West Virginia University: Symbol of Unity in a Sectionalized State

Chapter 4: The Inner Wickedness of Sociology

Chapter 4 1897-1901 Jerome Hall Raymond August 10, 1897- March 20, 1901 The Inner Wickedness of Sociology WHEN THE BoARD OF REGENTS announced on August 6, 1897, the selection of twenty-eightyear -old Jerome Hall Raymond, Ph.D., University of Chicago (1895), as president of West Virginia University and professor of sociology, the national press had a field day in broadcasting the choice of so young a man to such an eminent position. Journalistic interest was news in itself because earlier a local newspaper had observed that election of a WVU president was "attracting about as much attention as did the appointment of the Collector of Internal Revenue a few weeks ago."1 Crucial to the selection, the press was certain, would be a healthy amount of logrolling. The candidate best able to keep up appearances and preserve the status quo doubtlessly would win. When national magazines and newspapers reacted to the Regents' surprising decision, it was hard to say who profited most from the news releases, the youthful president or the adolescent University. Certainly Raymond was different from the past ministerialtype presidents. A newsboy, telegraph messenger, and office boy in his early youth, a stenographer at thirteen, and an employee of the Pullman 59 60 THE INNER WICKEDNESS OF SOCIOLOGY Palace Car Company at sixteen, Raymond had become private secretary to its president, George M. Pullman. He also had served as secretary to Miss Frances E. Willard, president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. "For three years he was my stenographer," Miss Willard wrote of the Northwestern University student, "and in the quiet den where I worked with joyful continuity ... he helped me as perhaps hardly any other has ever done, for his work was at once so rapid and so accurate that I did not have to look it over, and I was able to put several days' effort into one ..."2 To Miss Willard, Raymond, the student working his way through college, had become the embodiment of the perfect man, for during a fatherless youth "he learned none of the evil ways of the street, never wasted a penny on tobacco , liquor, or any other evil indulgence, and brought home all that he earned to the mother and sister who formed his world." Raymond also had served as assistant to the president of Northwestern, and, after receiving his bachelor's and master's degrees there, was principal of the University's academy. He also pursued post-graduate studies at Northwestern , the University of Chicago, and Johns Hopkins University of Baltimore. Traveling abroad in the summer of 1890 with Bishop James M. Thoburn of the Methodist Episcopal Church as the prelate's private secretary, Raymond visited the leading universities in Europe and studied Sanskrit in Asia. When he returned from this world-wide tour, he lectured at the Chautauqua School and next occupied the chair of history and political science at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. While completing his Ph.D. in sociology, he served as an assistant in the department of sociology at the University of Chicago, and, when called to West Virginia University, the young and successful academician held the dual posts of professor of sociology and secretary of extension at the University of Wisconsin. Associations with Bishop Thoburn, George Pullman, and Frances Willard, while perhaps endearing Raymond to churchmen, corporate interests , and the "drys," did not prevent him from receiving the support of the liberal side of academe. Endorsed by President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University and by President William Rainey Harper of the University of Chicago, he also was supported by faculty members at Princeton, Yale, Wisconsin, Chicago, and institutions such as the Smithsonian. Professor RichardT. Ely wrote to Raymond from Madison, Wisconsin, on November 6, 1897: "You have evidently roused a great deal of enthusiasm, and it is manifest that your administration has opened a new epoch in the history of the University of West Virginia. The institution was scarcely heard of before you went there." Charles Zueblin, sociologist with the University of Chicago, prophesied on October 13, 1897, that Raymond would"... do for Morgantown what Pabst has done for Milwaukee. You'll have 'a hot time in the old town tonight' 1897-1901 61 tomorrow and tomorrow night and many more nights we hope and believe." Dr. Lester F. Ward, geologist and sociologist with the Smithsonian Institution , penned the following congratulatory note to the new president on December...