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
They have a daily paper, the “Cardinal,” and I discovered that here also
the students are getting a complete training in the ways of the outside
world. The “Cardinal” is supposed to be the publication of the student
body, and those who edit it are supposed to do the work for the honor
and the experience. But large sums are taken in and no one knows where
they go. There was an investigation by the student senate, and the
findings were kept secret. One student on the board persisted in asking
questions, and he was expelled; he ran for re-election, and on the very
day of election the paper published an elaborate attack upon his
integrity; his answer was published the day after his defeat! The paper
refused publication of another student’s article, demanding to know the
circulation of the paper and the salaries paid to the editors, if any.
It developed that the business manager had borrowed three hundred and
seventy dollars from the paper without security, and that there had been
other such loans not specified. A pretty complete training for
capitalist journalism and politics!
Here, as everywhere, it is the fraternity and sorority groups which run
the student body. They bring from their wealthy homes the usual
reactionary opinions; and the last reactionary governor, Philipp by
name, laid down the ideal of a university a couple of years ago—the
mothers and fathers of Wisconsin might rest assured that their
university would send their sons and daughters home with the same ideas
they had when they came! I picked up a couple of issues of the
“Wisconsin Octopus,” a humorous monthly published by the student body.
Here is a little sketch, which might have been taken from the “Saturday
Evening Post,” showing a long-haired student in spectacles, listening
enraptured to a frantic Bolshevist orator on a soap-box, while another
figure, labeled “Stude Body,” turns away in disgust. This heads an
editorial, “Boost Wisconsin.” “Empty heads are the cause of mental
revolution,” says this wise editor—forgetting about stomachs. He
denounces “a small group, yet a very insistent and annoying group,”
which is attacking its alma mater. “Wisconsin welcomes criticism, but
criticism made in a holy and healthy manner. Wisconsin has no room for
knockers. They are not welcome.... Let those with radical thoughts keep
them to themselves.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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