The professor's mandate: Specialist, oracle, or moral guide?

“ With the college professor, too. Being is not, as it is in the case of most professions, an accident. It is a duty strictly required of him. The college professor must be clean-lipped and clean-hearted, honest and honorable. In what other calling, except the ministry, does a single instance of scandal involve immediate dismissal? The world is as strict with the college professor as with priest or pastor. "If a man desire the office of professor, he must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach ”

“ They shall not be more than human, only if possible more human. Priests have we of science, we name them so; men whose whole soul is wrapped up in the pursuit of knowledge: priests of art, who dedicate their lives to the service of the Beautiful, priests also of the Moral, artists of the Good, sages in the science of Virtue, teachers of the Ideal.
Let us consider for a moment, in order to illustrate our meaning, the life of one such priest, whose fame has come down to us undimmed by the corroding influence of time—the life of Socrates. ”

“ As formal teaching and training grow in extent, there is the danger of creating an undesirable split between the experience gained in more direct associations and what is acquired in school. This danger was never greater than at the present time, on account of the rapid growth in the last few centuries of knowledge and technical modes of skill. ”

“ So that conduct is impaired by the want of science and culture; and our theologians really suffer, not from having too much science, but from having too little. Whereas, if they had turned their faculty for abstruse reasoning towards the proper objects, and had given themselves, in addition, a wide and large acquaintance with the productions of the human spirit and with men's way of thinking and of using words, then, on the one hand, they would not have been tempted to misemploy on the Bible their faculty for abstruse reasoning, for they would have had plenty of other exercise for it ”

“ But neglected generally is real intellectual status, the personal cultivation of the mind.
"Students don't even give a damn abut the apathy," one has said. Apathy toward apathy begets a privately constructed universe, a place of systematic study schedules, two nights each week for beer, a girl or two, and early marriage; a framework infused with personality, warmth, and under control, no matter how unsatisfying otherwise.
Under these conditions university life loses all relevance to some. Four hundred thousand of our classmates leave college every year. ”

“ The significance is in the fact that students are breaking the crust of apathy and overcoming the inner alienation that remain the defining characteristics of American college life.
If student movements for change are still rarities on the campus scene, what is commonplace there? The real campus, the familiar campus, is a place of private people, engaged in their notorious "inner emigration." It is a place of commitment to business-as-usual, getting ahead, playing it cool. ”

“ We want the creative faculty to imagine that which we know; we want the generous impulse to act that which we imagine; we want the poetry of life: our calculations have outrun conception; we have eaten more than we can digest. The cultivation of those sciences which have enlarged the limits of the empire of man over the external world, has, for want of the poetical faculty, proportionally circumscribed those of the internal world; and man, having enslaved the elements, remains himself a slave. ”

“ But there is a natural form of piety. The natural use of the strength of a strong man, or the wisdom of a wise one, is to the work of a strong man or a wise one. What is the natural work of piety? Obviously it is practical life; the use of all the faculties in their proper spheres, and for their natural function. Love of God, as truth, justice, love, must appear in a life marked by these qualities; that is the only effectual "ordinance of religion." A profession of the man's convictions, joining a society, assisting at a ceremony,—all these are of the same value in science as in religion ”

“ The question with the teacher then is. How can I develop each nature committed to my charge so as to strengthen its weak parts physical, intellectual, and moral, so that no faculty shall be unduly developed and that the balance of the whole shall be good—while I do not overlook those faculties that are strong and on which the success of the individual so much depends? It can with the utmost confidence be assumed that in all human beings some powers are by inheritance of different strength from others. ”

“ We have thus described three kinds of perfection: mental perfection acquired by training, perfection of the natural constitution of the imaginative faculty, and moral perfection produced by the suppression of every thought of bodily pleasures, and of every kind of foolish or evil ambition. These qualities are, as is well known, possessed by the wise men in different degrees, and the degrees of prophetic faculty vary in accordance with this difference. Faculties of the body are, as you know, at one time weak, wearied, and corrupted, at others in a healthy state. ”

