Does not our whole educational muddle spring in part from mob snobbery—from exactly the same mental attitude that makes the laboring class talk of “colored wash-ladies” and “garbage gentlemen,” that makes them want to be dubbed Bachelors of Art after studying business English and typewriting, ever gaining heaven by serving earth? Does it not also spring in part from the lack of character and of a coherent philosophy of life among those who should[Pg 175] be our educational leaders? To the latter, in taxes and endowments, we are giving money reckoned in hundreds of millions. We are giving them also a hundred million years or so of the lives of our young in every generation. In exchange, what are they returning to us in national ideals and culture? Is it not a fair question? [Pg 177] CHAPTER VIII MASS PRODUCTION AND INTELLECTUAL PRODUCTION [Pg 179] MASS PRODUCTION AND INTELLECTUAL PRODUCTION Education in America, where there are about seven hundred thousand students in institutions of collegiate rank alone, has become almost a major industry. Although teachers are not yet organized into trade unions there is a greater cohesion among them as a body than there is among artists, journalists, clergymen, authors, and other men leading what may loosely be called the artistic or intellectual life. Moreover it is easier to get at the economic situation of the professor’s household than it is to do so in the case of the others. Statistics of income are readily available and, thanks to two recent studies, one made of the faculty of Yale and the other of that of the University of California, we have very definite information as to their detailed expenses. For these various reasons the question of the professional income of the intellectual worker and its relation to the general wage or income scale of the country and the standard of living has largely been confined to the teacher. For the same reasons the teacher offers perhaps the best starting point for a present discussion of our problem.