{
  "schema": "tga.work.v1",
  "identifier": "dresden:vol-11:the-bigotry-of-colleges",
  "slug": "the-bigotry-of-colleges",
  "title": "The Bigotry of Colleges",
  "subtitle": "On sectarianism in higher education.",
  "excerpt": "On the sectarian grip that still held many American colleges at the end of the nineteenth century — and its effect on the free education of the young.",
  "year": 1897,
  "volume": 11,
  "category": "Essay",
  "author": {
    "name": "Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "wikidata": "Q360326",
    "viaf": "44331023"
  },
  "isPartOf": {
    "title": "The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "edition": "Dresden Edition",
    "publisher": "C. P. Farrell",
    "year": 1900
  },
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/",
  "url": "https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/the-bigotry-of-colleges/",
  "wordCount": 567,
  "body": "• A newspaper dispatch from Lawrence, Kansas, published\n    yesterday, stated that Col. Robert O. Ingersoll had been\n    invited by the law students of the Kansas State University\n    to address them at the commencement exercises, and that the\n    faculty council had objected and had invited Chauncey M.\n    Depew instead.\n    The dispatch also stared that the council had notified\n    representatives of the law school that if they insisted on\n    the great Agnostic speaking before the school, the faculty\n    would take heroic measures to thwart their design.\n    It was also stated that the law students had made it clearly\n    understood that the lecture Ingersoll had been invited to\n    deliver was to be on the subject of law, and that his views\n    on religion, the Bible and the Deity were not to be alluded\n    to, and they considered that the faculty council had\n    \"subjected them to an insult,\" and had gone out of its way,\n    also, to affront Colonel Ingersoll without cause.\n    Colonel Ingersoll, when seen yesterday and questioned about\n    the matter, took it, as he does all things of that nature,\n    philosophically and in a true manly spirit.\n    Chauncey M. Depew was seen at his residence, No. 43 West\n    Fifty-fourth Street, last night and asked if he had been\n    invited to address the students of the Kansas University in\n    the place of Colonel Ingersoll. He said he had not.\n    \"Would you go if you were invited?\" he was asked.\n    \"No; I would not,\" he answered. \"You see, I am so busy here;\n    besides, my social and semi-political engagements are such\n    that I would not have time to go to such a distant point,\n    anyhow.\n    \"No, I do not care to express any opinion regarding the\n    action of the faculty council of the Kansas University, but\n    I consider Colonel Ingersoll one of the greatest intellects\n    of the century, from whose teaching all can profit.\"—The\n    Journal, New York, January 24, im.\n\nUNIVERSITIES are naturally conservative. They know that if suspected of\nbeing really scientific, orthodox Christians will keep their sons away,\nso they pander to the superstitions of the times.\n\nMost of the universities are exceedingly poor, and poverty is the\nenemy of independence. Universities, like people, have the instinct of\nself-preservation. The University of Kansas is like the rest.\n\nThe faculty of Cornell, upon precisely the same question, took exactly\nthe same action, and the faculty of the University of Missouri did\nthe same. These institutions must be the friends and defenders of\nsuperstition.\n\nThe Vanderbilt College, or University of Tennessee, discharged Professor\nWinchell because he differed with the author of Genesis on geology.\n\nThese colleges act as they must, and we should blame nobody. If Humboldt\nand Darwin were now alive they would not be allowed to teach in these\ninstitutions of \"learning.\"\n\nWe need not find fault with the president and professors. They want\nto keep their places. The probability is that they would like to do\nbetter—that they desire to be free, and, if free, would, with all their\nhearts, welcome the truth. Still, these universities seem to do good.\nThe minds of their students are developed to that degree, that they\nnaturally turn to me as the defender of their thoughts.\n\nThis gives me great hope for the future. The young, the growing, the\nenthusiastic, are on my side. All the students who have selected me are\nmy friends, and I thank them with all my heart.\n"
}