 students, 153
of them Summer School and 800 actual
students in our classes during the term.
bo bN Lovo -
students in the South. Their presence
inspires me to-day for University does
not exist for its own glory, but to fashion
them into men OF strength and culture
and character, men who can observe close
ly and reason accurately, men who can
work, men who have learned to reverence
God and their conscience and who have
some humility and toleration This stu
dent body Is perhaps the purest republic
In our borders. ALI sects, parties, con-
ditions and occupations are here and they
rise or fall as they have character, brains
and energy. There is curious old no
tiom surviving out of the past that the
University is the resort OF the aristo-
cratic and the rich. The simple facts
quite explode this idea, unless it be aris-
tocratic to seek to excel in all manly
sports, TO carry off the prizes of life, to be
at the front, whether with Vance and
Settle on the hustings, with Ruffin and
Pearson on the bench or with Pettigrew
leading that long thin, immortal line that
marched SO steadily up the murderous
slopes of Gettysburg.
Over one half OF the students here are
the sons of farmers. Three fourths OF
them are the sons of poor men to whom
their presence here means anxiety and
self-denial. Eighty of them are working
their way through college by every form
of honorable labor from waiting at table
to cutting hair. Forty of them are here
as the: result Of money earned or borrow
ed. Forty are aided by loans and nearly
900 hare received aid from the University
in loans or scholarships in the past TWEEN
ty yeass.
Among the students who support them
selves at the University there are:
Three stypewriters, two shoemakers, two
hair cutters, six printers, four clerks,
one carpenter, twenty-five walters, FIVE
saw and: cut wood, one book-keeper, one
telegraph operator, four teachers in viii
lage, twelve coach backward students,
one lawyer, one dentist
That is a honely, but an eloquent
enumeration. 1t speaks for the masterful-
ness of olsr race and tells the whole story
of the passing of an old order and the
birth of amew.
The University is closer to the people
than ever before. It's graduates are to
he found cot alone in the so-called learn
ed professions, but in manufacturing, ag-
riculture, chemistry, electrical engineer
ing and greatest of all in teaching. Thirty
recent graduates are professors in South
ern and Northern colleges and forty are
Superintendents or masters of large
school SYSTEMS in the Southern States.
The going tof Southern boy to college
ia no matter of course incident OF youth.
The presence of many boy here, to-day
looking DOWN from those galleries means
almost "a tragedy in some far away home.
1t means thaf the father and mother lie
awake in the still night hours and take
counsel together how they may work a
little harder each day, saving here and
scrimping there, denying themselves this
luxury and that comfort that this child
OF their flesh may know the life denied
to- them, may walk upon the mountain
ranges of life while they toll in its valleys.
just a generation after a ruinous war is
1T crime for the State for its own sake,
to- aid such people2 1t would seem that
the angels in heaven would envy mortal
men SO fine "a service.
There is a healthy and manly public
opinion in this college republic or ours.
Higher standards OF conduct prevail in
colleges than in other communities des-
pite what one may hear. / dare assert
that this University is a safer place by far
for young man passing into manhood
than the sordid pitfalls OF little towns
and villages, the isolation of the farm, or
the allurements OF the city.
college public opinion is quick and
easily led astray and there is usually some
cynicism among those awaiting the grow
ing of the beard, but it is tempered by
scholarly tastes, eager friendships and
frank and keen debates that make against
all hopeless vulgarity and depravity. The
sham the unctuous or the maudlin meets
with no mercy here and he that is puffed
up with conceit Of himself is punctured in