The Goose-step: A Study of American EducationSinclair, Upton
History
The Goose-step: A Study of American Education
Sinclair, Upton
Education -- United States; Universities and colleges -- United States
Woodrow Wilson made a lot of trouble for these super-plutocratic
trustees. He saw that the club system was destroying the intellectual
life of the university, and he tried to break it up and introduce a
system under which the rich students would at least know the names of
the less rich ones. He was bitterly fought at every point by the society
group, led by Andrew West, head of the Latin department, and dean of the
Graduate School, a college politician who is genial to people he can
use, but is a bitter partisan of reaction. This Dean West had a vision
of a hyper-exclusive school for graduate students, an ivory tower of
classical culture, and he got Mr. Procter, who owns a tower of ivory
soap, to offer half a million dollars for this purpose. But Woodrow
Wilson objected to the plan and delayed it, and Mr. Procter became angry
and withdrew his money—which caused a furious hullabaloo among the
Princeton plutocracy, led by Mr. Taylor Pyne, the first grand duke.
For some time the conflict raged, and it was settled in a peculiar way.
Dean West got somebody to offer three millions for the proposed school;
and that licked Woodrow, and Woodrow bowed his head in submission. It
had been possible to hesitate over half a million, but three
millions—“flesh and blood cooden bear it!” I am quoting from the
delightful scene in Thackeray’s “Yellowplush Papers,” where “Chawls,”
who is in the service of the Honorable Algernon Deuceace, is being
tempted to do some rascality for “his Exlnsy the Right Honorable Earl of
Crabs.” At first he resists the temptation; but then his Exlnsy “lugs
out a crisp, fluttering, snowy HUNDRED-PUN NOTE! ‘You shall have this;
and I will, moreover, take you into my service and give you double your
present wages.’
“Flesh and blood cooden bear it. ‘My lord,’ says I, laying my hand upon
my busm, ‘only give me security, and I’m yours forever.’
“The old noblemin grin’d, and pattid me on the shoulder. ‘Right, my
lad,’ says he, ‘right—you’re a nice promising youth. Here is the best
security.’ And he pulls out his pocketbook, returns the hundred-pun
bill, and takes out one for fifty. ‘Here is half today; tomorrow you
shall have the remainder.’” And so Dean West became the master of the
Graduate School of Princeton; according to the terms of the gift he and
another man hold the purse-strings. Up with the aristocratic tradition,
and good-bye to elegant and studied carelessness! Everybody in the
Graduate School of Princeton must wear an academic gown for dinner!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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