“ Indeed our whole education is built upon the faith that we can, perhaps not implant new faculties, but develop dormant ones; and I am persuaded that when future generations come to survey our methods and processes of education, they will regard with deep bewilderment the amazing fact that we applied so careful a training to other faculties, and yet left so helplessly alone the training of the imaginative faculty, upon which, as I have said, our happiness and unhappiness mainly depend. ”

“ Practically only one faculty—memory—is cultivated at the expense of all the rest, and that is overburdened. The impossible is attempted, and the young mind strained and exhausted, rather than strengthened, in the desperate effort to acquire a superficial acquaintance with almost every form of human knowledge, in order to answer the catch-questions of an examiner, who would be baffled by his own wisdom if he had not the resource of referring, when his memory fails him, to his notes or his books. ”

“ The faculty used will be developed in excess as compared with other faculties. It is the business of the teacher to aid nature. For the most part, he must stimulate, encourage, draw out, develop, though it may happen that he will be required occasionally to check a tendency which threatens to absorb or overshadow all the others. He must, at any rate, prevent the growth of those powers which tend towards the savage state. ”

“ The faculty, or passion, which misleads one becomes a part of his judging faculty, and cannot condemn itself. The miser cannot realize the baseness of his avarice, nor the mercenary soldier the enormity of war. Nor can a defective faculty assist in realizing the defect. The color-blind cannot appreciate painting, the thief cannot appreciate integrity, the brutal wife-beater cannot appreciate love, and a Napoleon cannot appreciate disinterested friendship. ”

“ It is only the rareness of such phenomena that makes them bearable. Truth, justice, love,—it is not good for them to be alone; each loses two-thirds of the human power when it expels the sister virtues from it. What God has joined must not be put asunder.
The religious faculty may be perverted, severed from the rest and made to act alone, with no corresponding action of the mind, the conscience, and the heart. ”

“ Take, for example, the appetite for different kinds of food, the faculty of music, judgment of color, beauty, etc.; and you will see at once that they have selective power, but that this power can become perverted, and thus lead to great difference of opinion. Notice that while these faculties are not infallible guides, and need the earnest help of other faculties to be the most useful to us, no one can deny that they point toward truth on these subjects, and are our proper and only guides along these lines. ”

“ Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. Asceticism of this sort is like the insurance which a man pays on his house and goods. The tax does him no good at the time, and possibly may never bring him a return. ”

“ But for the acquisition of professional and practical ability such maxims are death to it. The main ingredients of that ability are requisite knowledge and cultivated faculties; but, of the two, the latter is by far the chief. A man of well improved faculties has the command of another's knowledge. A man without them, has not the command of his own.
“Of the intellectual powers, the judgment is that which takes the foremost lead in life. How to form it to the two habits it ought to possess, of exactness and vigour, is the problem. ”

“ You will readily perceive how very important this faculty is; for a person may be very learned, and yet a very great dunce in every thing of a practical nature, if he fails in judgment or common sense. His learning will be of very little use to him, because he has not sense to use it to advantage. ”

“ The cultivation of the faculty of knowing is of incomparably greater importance than the mere acquisition of knowledge; and to the student this faculty, so developed that when need arises, knowledge may be quickly obtained, is a better provision for the business of life than is afforded by the largest and richest stores of information packed away in the memory ”

“ Another president finds that "a faculty is made up chiefly of specialists, for the most part untrained in the business of administration and without special responsibility for the college and the larger relationships." Still a third finds "that a faculty that governs itself in an extreme degree is likely to be extremely conservative; it is likely to perpetuate traditions; it is likely not to be in touch with progressive thought," though the danger to be anticipated from faculty government is, in the opinion of a fourth, "its radical tendencies." ”

“ Rogers unites great popular ability. His intellectual faculties are admirably balanced. It would be difficult indeed to say whether the analytic or synthetic faculty is the stronger, so delicate is the poise of power. . . . It would be doing injustice to Prof. Rogers to attempt so much as an outline of the lecture delivered yesterday; suffice it to say that, as far as any lecture could be so, it was an exhaustive synopsis of the wide field of scientific research embraced under his professoriate. ”

