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
Evans Clark, a preceptor in Princeton University—until he made this
survey—collected the facts as to the financial interests of governing
boards of the largest American universities—seven of which were
privately controlled and twenty-two state controlled. He found that the
plutocratic class, or those intimately connected therewith—bankers,
manufacturers, merchants, public utility officers, financiers, great
publishers and lawyers—composed 56 per cent of the membership of the
privately controlled boards, and 68 per cent of the publicly controlled
boards. Says Mr. Clark: “Of the other two great economic groups in
society there is little or no representation. The farmers total between
6 per cent in private and 4 per cent in public boards, while no
representative of labor has a place on any board, public or private. And
finally, no college professor is a trustee of the college in which he
serves, while only fourteen out of 649 are professors in other
institutions. Of these, six are Harvard professors on the Radcliffe
board (the women’s college connected with Harvard). We have allowed the
education of our youth to fall into the absolute control of a group of
men who represent not only a minority of the total population but have,
at the same time, enormous economic and business stakes in what kind of
an education it shall be.”
And this condition prevails right through the list of our colleges,
regardless of size, or where they are located or how financed. This was
shown by Scott Nearing in an exhaustive study, reported in “School and
Society” for September 8, 1917. He wrote to the governing bodies of all
colleges and universities in the United States having more than five
hundred students. There are 189 such institutions, and 143 of these
supplied the lists of trustees with their occupations. The total number
of trustees was 2,470. There were 208 merchants, 196 manufacturers, 112
capitalists, 6 contractors, 32 real estate men, 26 insurance men, 115
corporation officials, 202 bankers, 15 brokers, and 18 publishers,
making for the plutocratic group a total of 930. There were 111 doctors,
514 lawyers, 125 educators, 353 ministers, 8 authors, 43 editors, 70
scientists, 13 social workers and 32 judges, making a total for the
professional group of 1,269. For the miscellaneous group there were 94
retired business men, 3 salesmen, 123 farmers, 46 home-keepers, 3
mechanics, and 2 librarians, making a total of 271. For the purpose of
this inquiry the lawyers belong, not with the professional class, but
with the commercial and financial class, whose retainers they are. That
makes a total of 1,444 of that class, or 58 per cent. In the state
universities the commercial class had a total of 477 out of 776, or 61
per cent. And this, you will note, without counting the retired business
men, who are certainly no less plutocratic in their mentality than the
active ones; without counting the many doctors, ministers, editors, and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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