"A most competent professor of political economy, in one of the greatest of our universities, allowing himself to become an advocate of the ownership and operation of our telegraphs by the Government, was compelled to give up his place by the influence of one of the trustees, who happened to be a large owner of telegraph stock.... The victorious trustee carries about with him in his pocket-book a little printed slip, containing the offensive views of the discharged professor, and it is his pleasant habit to read this when occasion offers, to instructors or students who may, he thinks, need bracing up, and he accompanies the reading with cheering comments on the fate which befel the heretic who uttered such doctrines."
An important scientific school in America had been created and endowed by one of our "poor boys," become plutocrat. He was dissuaded with difficulty by the President from carrying out the idea which he proposed, that the teachers should be hired by the month, as were the clerks in his factories, so that they could be discharged whenever he wanted to do so! You see, even in democratic nations, the trail of Respectability is over education.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] "Jude the Obscure."
[7] From article "Freedom in the American Colleges," in "Progressive Review," January, 1897.
CHAPTER VII.
PLUTOCRACY.
"Constant at church and change; his gains were sure,