“ The interest of the professor is to become more unassailable, and so more authoritative. He achieves this by becoming more technical. For the more technical he gets, the fewer can comprehend him; the fewer are competent to criticize him, the more of an oracle he becomes; if, therefore, he wishes [24] for an easy life of undisturbed academic leisure, the more he will indulge his natural tendency to grow more technical as his knowledge grows, the more he will turn away from those aspects of his subject which have any direct practical or human interest. ”

“ Without such a faculty, all the fine buildings, all the magnitude, all the alumni associations and other institutional paraphernalia in the world are dross and tinsel.
It is a popular saying in the colleges that the business of the college professor is to teach. Often this carries the implication that a man can be an ideal teacher and not be doing some original work in his own particular field. ”

“ Wealth does not constitute a university, buildings do not: it is the men who constitute its faculty, and the students who learn from them. It is the last and highest step which the mere student takes. He goes forth into the world, and the height to which he rises has been influenced by the ideals which he has consciously or unconsciously imbibed in his university. If the professors under whom he has studied have been high in their profession, and have themselves had high ideals ”

“ Professors, as well as other men in office, cannot all be of the same age; but when the younger ones teach, in fact, only that they may learn, and moreover, it they have talent, anticipate their age, they acquire their own cultivation altogether at the cost of their hearers, since these are not instructed in what they really need, but in that which [Pg 209] the professor finds it necessary to elaborate for himself. Among the oldest professors, on the contrary, many are for a long time stationary ”

“ If the faculty are to act wisely, either for themselves or the college, they must know the financial possibilities. And if the trustees are to spend wisely, the recommendations upon which they act must have had these in mind. Under the present system of non-communication expenditure is too often footless. And nothing has done more to discourage the faculty sense of responsibility than the feeling that only part of the situation is shown them and that the president holds a card up his sleeve. ”

“ They call evolution science! What are we going to do about it? Shall we supinely submit, or do all in our power to oppose, check and suppress so pernicious a theory? What can we do?
We can refuse to patronize or endow such institutions as teach this or other forms of infidelity and atheism. We can aid those only that are safe. Much money that was given by devout Christians to colleges and seminaries, has been prostituted to teach what the donors hated, and to do great harm. The faculty and trustees can do much to eliminate false teaching, if they will. ”

“ I need not tell you that there has been a great deal of rumor about the so-called 'faculty dissensions.' But let me earnestly beseech you to give me your closest attention when I assure you that there have been no faculty dissensions. It is true that we have found certain teachings rather out of harmony with the ideals of Plato College. The Word of God in the Bible was good enough for our fathers who fought to defend this great land, and the Bible is still good enough for us, I guess—and I cannot find anything in the Bible about such doctrines as socialism and anarchism and evolution. ”

“ They must make debate and controversy, not dull pedantic cant, the common style for educational life. They must consciously build a base for their assault upon the loci of power.
As students for a democratic society, we are committed to stimulating this kind of social movement, this kind of vision and program in campus and community across the country. If we appear to seek the unattainable, as it has been said, then let it be known that we do so to avoid the unimaginable. ”

“ Then, sour theologies confront us, calling wisdom "Foolish," reason "carnal," scoffing at science with a priestly sneer, as if knowledge of God, of God's world, and of its laws, could disturb the natural service of God. We are warned against the "arrogance of the philosopher," but by the arrogance of the priest. We are told to shun " the pride of wisdom;" ”

“ For a man with such a heart as yours should never feel the want of the sunshine. My friend, we live in an age of over mental cultivation. We neglect too much the simple, healthful outer life, in which there is so much positive joy. In turning to the world within us, we grow blind to this beautiful world without; in studying ourselves as men, we almost forget to look up to heaven, and warm to the smile of God."
The philosopher mechanically shrugged his shoulders, as he always did when another man moralized—especially if the moralizer were a priest ”

“ Thus, the life of a man of virtue and talent, who should die in his thirtieth year, is, with regard to his own feelings, longer than that of a miserable priest-ridden slave, who dreams out a century of dulness. The one has perpetually cultivated his mental faculties, has rendered himself master of his thoughts, can abstract and generalize amid the lethargy of every-day business;—the other can slumber over the brightest moments of his being, and is unable to remember the happiest hour of his life. Perhaps the perishing ephemeron enjoys a longer life than the tortoise. ”

