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
Of course, to such a man there was no person so irritating as a
“reformer” of any sort, and he never wearied of pouring out ridicule
upon the man who imagined he could do anything to make society better.
“Society does not need any care or supervision,” decreed the all-wise
professor, and that settled it; the hard young Roman rulers thronged to
his classes, and absorbed his gospel of the wolf-pack, and went out with
their minds encased in a triple-plated Harveyized steel armor of
prejudice, ready to commit any crimes that might be necessary to the
preserving of their privileges. Today the pupils of Professor Sumner are
walking upon the faces of labor and stamping out the hopes of mankind in
hundreds of the leading industries of the country, and in the highest
posts of the government, from the United States Supreme Court down. Such
a man is worth many billions of dollars to the plutocrats; they pay him
a few thousand a year, and tickle his vanity with solemnly conferred
degrees and an academic robe to wear, and at the end of his thirty years
of service the editors of the “Yale Review” celebrate him in a series of
articles as “Pioneer—Teacher—Inspirer—Idealist—Man—and Veteran.”
Professor Sumner’s place is now ably taken by one of his pupils,
Professor Albert G. Keller, author of “Societal Evolution,” which a
well-known American sociologist describes to me as “a lengthy example of
secondary rationalization to prove the immorality of social reform.” In
case you do not understand these scientific technicalities, let me
explain that Professor Keller is employed by the New England plutocracy
to act as intellectual night-watchman for their property; and that
having got his orders what to teach, he then invents an elaborate set of
reasons to convince himself and the world that this is the right thing
to teach, and that in so teaching he is protecting society.
Meantime, what of the men at Yale who happen to have some vision of
social service and human sympathy? I managed to find one who had been
there, and for a while thought he was going to make a success in the
great university. He invented during the war a device to destroy
submarines, and the United States government took it up. Word came to
the interlocking trustees, and the secretary of the corporation, Mr.
Anson Phelps Stokes, sent for the professor in haste. There was a story
in this—some advertising for Old Eli! Simon Lake, a Yale man, had
invented the submarine, and now another Yale man was to wipe it out!
“For God, for country, and for Yale!” Mr. Stokes with eager fingers
began turning the pages of an encyclopedia, to find out the date of
Simon Lake’s invention, and the date of his sojourn in the university!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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