Daily new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1897-1906, 1898-08-29


Right-A Communication Published
by Request.
MoRGANTowN, Aug. Is, '9S.
EDITOR PANHANDLE News;
Dear Sir:-I take great pleasure in
complying with your request for let
ter upon the University affairs. /
have read the articles in some of our
state papers to which you refer, at
lacking the President Of the Univer-
sity and his administration of its af-
| fairs. / have also been a constant
attendant upon the course of lectures
on Sociology, delivered by DR.. Lester
+. Ward, of the Smithsonian Insti-
tute, about which lectures as a storm
center this small newspaper war has
been raging. am therefore in po-
sition to know the facts in the case
and will try to state them.
In the first place the attack began
with an anonymous letter in the NEW
DOMINION, purporting to give quota
tions from DR.. Wards lectures. These
quotations | found by careful COM
parison with my own notes of the lee
lures in question to be utterly false
and misleading. DR.. Ward did not
say the words, attributed to him in
this article. He did not in any of his
lectures attack Christianity, religion,
marriage or any other social institu-
ton. Sociology is not, as many peo-
pie suppose, a bundle Of schemes for
reforming the world. 1t deals with
the forces which underlie the develop
ment of human society and the laws
under which the forces operate
forces as real as the force of gravita-
tion and laws as unvarying in their
operation as the law of falling bodies
The sociologist is not propaganda
with policy. He does not attack
one institution of society and boom
another His attitude toward them
is like that Of the chemist toward his
alkalies and acids. 1t is true that DR..
Ward, like all other writer's upon So
GEOLOGY, deals with his subject upon
the basis of the evolutionary hypothe-
sis; but so do all teachers of every
kind of science in all real universities.
1t would be very foolish to teach Geo
logy, Biology, Anthropo1ogy. Philol-
ogy or even Psychology upon any 9TH
er hypothesis.
However, these attacks upon DR..
Ward did not have their origin in any
desire to counterfeit the effects of
false doctrine. They were not writ
ten by any disinterested conservator
of the public morals nor by any zeal
Gus defender of the faith. A very cas-
ual observer in Morgantown quickly
discovers that there are elements here
hostile to any progress on the part of
the University. This unfortunate
spirit arises out of the jealousies
and animosities inherited from a long
period of political intrigue. Occasion
al outbreaks of captious criticism are
to be expected from these sources till
the University has outgrown the po-
litical swadding clothes of it's in
fancy.
The newspaper criticism of DIR.
Raymond has been especially lima
tured and uncalled for. No man could
have given HIMSELF more unreservedly
to the work of organizing and develop
ing real University at Morgantown
than the modest, scholarly gentleman
who now occupies the Presidents
chair. He has within the short space
of one year accomplished an astonish
ing amount of work and has laid the
foundation for far reaching growth
and development. He has brought to
this task an earnest purpose, ready
intelligence, expert knowledge and
capacity for hard work in unlimited
quantities.
One of the most promising Of all
the innovations of the current year
| is the continuous session feature Civ
| ing a summer quarter equal in at
Effectiveness to any quarter of the
academic year. If this department
of the University work is properly
supported by the regents and the peo-
pie of the state, it must yield results
highly valuable to all our educational
interests. The time will come when
every teacher worthy of the name
within the borders of the state will
be doing correspondence work and
summer study at the University.
How stupid it is when you think of
it, for the state to keep great and
expensive educational plant lying
idle during the only months in the
year when it could be made use of by
our teachers-the very class of our
population most interested in and
most in need of the higher education.
| The nuhlic lnct11rag many of them