University of Georgia - Pandora Yearbook (Athens, GA)

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Tf)e Report Concerning ti)e Univer it The war against the State University still continues. Through the pulpit and the press bigoted prelates and selfish sectarians fiercely attack this grand old institution. Each year there is an outcry raised against the payment by the State of its just debt to the trustees of the University; and not satisfied with curtailing the appropriations so sadly needed by our college, her rivals whine like jealous children because, forsooth, the State refuses to tax its own property. Nor arc these the only methods of attack to which our enemies resort. There arc others, more insidious yet productive of quite as much harm to the interests of the University. Acting upon the old adage “give a dog a bad name and hang him,” those who wish the University ill and are able to control a newspaper arc doing their best to hang our college. These harpies have east slime and filth upon its good name. Under their treatment mole-hills have become mountains; youthful indiscretions have been magnified into crimes against law and decency; the manifestations of the exuberance of animal spirits have been portrayed as evidences of the most degraded state of moralty: so that there are now throughout the State of Georgia a large number of people who believe that the University at Athens is a very hot-bed of vice, the home of the drunkard and the ruffian, where from one day's end to another students study nothing but plans for disturbing the peace and creating malicious mischief. We do not profess to be better than the average of young men who are in attendance at colleges, yet we do believe that in justice we should not be considered below the average in morality. True, there may be among us some wild spirits, but where can you gather together between two and three hundred young men, that some will not be hard to restrain ? We venture to say that we have no larger number of the unrcstrainablc than are in the colleges in whose behalf our Pharisaical enemies cast their stones. 15

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.faculty of fbc Xaw School. WILLIAM ELLISON BOGGS, D.D.. LL.D., Chancellor. HOWELL COBB, A. M., B. L., SYLVANUS MORRIS, A. M„ B. L., JOHN D. MKLL, A. B., B. L., SAMUEL C. BENEDICT, M. D., Judge City Court of Athens, Professor of Law. Professor of Law. Professor of Parliamentary Law. Professor of Medical Jurisprudence. ANDREW J. COBB, A. B., B. L„ HON. POPE BARROW, SPECIAL LECTURERS. Lecturer on Constitutional Law, Pleading and Contracts, lecturer on Common Law, Evidence and Equity. HON. WILLIAM T. NEWMAN, HON. N. L. HUTCHINS, HON. JOSEPH B. CUM MING, HON. P. W. MELDRIM, HON. JOSEPH H. LUMPKIN, LECTURERS. U. S. Judge, Northern District of Georgia, Lecturer on the Jurisdiction and Practice of the Federal Courts. Judge of the Superior Courts, Western Circuit, Lecturer on Equity and Equity Practice. Lecturer on Law of Corporations. I-ecturcr on Criminal Law and Real Property. Judge of the Superior Court, Atlanta Circuit, lecturer on Commercial Law. 14

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True, we do engage in inter-collegiate athletic contests, yet no one recognizes more keenly than we do, the dangers of excess. Let those carping critics who attack us because we turn some part of our attention to manly sports, be silent until they have seen us fail in the sphere of the scholar. So soon as athletics shall have been seen to have interfered with the courses of study in the University, we believe they should be abolished or restricted. Yet, we do not think—for statistics show to the contrary—that athletics have been in any measure detrimental to the standing of the men on the teams, nor have they lowered the standard of the college as a whole. In spite of the difficulty it experiences in obtaining money, the University of Georgia has a most efficient corps of professors, possesses well equipped laboratories and gives an opportunity for as high a course of study as almost any college in the South. Why is it then, that we find Georgia parents sending their sons outside of the State or to sectarian institutions, in preference to their own University ? Is it because they believe the reports spread abroad concerning the State college? These have been for many years the weapon with which her enemies have stabbed the University in the back, yet we have only to point to the achievements of her alumni to prove conclusively the falsity of the statement as regards the unfitness of our college as a training school for young men. What other institution is the Alma Mater of so many of the rising young men of Georgia—not to speak of the distinguished older graduates ? In every line of life they have attained distinction and arc a recognized power in shaping the fortunes of the State. Yet they were brought up in the atmosphere which our enemies would have you believe is least fitted for the development of noble characters. These evil reports must be stopped, it is the duty of every friend of the University to sec that no more slurs be cast upon her fair name. We do not ask that truth be suppressed, but that justice be done. l«