The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-07-12

class battleshlpS, twenty armored cruisers.
France has $40 ships afioat, of 500, 942 tons,
and is building eighty-three of 1882
ships, and ten armored cruisers. Germany
has strong navy also-205 vessels built,
with 20 building The United States have
| in their navy 100 vessels. of 27S,259 tons,
and are building Al vessels of SOC, 484 tons.
| The South is so barren of educated men
of science and distinguished scholars that
/ the chairs of many institutions would
have to remain untitled IL the North
did not come to the rescue with their men
1 of parts and promise. So at least 1T seems
from the prevailing dependence upon
Northern institutions of learning, and the
number of Northern-born professors who
| have occupied and are now occupying SO
many chairs in the various higher instltu-
TONS But this has been the case all
along The first president of the University
of North Carolina the first president of
Wake Forest College, the second president
of Trinity College the first president of
St. Mary's at Raleigh and so on, were
Northern-born men / think. Three of the
six professors at the University of North
Carolina in the fortes were Northern or
Englishmen by birth. The heads of some
leading schools were Northern men. la
all the academies the Northern men and
women abounded. -adays when the
North is not drawn upon for teachers IN
North Carolina they often come from 9TH
or States, while some of our own best
equipped and ablest men go from home.
Today DR.. Alderman is at the head OF
Tulane University, La; DR.. Moore IS at
the head of the superior Presbyterian
Seminary in Richmond and DR.. Barringer
| for years has been practically president
of the University of Virginia, being chair
man of the faculty Per contra, the
University of North Carolina has a Vir
gilman for President, DR.. Venable; Wake
Forest has Virginian for President, DR..
Charles E. Taylor; Trinity College has a
South Carolinian; St. Marys for its last
two Presidents South Carolinians, and SO
on Then the great number of speakers
| of late from one end of the State to the
other at the multitudinous commandments
all of the North show how dependent and
distrustful the South is. We are reminded
of this afresh by Roosevelt being her
speaker at the fine old University of Vir-
ginia. the cherished child of the greatest
American Statesman, Thomas Jefferson.
Teddy had belitted the great Jefferson.
accusing him of being "a weakling and
corruptionist," or words to that effect, and
yet he of all others is selected to deliver
the address at the late commencement.
AS a genuine, unfaltering Democrat, and
devoted, earnest Southron, and a believer
in the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxons, and
especially in the South, the entertainer
of Booker Washington, greatly over
rated negro, In his own home, seould-never
possibly have had me among his hearers
OF worshippers. / would prefer to hear his
sable guest as a man of as much charac
ter and of more steadfastness of conviction
than the supple politician who by the
calamity of a great crime is at present
| fastened upon the American people. But
Roosevelt, the chosen orator at the very
tomb of Jefferson, is an offence against
taste and propriety and decency. Is the
South decadent SO soon?
Some years ago-nearly a decade, per-
/ haps-I wrote column article in a news
paper setting forth some of the gross
absurdities, inconsistencies and impossl-
bilities Of the theory of Darwin and his
chief hackers. But a few months since
wrote for the Raleigh News and Observer
a short article on the Darwin plan of
creating Man, and gave extracts from
Tyndal, Huxley and Heackel-the three
ablest expounders of the creative craze
which were quite damaging to their con-
tentions as to mans real origin-or tie
origin of species. Their concessions were
absolutely fatal to the theory of Darwin
and which they had accepted. Now / am
glad to see that so great a man OF science
the four named have left for another
world where speculation and theory will
not avail them-as Lord Kelvin, OF Great
Britain, has spoken out bravely and
clearly as to how the human race began.
He stands at the head of the British men
of science OF this time, and his words
count for something / have thought for
years, and have so written more than
once, that there has really been a reaction
against fantastic science and the vain
speculations of philosophers so-called. In
Germany the war upon the Bible has
reached its ultimatum, and after piling up
scores of volumes against God and His
4 Truth, there is a palpable subsistence In
the waves of scepticism and derision, and
the edges of the tools of the linguistic and
theological sappers and miners have
become dull with use. The ably edited
Norfolk (Va.) Virginian-Pilot says: 1T Is,
we believe, safe to say that the move Of
agnosticism has reached its crest and is
} now subsiding. The pendulum that swung
toward agnosticisfn under the first impulse
of the new learning is now swinging back
science cannot explain the things that are,
upon any mere theory of finite forces,
There remains always the mysterious, the
! insoluble that is yet the basic and the es'
sential."
, And yet Northern disciple OF Darwin.
, speaking at a North Carolina College COM
mencement, lauded Darwin in high way
and threw slur upon those who fail to
accept his poor stuff as science, and he
was greatly applauded it appears But
Lord Kelvin is not of that particular
!! speculative kidney. He is reported as re.
Gently saying, and / give but a part. but
enough: Lord Kelvin had put this in
cisive inquiry: is there anything. so alb
strd as to believe that number of atoms
! by falling together of their own accord
could make a crystal, spring of moss. a
microbe, or a living animaI?' On reflcc-
, ton he perceived that q crystal was an