Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/863

Rh above extract—given, of course, textually—may reveal do not impair the lucidity with which it sets forth the views of "the common people of Texas." Whether Dr. Edwards had or had not heard of "the reptile that sleeps on the log with pious fathers and mothers all over the State" we are not informed. All we know is that, intentionally or unintentionally, he roused it from its slumbers, and that it was not long in stinging into action the regents of the university. A three-years' engagement had been entered into with the professor, only a short part of which had expired; but under the attacks of "the reptile" the regents made short work of their contract, and sent Dr. Edwards to teach his evolutionary doctrines elsewhere. It is rumored, indeed, that another reptile was roused into life at the same time as the orthodox one—namely, the reptile of local jealousy. The professor was not a Texan, and this, added to the fact that he was an avowed evolutionist, caused him to receive a very short shrift. One or two other professors, according to the journal above quoted, took the hint and, with a wisdom somewhat resembling that of Colonel Crockett's coon, "came down"—that is to say, resigned—so that at this date the university may claim to be tolerably free from the leaven of evolutionary theories.

Perhaps it is best. Texas is a remote State, and many things there are in a very primitive condition. It is a land where one man's opinion is as good as another's, and where any little defects in a gentleman's logic can be handily repaired with a six-shooter. According to the Daily Statesman, which ought to know whereof it affirms, "the common people" do not look upon schools and universities as places where some things may be taught of which they are themselves ignorant, but as places the instruction in which they are entirely competent and entitled, in the fullness of their knowledge, to direct. They know how the different forms of organic life came into existence, and no professor—particularly one from another State—is going to steal into their institutions of learning (save the mark!) and teach anything on this subject contrary to what they hold. Well, we think there is something in Mr. Spencer's works which fits this case. He says, in the preface to the Data of Ethics, that evil results may flow if people take up evolutionary views before they are really fitted for self-guidance. For some communities and individuals of a backward type the strong, not to say, coarse sanctions of a primitive theology are better and safer than the broader but less potent motives which the scientific view of the world and of human life affords. We are therefore by no means disposed to hold that the Texans do not know what is good for them. With a little change of dialect they might say with Tennyson's Northern Farmer:

 Doctors, they knaws nowt, for a says what's naways true; Naw sort o' koind o' use to saäy the tilings that a do."

And just as the northern farmer had had his pint of ale every night for forty years, and insisted on having it still in spite of doctors, so "pious fathers and mothers all over the State" have been accustomed to the biblical version of the origin of species, and will have it in spite of all new knowledge and all improved theories. There is no great harm in this so long as the thing is thoroughly understood. We sympathize with Prof. Edwards in the disappointment which the untimely termination of his engagement doubtless caused him; but if any other trained biologist accepts a situation in the University of Texas it will be his own fault. The simple truth is that biological science can not as yet be taught in that State—at least not under the auspices of the State. Well, biological science can wait until the quarantine against it is raised, which, of course, it will be some day. The