Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1898-02-16
POLITICAL SCIENCE.
Its study in Our Colleges and Uni
ycrsifies.
(For the Dispatch.)

For the Dspatch)
The announcement by Washington and
Lee University Of the new "School OF
Economics. Political Science and His
tory" to be opened at the beginning of
the next session, deserves to be noted,
as the beginning OF a movement, on a
comprehensive plan, to give southern
students superior means of instruction in
one of the most important fields Of edu-
cation; a movement which must be taken
up by the other leading universities Of
the South. Such schools have attained
great prominence and popularity in other
parts Of the country. and their useful
ness is beyond question.
The school at Lexington will have
regular staff OF four instructors. in
Guiding the president numerous courses
in political economy, i'm the science of
government. and in history, with especial
emphasis of American history and of the
growth and working of popular institu-
tions. and will be supplied with working
libraries n history and in economics, for
the purpose of encouraging Independent
research and original work among
students.
both the science and art of government
was never so great in any age or coun-
try as ii is to-day in the United States,
and this, not only for intelligent citizen
ship and leadership in the nation, but in
the separate States.
Take our own Commonwealth as an
illustration. Administration is now
recognized as a fourth department of gov
eminent, little. if any, less important
than the traditional divisions of legisla-
tive. executive. and judicial. Our Legis-
lature is brought face to face with the
necessity of either cutting down ex-
penses. or of imposing new taxes on an
already burdened people. No matter
where they turn with the pruning-knife
they are greeted with an outcry of pro-
test and frenZied entreaty to go else
where The most intelligent and
courageous legislator must feel that at
best, he is more or less cropping. He has
had no time in his busy private life, and
no facilities, for the careful study of the
machinery of administration or the
sources Of revenue of his own State, and
of other States and there is scant oppor-
tunity for this study during a brief work.
ing session. Now, in such a school as
that (Which is TO be opened, students
will be trained to study comparative adj
ministration to investigate carefully and
with system, the machinery of govern
ment. and the methods and sources of
taxation in half a dozen States, more or
less similar in polity to their own, and
to present the results of such study in
form TO be readily used by legislative and
executive officers.
Nor can we longer neglect the thorough
study and the thorough writing OF our
own history. A gentsman who was
tsrtrl,, tod in a IA
intercollegiate contest in a great West
ern State informs us that those which
touched on political and historic subjects
while generally free from conscious Sec
tionalism. showed a complete lack of
knowledge of the contributions made by
southern men 10 the Constitution and
Union of the States. They did not depre-
ciate they simply ignored them, and gave
to New England almost all the credit Tor
bringing about Independence and estab-
fishing the Constitution. If we neglect
TO work up the rich materials OF our
own history, and remit TO other sections
the writing of the general history of the
country. this result will be more and
more widely accepted until ii infects our
own neople. who will be thus robbed Of
the inspiration Of their great past. We
do not counsel sectionalism or partisan
work in history, but we do urge the con-
slant iteration of the whole truth, ana
This is what we'll conducted schools OF MS
tory in southern colleges will help TO Sc
$50 " =.