Dr. Homer E. Wark’s Inaugural Address as President of Wesleyan
For thirty-six years this institution under whose auspices we gather today has been making history. Thirty-six years ago there was neither campus nor buildings. All we see now has been place here by devoted Christian men and women, who believe in Christian education. To the founders and leaders of the early years we owe a debt we can never repay.
I cannot accept the office of president without paying tribute to the splendid leaders who have preceded me. These have been men of piety, faith, vision and practical efficiency. These buildings and grounds bear testimony to their labors, but far more important is the imperishable monument in the lives of hundreds of students who came under the spell of their ideals. It is with profound gratitude that I mention the names of these men — the distinguished builders of Wesleyan. The first of these was B.W. Hutchinson, who in the beginning of things layed a religious foundation, established spiritual ideal,s and left a definite imprint upon the institution. Then came S.L. Boyers whose service was of short duration but who strengthened the spiritual ideals already implanted. Next came John Wier, more liberal in his views, a good schoolman, who was instrumental in raising the standards of the school and setting out on the path toward a full grown college. Then came Carl G. Doney, a constructive builder, laying strongly the physical foundations, both the Gymnasium and Science Hall being erected in his time, and also proving to be a good schoolman, introducing a number of modern ideas since accepted widely among colleges. Then came Wallace B. Fleming, who conducted two large campaigns for endowment and equipment, adding largely to the funds of the college, always gracious, attractive and wise in his representation of the college. E.G. Cutshall, the last of my predecessors was young and full of idealism, giving himself heartily to the work for the short time he remained, always representing Wesleyan with dignity and force. But I cannot close this tribute without referring to two professors of the school who have acted as president. I refer to F.B. Trotter, excellent teacher, advocate of high educational ideals, trusted friend and wise counselor of students, destined to higher honors as president of West Virginia University and to Professor T.W. Haught, who has five times assumed the duties of president, filling in in emergencies, devoted, hard working, careful and loyal to all interests of the college. To each and all of these leaders pay tribute today as I accept the office of president of West Virginia Wesleyan College.
I. The Value of the Church College
The Christian Church has long been interested in education. The church while still young began to conduct schools. Throughout the middle ages the church founded the first universities of Europe. It is perhaps not generally known that the oldest college and universities of America were founded by the church. The pilgrim fathers and other founders of our Republic believed in the school as well as the church. The schools came into being just as rapidly as their circumstances would permit. They not only established common schools for the benefit of children, but colleges for the training of the ministry and other leaders of the community. The Reverend John Harvard and others founded Harvard College. This minister of religion gave three hundred and ninety dollars to found the college which bears his name. For long years this college had ministers as its president and found its support in the church. Yale College was founded in similar fashion and was long controlled by the churches.
The number of colleges and universities founded under church auspices would run into the hundreds. Some thus formed have ceased to be church colleges. It cannot be questioned that the churches have been especially interested in education.
It is of interest to Methodists to recall that our church grew up in an English university center and that John Wesley was a schoolman of high attainments, was an able scholar, and believed in education. It is only natural that Methodism should take a large part in the work of education here in the United States. Our church now operates about forty-five colleges and nearly as many academies.
The church college has had a marked influence upon education in the United States. The value of these denominational schools has been widely recognized. The leaders of education in tax supported institutions have vied with each other in praising the work of the church schools. By common consent such church colleges are a very great asset to our country. Nearly half of all college students in the United States of America are now in church schools. Millions of dollars are saved to the taxpayers because of these institutions. They unquestionably give desirable variety to education, and make a large contribution toward sound principles, and han efficient educational program. For this reason especially we have more variety in educational matters than any country in the world.
Today we question some of the aims and objects of the early church colleges in this country. Many of these denominational schools were brought into being to provide better trained ministers for the church. This was a laudable aim. They continue to provide a large per cent of the ministers of the various denominations. But some of the founders of these colleges were interested in perpetuating certain doctrines, and doctrinal standards. They believed in their creeds so much that they were willing to found colleges to perpetuate them. Today we question the principle of using colleges for the perpetuation of our particular orthodoxies. It is far more important that students be led to think, to consider ideas very carefully for themselves, to weigh different points of view, and to eventually build up a personal creed for themselves, than to induce them to accept some orthodoxy of ours, or accept a ready made creed. Such a training lays stress on the development of critical ability, the cultivation of the habit of looking at all sides of a question, gathering evidence, the analysis of it, and the thinking through of questions, rather than accept a certain conclusion on the authority of others.
