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
This, you must understand, to the wife of a man who was supposed to be
discovering some of nature’s most vital secrets! I asked in bewilderment
just what could have been the motive for such a remark, and the
explanation was that scientists sometimes think themselves of
importance, and it is necessary to academic discipline that they should
be put in their place. This same scientist was instrumental in bringing
to the university half a dozen of the greatest men of Europe as
lecturers—Arrhenius, de Vries, Sir William Ramsay. They were paid
inadequately for their long journey, and my friend suggested that it
might be a good idea to reward them with an honorary degree. Said
President Wheeler, with instant decision: “I give no degrees to
scientists!” “Whom do you give them to?” asked my friend, and the answer
was: “I give them to people of importance—to statesmen, public men,
college presidents.” This was Benjamin Ide Wheeler, ex-professor to the
German Kaiser, and tireless singer of the Kaiser’s praises, holder of a
Heidelberg degree, and of honorary degrees from all the great Eastern
centers of the interlocking directorate, Princeton, Harvard, Brown,
Yale, Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth and Columbia. He called himself a
liberal, but never enough to offend Mrs. Hearst, who gave the university
a Greek theater, with her son’s name carved across the front of the
stage.
While I was in Berkeley there was a scandal at the university, because
of the sudden appointment of a new professor to be dean of the Graduate
School. This was David P. Barrows, now president of the university, and
a person whose career is of interest to us. He is a product of the
University of California, and was finished in Nicholas Murray Butler’s
educational enameling machine. Thence he went to be superintendent of
schools of the city of Manila, and later on director of education for
the Philippine Islands. Having received a thorough training in
imperialism, he came home to proclaim the gospel of the mailed fist in
our empire of raisins and prunes.
Dean Barrows was a fighting man, and became immediately active in
university politics. You may be startled to hear that anything so
dubious as “politics” exists in a university; but if you believe in
applied imperialism, and start to apply it to those about you, you are
apt to find some of them resisting, and you will have to put them down,
and put up others who are willing to obey you and promote your
interests. So Barrows became a tireless university politician, and he
and his subordinates also became active in the outside politics of their
city and state. As it happens, Berkeley had a large working class
population, and a strong Socialist sentiment, and naturally there is no
higher duty that an imperialist college dean can perform than to crush
Socialism in his home town.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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