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
You speak of whispering at the Faculty Club. It was worse than that. I
have on several occasions seen professors, after beginning luncheon at
one table, rise and go to another because the talk had turned, not to
radical propaganda, but to a purely intellectual discussion of such
subjects as Socialism, Syndicalism and the like. I was on at least
twenty occasions asked by different professors and instructors to hold
as confidential the ideas they had expounded to me as their own.
To show the utter cowardice of many of the professors, I will relate a
personal incident. During my third year as instructor at Columbia, I
resigned in order to have all my time for other work, but was
persuaded by a senior professor of my department to remain. He wrote
me a very strong letter in praise of my work and guaranteed me a full
professorship for the following year. When, however, I got into
trouble with the trustees because of radical speeches made before
audiences of laboring men, and because of a pamphlet I had written on
education, the professor came to me and asked me to return the letter
he had sent me. Very evidently, he feared that I might jeopardize his
position if I quoted from it. And this man had told me that he could
hardly see his way to remaining at Columbia unless I was there to help
in building up a department sadly in need of rejuvenation.
An illustration of how Columbia gets rid of its “undesirables.” I was
told by Professor Ashley Thorndike of my department (English) that a
charge had been preferred against me by Dr. Butler acting for the
trustees, and that therefore I could not be recommended for
appointment the following year. He refused to tell me what the charge
was, on the ground that he was pledged not to reveal it. I thereupon
wrote to Dr. Butler requesting an interview. His secretary wrote that
the president was too busy to see me. I then threatened to bring the
matter to court, for though an instructor’s tenure of office is for
one year only, I felt sure that the trustees had no right to make a
charge of any kind against me without giving me an opportunity to
answer it. After this, I obtained an interview with the president,
during which he said that no charges of any sort had been made and
that it was purely a departmental matter. He refused, however, to put
this into writing, though he several times reiterated it. I returned
to Professor Thorndike, and told him, as politely as circumstances
would allow, that either he or Dr. Butler had “misinformed” me. He
replied evasively that a man of my intelligence should have understood
the whole matter from the beginning, and added significantly that I
had been warned before in regard to my outside activities. I finally
obtained from him an oral statement that there were no charges against
me, as well as a grudging apology for the “misunderstanding.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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