The program of the Church colleges calls for freedom to investigate. The old idea of propagating creeds whether educational, social or religious, left little place for free investigation. We now believe a college or university the place for students to face the facts of the world, scientific, philosophical, psychological, historical, religious — to look the whole world in the face and be unafraid. A few schools seek to protect their students from new views, modern knowledge, especially scientific knowledge. They do not think that these young people should be exposed to strange ideas. They want the college to be a kind of hot-house where tender human plants may not be exposed to the chilling winds of modern knowledge. Most of us believe the college is the place for young people to face the facts of their world frankly and fully. In college a maximum amount of guidance and help can be secured. They can face the various views and philosophies where skilled men may help them to see and weight their significance. It is impossible to keep our youth from this knowledge. They will face it sometime. It is better that such ____grace. World-mindedness is a mark of the educated man. The time is not distant when college men and women will be expected to develop world outlook and the universal mind. An international imagination becomes an essential of citizenship. I must be content to indicate how such a mind will function rather than to indicate the process necessary to its creation.
- In the United States we greatly need to develop the critical mind with respect to our own affairs, our own institutions, and our national policies. An earnest and intelligent self-criticism is most essential. Uncritical national vanity is the disease from which we suffer, and most other modern nations with us. It would do Americans much good to go abroad long enough to discover what our neighbors really think of us, and the estimates they make of us. Such estimates may not always be just, but they will be most salutary to our people. We have but little ability to discover our own weaknesses. To be able to be aware of our faults is a power we should seek for. If we could only see ourselves as others see us, it would be a great blessing. Other races think it would be splendid if America as a whole could realize that she is young and that she has not yet had time to do anything of much consequence. They say our contribution as yet to the higher arts of civilization is almost nothing, so why should we be proud? They emphasize our immaturity and suggest that less self-confidence is in order. They are worried a good deal about our aggressiveness as well as our vanity. Most of all they say we are materialistic, and this surely is true. However, it must not be forgotten that this is a human quality, pretty nearly universal, and no one nation can be criticised especially. Even the Oriental nations are materialistic in the main. However, we need to take these criticisms to heart. It is passing strange that nations do so little to understand their faults and seek to overcome them. They remain century after century very much the same.
Such national self-criticism is much to be desired. It would tend to reduce the national ego to more proper proportions. It would make for a humility much-needed now. Such power of self-criticism would save us from the wiles of the publicists. The habit of taking propaganda with a grain of salt, and then looking farther for the facts of any given question will make America a much safer place in which to live. Such a mind in our citizenry would greatly simplify our foreign relations.It would then be more difficult to stampede the nation into war overnight. The colleges and universities should make a signal contribution at this point. Every college man should possess a measure of this critical mind, and the ability to look dispassionately at every public question. He should possess something of the power of analysis, looking below the surface, and getting at the facts of any situation.Such persons would not necessarily be radicals in politics. Many of them would no doubt be conservative. But whether one or two of the other they would be hard to deceive. Such a faculty in at least a minority of our citizens alone can save us from the mania of war. Such an attitude will give us stable institutions at home and friendly relations abroad.
2. Again we need to create a certain sensitiveness with respect to other people. We need an international imagination. We seldom develop sensitiveness about anything that is far from us. We lack the imagination to put ourselves in the place of other peoples. Only that which is near effects us vitally. Most Americans will never be able to appreciate the suffering of Europe during the World War. Only those families which lost a son in the war will be able to understand how France feels. Had every family in America lost a son it would have been different. We lack the sensitiveness of soul to enter into their losses. We have come to recognize the value of imagination in the social field, especially the industrial field. It is most essential that the well-to-do and prosperous people of West Virginia enter into the life and experience of that army of men who go underground and work our mines at the greatest possible hazards. We need imagination to enter into what life means to them. Until we develop that power we cannot pass a just opinion upon their demands.Today many people in England and America own stock in cotton mills in China. How many of them have tried to understand or enter into the meaning of sweatshop conditions over there? The fact that they are far removed leaves the owner of shares with little or ne sense of responsibility. But this quality is not only essential in industry but in religion as well. It would be a splendid thing if Protestants could better appreciate and rightly evaluate Catholic religion. The time has now come when there must be a new appraisal of the non-Christian religions. Her our ignorance and prejudice is very great. Imagination would help us. But it is in the field of international relations that we most need this sensitiveness of soul, and this power to understand issues which so vitally concern other nations, as well as ourselves. If only we could visualize their struggle, their hopes and disappointments, then we could estimate the situation with some measure of truth.What a difference this quality would make in settling disputes which are likely to arise.
