- 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. ¶