Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-09-30

girls who enter the freshman class OF
our State University were as thorough
ly prepared as are the students in the
| New England colleges, but they are
not ana cannot possibly be until we
have the high schools and academies OF
New England in which to prepare them.
If the president of the University had
stopped when he made the college work
elective the alumni and friends OF the
University might have remained silent.
But now we have tht startling an
nouncement that the West Virginia
| University has made all the preparatory
work elective. The mode of electlng
or selecting this preparatory work is
as follows. To gain admission to the
freshman class a student must have
| completed In an accredited school, and
must pass an examination in thirty-niRe
! courses. a course being a study b
runs for one term or twelve weeks with
| FIVE recitations a week. Under The new
regulations he may select these thirty
nine courses out of seventy-two courses.
! Of these se~venty-two courses, thirty
six are in Latin, Greek, German, French
and English. Consequently a student
may elect ~thirty-six courses, all but
three of the requisite ~thirty-nine, with
out taking any language. These thirty
six courses, together with n course a
term for three terms, or one year, In
Latin, for instance, would satisfy all
the requirements for admission to the
freshman class, and as all the work in
the college department Is elective, the
students need not devote any more
time to the study Of language; yet II
he has done the required number of
courses, at the end of four years, he
will receive his diploma and the degree
of Bachelor of Arts, without having
devoted one hour to the study Of Greek,
French, German or English, and with
only one year in Latin.
And yet this is SAID to be the way
things are done at Harvard. n eata-
logue of that institution does not JUS
tify such a statement. In the state
ment of the admission requirements, 1t
is clearly set forth that no one can
enter Harvard unless he passes exam
nation in at least one ancient and one
modern language, and that if he does
not take two ancient and two modern
languages, he must take, in place OF
either language, two advanced studies,
such as trigonometry, analytic geom-
etry, or chemistry.
When the president Of the West Vlr-
ginia University was mentioned in con-
neetion with the presidency Of the Uni
versity OF Iowa, a committee of the
Board Of Regents appointed to inquire
into his fitness for the position, reported
that he was "faddish, impractical and
e~xtravagant.' Even if other proof
were wanting, the college men will now
agree that the charge, at least in part,
was well founded. That the "eondi-
lions of admission" were adopted by a
committee and not by the president OF
the University, cannot be offered as a
defense. The pIfesident appointed a
committee, a majority Of the members
of which he knew he could control. On
this committee were: First, a graduate
of the University of Cambridge, Eng
land, who has bean in America only
one year, and at MorgantoWn two
months, and who knows absolutely
nothing about the conditions that OBJ
tain in this State; second, the dean of
the Law School, who, SO far as we are
able to learn, was never a student IN
any college, except a law school. and
whom not even his best friends would
accuse of knowing anything about col
lege courses or about the educational
movement of this generation. The
third member of the committee was
once acting president of the University
and would doubtless have been made
president had he not aroused the oppo-
sition of the friends of true education
by his endeavorS to shorten the courses
and lower the standard of the Univers-
ity. These three men constituted the
majority, and over the protest of Prof.
Woolery and Prof. Whitehill, the min
GRITTY, adopted the report.
The faculty, to whom the report was
next referred, might have defeated it,
but in the minds of many such an act
would have been p~erilous in the ex-
IRENE. For many years there has been
friction in the internal workings of the
University. The charge has been
made that the faculty were always in
opposition to the president and would
not allow him to succeed unless he were
of their choosing; consequently, when
the present Board OF Regents assumed
control it was given forth, perhaps not
officially, that they would stand by the
president in any trouble that might
arise between him and the faculty.
Under the circumstances it was but
natural that the various members CT the
faculty should prefer to allow the presi-
dent to take up his fads than to loose
their places in a self-sacrificing devo-
fiOn In a homeless c9uSa
Some months ago we made a slight
criticism of the management of the
University and were told very emphat-
ically that it was certainly prompted by
personal spite. We desire o to say
that we have no spite and have had
acne against any one connected with
the University, and we feel confident
that no one who knows the facts as we
have given them will impute to us any
other motive that the desire to see our