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
Old Colonel Blethen of the “Times” is dead, and the University of the
Chimes now has as its first grand duke a gentleman who is president of a
bank, a commercial company, an investment company, an irrigating
company, and a mortgage and a loan company; he is assisted by a
politician and lobbyist, chairman of the appropriations committee of the
state legislature. In twenty-five years, I am informed, there has never
been a farmer or a labor representative on the board! The university
remains a place of low standards, no academic achievements, and
perpetual cheap advertising by the administration. Three different men
have written me to tell how they have been strangled—but always warning
me not to use their names—not even to tell the details of their
experiences! One writes about another professor, not in any sense a
radical, but who tells the truth about public questions, and as a result
has been an object of attack for twenty-five years:
Most of the time it has been under cover and has consisted in efforts
to bring pressure to bear on the president and board of regents. But a
number of times it has come out into the open. A governor some years
ago in his inaugural address announced his determination to bring
about the removal of Professor ——, and a few times an effort has been
made in the legislature to make elimination of his department a
condition of legislative support for the university. But while a good
deal of publicity was given to these more spectacular assaults on
academic freedom, they had little effect except perhaps to strengthen
the administrative conviction that such departments were a good deal
of a nuisance. Far more effective are the ever active forces which are
working silently without any publicity upon those in control—president
and regents. Nor does the failure to exercise power to remove indicate
necessarily lack of real influence. There are many ways of
disciplining an obstreperous faculty member without actual removal. A
president in his control of salaries, distribution of library and
other departmental funds may withhold from an offending faculty member
opportunities accorded to those who have not incurred his displeasure.
In the course of my experience as a faculty member I have seen a good
deal of the sinister side of university control.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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