I have on my desk a letter from a Harvard professor, who tells me that my chapters on that institution are interesting, but he thinks I attribute too much cunning to the objects of my indignation. “These conforming preachers and editors and teachers are more of the genus Babbitt than of the genus Machiavelli.” This is a question of psychology, which only the Maker of the creatures can decide. In any case it matters little, because my purpose here is not to apportion blame, but to point out social peril, and it matters not whether social traitors know what they are doing—the effect of their action remains equally destructive to society. I have called the American college and university a ruling-class munition-factory for the manufacture of high explosive shells and gas bombs to be used in the service of intrenched greed and cruelty. The college president is the man who runs this indispensable institution; and he is not one of the military leaders who sit in swivel chairs in city offices, he is one who sallies forth in person at the head of his armies, bravely hurling commencement bombs and Fourth of July torpedoes.
The college president is a human radio, a walking broadcasting station, a combination of encyclopedia and megaphone. He is that man whose profession it is to know everything; in his one mind is summed up ex-officio all the knowledge of all the specialties. He tells his professors what to teach, and how to teach it, and has little birds and whispering galleries and telepathic mediums to advise him if they obey. He is a human card-index, an information service bureau concerning the reputations of professors in all other institutions, and of promising undergraduates and Ph.D. candidates, and just what they are worth, and how much less they can be hired for. Or, if he does not possess all this knowledge, he possesses a perfectly satisfactory substitute—the ability to look as if he possessed it, and to act as if he possessed it. Such is the advantage of being an autocrat; criticism does not affect you, and whether you are right or whether you are wrong is the same thing.
The college president has acquired enormous prestige in American capitalist society; he is a priest of the new god of science, and newspapers and purveyors of “public opinion” unite in exalting him. He receives the salary of a plutocrat, and arrogates to himself the prestige and precedence that go with it. He lives on terms of equality with business emperors and financial dukes, and conveys their will to mankind, and perpetuates their ideals and prejudices in the coming generation. It is a new aristocracy which has arisen among us, and they all stand together, they and their henchmen and courtiers, against whatever forces may threaten. I have shown how they have invented a new set of titles of nobility, which they sell for cash, or use to exalt their patrons and overawe you and me. We shall find it worth while to turn over the pages of “Who’s Who in America,” and see what these mighty ones of the earth think of one another, and what they do to flatter one another’s pride, and to keep their own order in the public eye.
“I do not give degrees to scientists,” said Wheeler of California. “I give them to statesmen and college presidents”; which means that these gentry have a system of “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” Wheeler managed to get scratched no less than twelve times during his life, Eliot of Harvard eleven times, Shanklin of Wesleyan eleven times, Smith of Pennsylvania twenty times, Lowell of Harvard twenty times, Nicholas Miraculous twenty-five times. Descending in the scale of plutocratic importance we find Angell of Yale with nine honorary degrees, Faunce of Brown with nine, Schurman of Cornell eight, Judson of Chicago seven, Day of Syracuse seven, Burton of Michigan six, Goodnow of Johns Hopkins five. Jordan of Stanford got only four—you remember that our icthyologist and race-horse expert was tainted with pacifism and democracy!
You remember also the mushrooms and toadstools, and the absurdities we discovered at these places. I look up the present and recent heads of these institutions, and there is scarcely one who has not been able to get his back scratched. I find Crawford of Allegheny with seven degrees, Thompson of Ohio State with five, Mitchell of Delaware with three, Wishart of Wooster with three, Few of Trinity with three, Garfield of Williams with five, Conwell of Temple with two, Hixson of Allegheny with two, Brooks of Baylor with one, Buchtel of Denver with one, Parsons of Marietta with one, Goodnight of Bethany with one, Montgomery of Muskingum with one. Also, it is interesting to note, you will find all these presidents of little toad stools duly recorded in “Who’s Who.” You may look in that volume for the best minds in our country, the men who are serving as pioneers of social justice and democracy, and three times out of four you will not find their names, or, when you do find them, they are relegated, like the present writer, to a back volume. But all presidents of colleges, no matter how insignificant or absurd, take rank with senators and cabinet members and ambassadors and supreme court judges and admirals and generals, and go into every volume ex officio.
CHAPTER LXXVII
DAMN THE FACULTY
We have seen the successful sons returning to shed their glory upon their alma mater; and we have seen the successful grandsons enjoying their four years of play at learning and work at football. Let us now have a glimpse at the life of the scholar amid all this worldly pomp and gladiatorial clamor, the thunder of the foot-ball captains and the shouting of the cheer-leaders.
There are few more pitiful proletarians in America than the underpaid, overworked, and contemptuously ignored rank and file college teacher. Everyone has more than he—trustees and presidents, coaches and trainers, merchants and tailors, architects and building contractors, sometimes even masons and carpenters. A young instructor in a great endowed university, living on a starvation wage, made to me the bitter remark: “We are the fellows of whom the Bible speaks—we ask for bread and we are given a stone”—he waved his hand toward a showy new structure rising on the campus. I have before me a copy of “School and Society,” for November 6, 1920, giving the result of an investigation: “How Professors Live.” At the University of Illinois a hundred and sixty-seven men, or forty per cent of those at the institution, filled out a questionnaire. I quote a few paragraphs from those of the associate professors, each paragraph referring to a different man:
Old clothing is invariably made over for children. Have gardened a lot and kept chickens. Use butter substitutes. Wear clothing until frayed. Above expenses do not consider depreciation of furniture and household equipment.
Using vacations to earn money. Postponing dental services. Using inferior grades of clothing and using them when they should be discarded. Cut down food in quality and quantity.