“ One can be a great cipherer without a conception of mathematics.
Instinct is genius in Paradise, before the period of self-abstraction (self-recognition) .
The fate which oppresses us is the sluggishness of our spirit. By enlargement and cultivation of our activity, we change ourselves into fate. Everything appears to stream in upon us, because we do not stream out. We are negative, because we choose to be so; the more positive we become, the more negative will the world around us be, until, at last, there is no more negative, and we are all in all. God wills gods. ”

“ Thou eatest and drinkest damnation to thyself; and the Holy Church consigns all such to the flames, and to the fire of eternal wrath hereafter!" roared the infuriate priest, whose choler waxed hotter in proportion as he felt unable to withstand the conclusion of his opponent.
"For," as it has been observed, even by some of the most enlightened Catholics themselves, [18] "theological animosity, so far from being an argument of men's conviction in their opposite sects, is a certain proof that they have never reached any serious persuasion with regard to these sublime subjects. ”

“ Even a man who makes the most modest pretensions to integrity must know that a theologian, a priest, a pope of today not only errs when he speaks, but actually lies—and that he no longer escapes blame for his lie through “innocence” or “ignorance.” The priest knows, as every one knows, that there is no longer any “God,” or any “sinner,” or any “Saviour”—that “free will” and the “moral order of the world” are lies—: serious reflection, the profound self-conquest of the spirit, allow no man to pretend that he does not know it.... ”

“ Look beyond the campus, to America itself. That student life is more intellectual, and perhaps more comfortable, does not obscure the fact that the fundamental qualities of life on the campus reflect the habits of society at large. ”

“ About this school you will see the automobiles parked for blocks; and, of course, the youngsters who drive these cars are the social leaders, they run the school affairs, and they get the girls.
The schools are given up to athletic excitements and “assemblies”; “Aud Calls,” the students term them—that is, calls to the auditorium. They come to practice cheering; they follow the cheer leader, who tells them: “That wasn’t loud enough. Now give one for the team.” The young people come out from these affairs trembling with excitement, and they have no mind for their studies the rest of that day. ”

“ Does the gentleman suppose that, if there were no athletics, members of the college who meet one another on the campus would fall into conversation on the absorbing questions of science and knowledge? The college world is like the world in general, in that its inhabitants, when off duty, find their recreation in talking of other subjects than those of regular business. The campus is the place where the students discuss other themes than those of the class-room, for the reason that they come together on the campus for diversion. ”

“ But here were three serious students who were not interested in bruisers; three self-supporting boys had put in all their spare time during vacation, preparing to defend the faith of the schools; and the school superintendent of the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association steps in and frightens these boys into silence, and disappoints an audience of a thousand working people who have assembled for an intellectual treat. Such is “culture” under the Black Hand! ”

“ Where the majority of the students are disposed to do right, and to make a serious use of their great opportunities, the chances are that the graduate will feel his life long that he paid his tuition to the college, when he was for a fact most indebted to his associates. All testimony shows that students recite to the faculty and learn from one another. We are well beyond the old heresy that a boy goes to college for his mental training, enters society for his social life, and the church for his religious development. ”

“ From its schools and colleges across the nation, a militant left might awaken its allies, and by beginning the process towards peace, civil rights, and labor struggles, reinsert theory and idealism where too often reign confusion and political barter. The power of students and faculty united is not only potential; it has shown its actuality in the South, and in the reform movements of the North.
The bridge to political power, though, will be build through genuine cooperation, locally, nationally, and internationally, between a new left of young people and an awakening community of allies. ”

“ In each community we must look within the university and act with confidence that we can be powerful, but we must look outwards to the less exotic but more lasting struggles for justice.
To turn these mythic possibilities into realities will involve national efforts at university reform by an alliance of students and faculty. They must wrest control of the educational process from the administrative bureaucracy. They must make fraternal and functional contact with allies in labor, civil rights, and other liberal forces outside the campus. ”