Is not this breadth one of the marks of an educated man? Is not the ability to look at all sides of a question the first characteristic of an educated man? Can any man be said to be educated until he has developed this ability to enter into the experiences of other people, and is so devoid of prejudice that he can dispassionately view all questions relating to foreign peoples? Education without this power of imagination and sensitiveness is dangerous. No true international order can be established until we have a large group of people with this wider and more sensitive mind. The Christian college above all institutions ought to help with this problem. We should not feel that we have accomplished our task with students until something is done in this connection. And shall we not be making good Christians at the same time? Is it not a Christianity with this quality that is everywhere needed? Is it not the absence of this quality that makes our churches and our Christianity unacceptable everywhere in the Orient today? To be able to see the virtues as well as the faults of our international neighbors is an ability to be coveted. To see their faults, and be blind to their virtues is the mark of the half-trained mind. To create this quality of sensitiveness is therefore a fundamental task for all colleges.
3. Along with this sensitiveness of soul to the problems of other peoples we must also create the habit of truth speaking in all diplomacy abroad, and our political affairs at home. It has been considered allowable for diplomats to conceal facts from their adversaries and to speak only so much of the truth as might seem absolutely necessary. Dissimulation in speech is a chief attainment of many men in high offices. President Roosevelt exasperated a lot of politicians by speaking out plainly on all matters at home and abroad. He more than once shocked the skilled concealers of facts in the chancelleries of the old world. HIs influence was wholesome and his example should be followed by many others. Our citizens should not permit any concealments or dissimulations in the discussion of issues. We do not here plead for heedless and brainless discussion of pubic questions. There is plenty of that now. We have had a very good illustration of the way bad blood can be stirred up in the letters of Mr. Churchill and Mr. Borah. Both of these gentlemen needed advice, but they are hardly the kind to take it. Vigorous, but unbalanced minds do much international harm. If the habit of fair and truthful speaking on public issues could be cultivated we should be on the way to peace and understanding. The anti-prohibition leaders are a good illustration of the way facts may be distorted and how they can be made to yield false conclusions. When this habit of unafraid and untruthful speaking on public questions is carried over into foreign affairs it becomes the occasion for wars. The public must find some way of punishing these newspapers and those publicists and those political leaders who disseminate and darken counsel through false or unfairly turned inferences.
This mind that loves truth above all else must be the creation of the college, and more particularly the Christian college. The college and university are the hope of the nation in this matter. No other group of people are so well informed or so broadly sympathetic in their outlook on foreign questions. From these educational centers must come those with the temper of mind and this outlook on home and foreign affairs, the leaders for today and tomorrow.
We cannot here discuss the problem of “courses” intended to create this world outlook. There is no doubt need that changes be made in the curriculum of the college in view of the importance of world citizenship. There is much in the average curriculum today calculated to create the universal mind, but teachers are not themselves trained in world outlook, and the opportunity of building world outlook is lost. There are no doubt additions to be made and thus acquaint students directly with world problems. In a number of countries courses on international relations have been introduced into the secondary and higher schools. This must soon follow in America.
We have thus indicated some of the ideals and aims of a church college. To reach these ideals will be difficult, perhaps impossible. Plainly there is a place for a college which seeks after such ideals. To a college seeking such ends we can give our full support. Such a college ought to arouse our enthusiasm. West Virginia Wesleyan has set its face toward these ideals through all the years. We shall keep them fresh before our eyes in the days ahead. To the fuller realization of these aims we must this day rededicate ourselves. As president of this college I shall bend all my energies to the realization of these ideals. I am prepared to promise untiring devotion to these ends. I now and here call upon all who hold similar ideals to join us in reaching out after this high goal.
I may concluded this address with some splendid words from the pen of Dr. M.H. Lichliter, himself a product of a Christian college. I would like to change one word in his title, “The World Speaks to the Church” making it read, “The World Speaks to the College”
Transcribed from the Pharos: Volume 36, number 03 (10-3-1926)
