The journal. (Caldwell, Ohio) 1934-1961, 1953-12-24
Hail Maryland University!

Inc football team OF the Uni
versity of Maryland has just
been acclaimed by the experts as
The Number One Gridiron Team
Of the nation. Having played a
tough schedule against major
opponents, it finished the 1853
season, unbeaten and united.
That is something of which the
Maryland faculty, its undergrad
yates and alumni can be mighty
proud.
But the University of Mary
land can take even more pride
in another and far more import
ant achievement. Not with any
intent TO belittle the heroic per-
formances of football gladiators,
there really are more important
things in higher educational cir
cleS than mastery of the pigskin.
Some eight years ago, DR.. H. c.
Byrd, President of the Univer-
sity OF Maryland, took cogniz-
ance of that fact, and went into
action.
DR.. Byrd realized that the
educational institutions of this
country, with rare exceptions,
had been remiss in teaching
American history. There is moth
ing in that history of which to
be ashamed, but on the contrary
it is the story OF the heroic men
and women who took a wilder
ness and in three centuries deve-
loped it into the greatest civiliza-
ton the world has ever known.
1t is the most gripping, exciting
and inspiring study the youth
Of this country can undertake.
One would have thought that
in projecting the teaching of
American history at the Univer-
sity of Maryland, DR.. Byrd
would have had the encourage
ment of every educator in
America. Such, unfortunately,
was not the case, as indicated in
the following quotation from a
letter l received from him at
that time:
1T may interest you to know
that some people in the educa-
tional world thought l was TAX
ing long chance in undertak-
ing a project in American Civil
ization studies. They seemed 10
think that l would be subject
to tremendous criticism. Appar-
emily, though, they misjudged,
because nationally, we have
evidently struck a very respon-
sive chord. Big newspapers all
over the country have printed
editorials-and very favorable
ones at that"
DR.. Byrd expressed his convic-
ton that what Americans need
ed above all things at that time,
was to develop a fuller under
standing of our own back
grounds, Of ourselves as d people
and of our Government-that we
need to know more of whence we
came, where we are, what we
have and where we are going
that only by greater knowledge
Of this kind shall our WaV Of life
survive.
He pointed out that other ma
tions were propagandizing, by
devious ways, their PHILOSOPHERS
and their cultures in America
that their propaganda was prov
ing effective because some of our
people were beginning to accept,
at least, a measure of them--that
perhaps foreign PHILOSOPHERS and
cultures represent better way
of life than ours, but let us at
least give our people full un-
derstanding of what we have so
that, if we discard our present
way of life, we shall at least,
have been in a position to make
intelligent comparisons.
And DR.. Byrd summed up his
convictions as follows: Foreign
PHILOSOPHERS and propaganda
sometimes find fertile field in
American minds only because
American minds do not have
sufficient knowledge even to
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