I do not want anyone who reads this book to get the idea that I am so naive as to imagine that there is no enemy of freedom of teaching save economic privilege. I know there are others, and all I am doing is tackle the biggest one first. If I work for the control of universities by organized farmers and labor unions, it is not because I am unaware that these groups have their interests and prejudices, but merely because I believe that these groups can learn to understand true freedom and justice, whereas I know that a plutocratic class has never been able to learn anything at any time in human history. In the University of Wisconsin it is interestingly shown that as soon as you break down the rule of special privilege, you find yourself confronted by various kinds of mass prejudice and group interest. The people of the state consider that they own a university, and they expect this university to do their way. The question arises—who shall set the standards, the voters, or the faculty, who think they know more? The Wisconsin farmer drives up to Madison in his automobile, and demands an interview with a dean, saying: “Here I am supporting this university by my taxes, and here you’ve gone and flunked my son!” The farmers’ organizations keep jealous watch over the percentage of “flunkings,” and if it is too high, they say the university is being made into a place of academic snobbery. And maybe they are right—it is not so easy to say! A former state superintendent of education in Wisconsin told me a funny story. It was proposed to have the normal schools teach engineering, but President Van Hise of the university said this was impossible; the university alone could teach engineering, it had mysteriously and mystically efficient methods of doing so. The superintendent met an instructor who had recently been taken on in this school, and thinking he would like to know about these special methods, he asked: “How did they tell you to teach engineering?” “They didn’t tell me anything,” said the instructor. “You mean they gave you no special instructions about how you were to teach?” “Nothing at all,” said the other; then he thought—“Oh, yes, to be sure, they told me to flunk one-third of the students and send them to the Agricultural School!”