Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1911-09-22
THE COLLEGE And
MAKING OF Men

The alumni of Washington and Lee
University are naturally gratified by
the remarkable number of its grad
yates who are now occupying promi-
nent positions in politics, on the
bench, and in the various fields of So
cial activity. A new justice of the
Supreme court, Joseph r. Lamar, is
a graduate of the law schools class
of 1878, in which were also ex-Gov-
ernor MacCorkle of West Virginia, the
present chief Justice of the supreme
court of Alabama, the general counsel
of the Baltimore and Ohio railway,
and the director of the Russell Sage
foundation. In the senate of the Uni
ted States are five graduates of this
university Foster of Louisiana,
Chamberlain of Oregon. Owen of
Oklahoma, Bryan of Florida, and
PoindeXter of Washington. Six grad
uats speak for five states in the house
of representatives., including such
useful congressman as Sladen of
Texas, and Hay of Virginia. 1t is
claimed for Washington and Lee that
its law school, Though never large
in comparison with such schools ms
Harvard, Columbia, Yale and
Others" has none the less more
"alumni upon the supreme courts in a
large number of states than any
other law school in the country. "
The chief justice of the court of
claims in Washington was graduated
in 1868, and still other prominent
graduates are Thomas Nelson Page,
Clifton r. Breckenridge, lately am
bassador to Russia; Wade H. Ellis,
DR.. James H. billiard, the head of
the James Fund, and julius Krutsch-
mott, now prominent as the executive
of the Hartman railways.
Altogether, this is an extraordinary
showing. and one which has set peo-
pie to wondering just whyWashington
and Lee should have produced 80
many notable men, particularly during
period when it was sharing the re-
construction miseries and the poverty
of the South. The advocates of the
small college will, of coruse, find in
it complete justification of their
contention that the smaller the insti-
tuition, and the closer the contact be-
tween professors and students, the
more the graduate gains from the
teachings and personal impress of his
Instructors. The st. Louis Republic
has theory of it's own about this
particular case of Washington and
Lee. 1t is this:
1.-The kind of education that makes
great men is not merely cultural,
technical, or what not it is n train
ing that unlocks the possibilities of
personality. In Washington and Lee
today the life of the teachers is static
rather than dynamic; they were and
are men of small incomes, simple hab-
its, and well furnished minds, secure
of their positions, honored in their
communities, and satisfied with the
scholars kingdom. Is there not more,
perhaps, in contact with men at
peace with themselves and the world
than in membership in great uni
versity where the inspector desires to
become an assistant professor, the as
sistant professor an adjunct professor,
the adjunct professor to head de-
pratment. and the president to Sc
cure five m lions more of endowment
than did his predecessors 2"
Now, we should be the last to
deny the spiritual influence of the
man at peace with himself and the
world and free from restless ambition
of him whose thoughts are ever
conferred upon things eternal rather
than temporal. With much OF the
Republics contention we are wholly
in sympathy. That the advocate of
the small colleges, is moreover cor
rect in asserting that there is in it
greater opportunity Cor moulding
the students, for guiding their
thoughts, and particularly for in
spring them with high ideals of
public sryice we have often to 90 too
far in this direction. If the record
of Washington andLee is exceptional.
it is surely due 60 exceptional con-
ditions, as well as to the self abnega-
ton of faculty whose fruits prove
them to have been remarkable teach
ers. In the first place, it would be
hard to find another small college
with such tradition and setting.
When General Lee after Appamattox.
rode his famous Traveller over the
mountains to Lexington and became
President of Washington COLLEGE.
it was town already distinguished
as the home of Stonewall" Jackson
and the site of the Virginia Military
Institute. Many distinguished soldiers
and citizens have lived there or near
by, and the college itself had grown
out of benefaction of George Wash
ington.
After the idol of the Confederacv