The Bigotry of Colleges
On sectarianism in higher education.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1897)

From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Edition, 1900–1902), Volume 11.
Source: https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/the-bigotry-of-colleges/
Public domain. CC0 / Public Domain Mark 1.0.

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• A newspaper dispatch from Lawrence, Kansas, published
    yesterday, stated that Col. Robert O. Ingersoll had been
    invited by the law students of the Kansas State University
    to address them at the commencement exercises, and that the
    faculty council had objected and had invited Chauncey M.
    Depew instead.
    The dispatch also stared that the council had notified
    representatives of the law school that if they insisted on
    the great Agnostic speaking before the school, the faculty
    would take heroic measures to thwart their design.
    It was also stated that the law students had made it clearly
    understood that the lecture Ingersoll had been invited to
    deliver was to be on the subject of law, and that his views
    on religion, the Bible and the Deity were not to be alluded
    to, and they considered that the faculty council had
    "subjected them to an insult," and had gone out of its way,
    also, to affront Colonel Ingersoll without cause.
    Colonel Ingersoll, when seen yesterday and questioned about
    the matter, took it, as he does all things of that nature,
    philosophically and in a true manly spirit.
    Chauncey M. Depew was seen at his residence, No. 43 West
    Fifty-fourth Street, last night and asked if he had been
    invited to address the students of the Kansas University in
    the place of Colonel Ingersoll. He said he had not.
    "Would you go if you were invited?" he was asked.
    "No; I would not," he answered. "You see, I am so busy here;
    besides, my social and semi-political engagements are such
    that I would not have time to go to such a distant point,
    anyhow.
    "No, I do not care to express any opinion regarding the
    action of the faculty council of the Kansas University, but
    I consider Colonel Ingersoll one of the greatest intellects
    of the century, from whose teaching all can profit."—The
    Journal, New York, January 24, im.

UNIVERSITIES are naturally conservative. They know that if suspected of
being really scientific, orthodox Christians will keep their sons away,
so they pander to the superstitions of the times.

Most of the universities are exceedingly poor, and poverty is the
enemy of independence. Universities, like people, have the instinct of
self-preservation. The University of Kansas is like the rest.

The faculty of Cornell, upon precisely the same question, took exactly
the same action, and the faculty of the University of Missouri did
the same. These institutions must be the friends and defenders of
superstition.

The Vanderbilt College, or University of Tennessee, discharged Professor
Winchell because he differed with the author of Genesis on geology.

These colleges act as they must, and we should blame nobody. If Humboldt
and Darwin were now alive they would not be allowed to teach in these
institutions of "learning."

We need not find fault with the president and professors. They want
to keep their places. The probability is that they would like to do
better—that they desire to be free, and, if free, would, with all their
hearts, welcome the truth. Still, these universities seem to do good.
The minds of their students are developed to that degree, that they
naturally turn to me as the defender of their thoughts.

This gives me great hope for the future. The young, the growing, the
enthusiastic, are on my side. All the students who have selected me are
my friends, and I thank them with all my heart.
