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
Similarly, in the worst days of reaction in Germany, they used to have
in their universities what were called “renommir professoren,” that is
to say, “boast professors,” or, as we should say in vulgar American,
“shirtfronts.” In the same way, whenever Bismarck was conducting his
campaigns against the Jews, he was always careful to have one Jew in the
cabinet. I count over these “renommir professoren” in American
universities; two at Columbia, one at Chicago, two at Wisconsin, one at
Stanford, and one at Clark, expecting to be fired; a very young man at
Johns Hopkins, and two old ladies at Wellesley. That is the complete
list, so far as my investigations reveal; ten out of a total of some
forty thousand college and university teachers—and that shows how much
American colleges and universities have to make a pretense of caring
about freedom!
Exactly how does the plutocratic regime operate to eliminate originality
and power? The process is perfectly shown in the case of Professor
Goodnow, now president of Johns Hopkins University. Goodnow taught
administrative law at Columbia, and when Professor Burgess withdrew,
Goodnow was the choice of the faculty for the Ruggles professorship, one
of the most important chairs in Columbia. Butler had promised the
faculty that each department should decide its own promotions, but he
was worried about Goodnow, because Goodnow had published a book in which
he set forth the dangerous idea that the constitution of the United
States as it now exists is not final. Goodnow studied the constitution
as the product of a certain social environment, and that maddens Butler.
“Don’t you think there are some things we can call settled?” he
remarked, irritably, to one of my informants. So the trustees, without
consulting the faculty of political science, passed over Goodnow, and
appointed one of the interlocking directors! William D. Guthrie, law
partner of one of the trustees, a corporation lawyer, rich, smooth,
hard, and ignorant, was selected to come once a week during half a
semester, and give a lecture interpreting the constitution as the
interlocking directorate wants it interpreted—a permanent bulwark
against any kind of change in property relations. He did none of the
work of an ordinary college professor, but conferred upon the university
his plutocratic prestige for the sum of seventy-five hundred dollars a
year.
Or consider the testimony of Bayard Boyesen, who was a member of the
Columbia faculty for several years, and whose father was one of
Columbia’s oldest and most honored professors. Says young Boyesen, in a
letter to me:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account