Academic controversy

“ Judged by the example of the law schools, then, the college of commerce, if it is to live and thrive, may be counted on to divert a much larger body of funds from legitimate university uses, and to create more of a bias hostile to scholarly and scientific work in the academic body, than the mere numerical showing of its staff would suggest. ”

“ But there is a third class of persons who are genuinely, and in the most pathetic sense, the institution's victims. For this type of character the academic life may become, after a certain point, a virulent poison. Men without marked originality or native force, but fond of truth and especially of books and study, ambitious of reward and recognition, poor often, and needing a degree to get a teaching position, weak in the eyes of their examiners--among these we find the veritable chair a canon of the wars of learning, the unfit in the academic struggle for existence. ”

“ Critics of the latterday university policies have from time to time called attention to an apparent reluctance on the part of these academic scientists to encounter present-day facts hand-to-hand, or to trace out the causes to which current conditions are due. Distempered critics have even alleged that the academic leaders in the social sciences are held under some constraint, as being, in some sort, in the pay of the well-to-do conservative element ”

“ It is in fact ludicrous and absurd that the universities should be expected to come in with their blessing in cases of non-academic success, and that degrees should be mere acclamations of popular verdicts. ”

“ The truth is that the Doctor-Monopoly in teaching, which is becoming so rooted an American custom, can show no serious grounds whatsoever for itself in reason. As it actually prevails and grows in vogue among us, it is due to childish motives exclusively. In reality it is but a sham, a bauble, a dodge, whereby to decorate the catalogues of schools and colleges.
Next, let us turn from the general promotion of a spirit of academic snobbery to the particular damage done to individuals by the system. ”

“ It became necessary, therefore, to make a law against learning and the sciences. All scholars, authors, artists and scientists who were found on examination to be more gifted than the average, were exiled. ”

“ The question of what, in any ulterior sense, ought to be sought after in the determination of academic policy and the conduct of academic affairs will, however, not coincide with the other question, as to what actually is being accomplished in these premises, on the one hand, nor as to what the long-term cultural aspirations of civilized men are setting toward, on the other hand. ”

“ It may confidently be asserted, without fear of contradiction from their side, that the official leaders in this province of academic research and indoctrination are, commonly, in no way hindered from pushing their researches with full freedom and to the limit of their capacity; and that they are likewise free to give the fullest expression to any conclusions or convictions to which their inquiries may carry them. ”

“ And while the long-term drift of the modern idealistic bias may not permit the universities permanently to be diverted to the service of Mammon in this fashion, yet the unremitting endeavours of "educators" seeking prestige for worldly wisdom results at the best in a fluctuating state of compromise, in which the ill effects of such bids for popularity are continually being outworn by the drift of academic usage. ”

“ It matters little whether such intervention occurs avowedly or through action that inevitably tends to check the ardor and fearlessness of scholars, qualities at once so fragile and so indispensable for fruitful academic labor. ”

“ The visible drift of things in this respect in the academic pursuit of the social sciences, so-called, is an argument as to what may be hoped for in the domain of academic science at large. It is only that the executive is actuated by a sharper solicitude to keep the academic establishment blameless of anything like innovation or iconoclasm at this point; which reinforces the drift toward a mechanistic routine and a curtailment of inquiry in this field ”

“ The scientific class, from whom better might have been expected, are, if possible, worse. Void of enlarged views, despising all that is too large for their comprehension, devoted exclusively each to his special science, contemptuously indifferent to moral and political interests, their sole aim is to acquire an easy reputation, and in France (through paid Academies and professorships) personal lucre, by pushing their sciences into idle and useless inquiries (speculations oiseuses) , of no value to the real interests of mankind, and tending to divert the thoughts from them. ”

“ But the obstacles which they may, for the most part unwittingly, throw in the way of the efficient work of the faculties of the university are chiefly due to their ignorance of the principles and right methods of education, or to their indifference toward the supreme ends of education, or to their reluctance to criticize—much more oppose—the will of the president or the majority of their own body. ”

“ Finally, the record of the University's enforcement of the Policy over the past year suggested that students in the classroom and research setting who offended others by discussing ideas deemed controversial could be and were subject to discipline. ”

“ There can be no question that many of the professors in our universities are themselves chiefly responsible for the wrong attitude of the public on this question of the influence of universities upon public opinion. They have themselves, by their bigoted habit of mind and their desire to indoctrinate the youths with what they believe to be correct opinions, encouraged the public belief that the universities were places for the propagation of specific doctrines. ”

“ Is it seriously intended to summon the peasant from his plough, the old grandmother from behind the stove, and lead them into the lecture rooms of the university in order that they might there listen to lectures on phenomenalism, and positivism, and realism, and criticism, until their heads are swimming? Or else can they not hope to arrive at the truth? Do they seriously think that the truth asked for by every man, the truth in the most vital questions of mankind, is the exclusive privilege of a few college professors? ”

“ But, the popular psychology being what it is, there is an equal chance that the law may foster a widespread disposition to attack history books, geography books, civics books, and even readers; that it may keep educational matters in a state of turmoil, engendering much social bitterness due to the clashing of parties and interests over questions raised in the school-book fights. ”

“ But there is still a third reason which would render such a government impossible—namely that a scientific academy invested with a sovereignty, so to speak, absolute, even if it were composed of the most illustrious men, would infallibly and soon end in its own moral and intellectual corruption. Even to-day, with the few privileges allowed them, such is the history of all academies. The greatest scientific genius, from the moment that he becomes an academician, an officially licensed savant, inevitably lapses into sluggishness. ”

“ In the more advanced walks of scientific research, they are to some extent neutralised by that free discussion which true science always fosters; though even here they sometimes vexatiously arrest the progress of truth, or open floodgates of error which it may require much labour to close. But in public lectures and popular publications they run riot, and are stimulated by the mistaken opposition of narrow-minded good men, by the love of the new and sensational, and by the rivalry of men struggling for place and position. ”

“ Any form of university control which gives the prejudiced guess the power over the scientific research is thus a direct blow at our own social knowledge and effectiveness. The public simply cannot afford to run this risk of having the steady forging ahead of social and economic research curtailed and hampered. We cannot afford to depend wholly on the tempering [Pg 220] of trustees by the fear of the clamor of public opinion. ”

“ These proceedings, which are called magnetic, or named after Mesmer, mesmeric, have had to battle for recognition, for existence even, against the college and the church. The medical and clerical professions have been everywhere educated to deny, despise, and resist this species of science, and would, if they had the power, suppress it by law, their education having made them ignorant of its merits and ignorant of its deeply interesting literature. Prejudice and ignorance are inculcated as easily as science, and they are inculcated in all colleges. ”

“ The honest student continually finds himself deserted, retarded, misled, by the classics of historical literature, and has to hew his own way through multitudinous transactions, periodicals and official publications in order to reach the truth." In no department of history is this expression more true than in that of education, and especially of science and the relation of educational institutions to scientific development. No man should now dare venture to say anything about the state of science at any time in the world's history who has not seen some of the books written at that time. ”

“ The situation clearly demands that our public schools shall not, by clinging to precedent and convention, fall notably behind industry and government in appropriating the fruits of modern scientific research. ”

“ If it can be proved that I have, in general, misrepresented matters of fact, that my objections have no force, that I have calumniated the university without any reason, and opposed the interest of sound learning, I shall be contented to bear all that load of infamy, which such practices truly deserve. ”

“ If there be any truth in the principles held by the enemies of education, this is the most dangerous state in which a country can be placed. They maintain that knowledge renders the poor arrogant and discontented. ”

“ But where inspiration fails, coercion can never supply its place. If the mathematics shall continue to reign at Harvard, may their empire become a law of liberty.
I have ventured, fellow-graduates, to throw out these hints of University Reform, well aware of the opposition such views must encounter in deep-rooted prejudice and fixed routine ”

“ You could only enter the universities by a moral degradation, that must check the freedom, and contaminate the purity, of the mind, and, entangling it in an inexplicable maze of error and contradiction, poison virtue at its source, and lay the foundation for a duplicity of character and a perversion of reason, destructive of every manly principle of integrity. ”

“ LEADING THINKERS OUTSIDE THE UNIVERSITIES. During the seventeenth century, and largely during the eighteenth as well, the extreme conservatism of the universities, their continued control by their theological faculties, and their continued devotion to theological controversy and the teachings of state orthodoxy rather than the advancement of knowledge, served to make of them such inhospitable places for the new scientific method that practically all the leading workers with it were found outside the universities. ”

“ What the unconscious conspiracy of economic circumstance has done, and what conscious manipulations the Government school is guilty of, to render higher education a privilege of the rich and a maintainer of injustice is another matter. ”

“ But subjective apathy is encouraged by the objective American situation--the actual structural separation of people from power, from relevant knowledge, from pinnacles of decision-making. Just as the university influences the student way of life, so do major social institutions create the circumstances in which the isolated citizen will try hopelessly to understand his world and himself. ”

“ The learned controversies which occupy the European academies, consist in the discussion of matters, the development of which is productive of no benefit, and in the examination of phenomena, the nature of which is beyond the reach of the human mind. ”

“ The comparative absence of any class, devoted, like German professors, to a systematic and combined attempt to spread the borders of knowledge and speculation, has been an evil which is the more felt in proportion as specialisation of science and familiarity with previous achievements become more important. ”

“ The time has passed when we can afford to limit the work of our higher institutions of learning to teaching knowledge already acquired. Henceforth the investigation of unsolved problems, and the discovery of new truth, should be one of the main objects at our American universities, and no cost grudged which is required to maintain at them the most active minds, in every branch of knowledge which the country can be stimulated to produce. ”

“ But institutions of considerable wealth often injure science in their selection of teachers by introducing false issues into the question. Every year professors are chosen, not on account of scientific ability, but for reasons of a theological or sectarian character. ”

“ We may leave aside for the present the question of ensuring true research under the auspices of the University, because pseudo-research, if published, is sure to be exposed in the course of time and to cover the University which has patronised “scholars” of this type with the ridicule and scorn of the learned world. If the governing body of a University once makes up its mind to discourage sneaks and sycophants, it can get rid of sham scholars in a day. ”

“ Much as universities have contributed to intellectual progress, hostility to new types of thinking and to new subjects of study has been, through all time, a characteristic of many of their members, and often it has required much pressure from progressive forces on the outside to overcome their opposition to new lines of scholarship and public service. ”

“ Freedom and variety would, in our opinion, be best secured, if the universities were to take up the task; ... and, if the science of education is to make good the claims put forward in its behalf, it ought to be studied where other branches of mental and moral philosophy are fully handled by the ablest professors. ”