Why should a body of university students—men that have enjoyed the privileges of education—take the position that unless the prerogative of the few is promptly recognized and implicitly followed, the innocent will be harassed, and the entire community made to suffer?
Is it not possible that in our effort strictly to maintain the principles of academic freedom, we are giving instruction with such impartial neutrality that those who have worthy views conclude that their convictions are subject to question, and those who have ulterior motives are encouraged to believe themselves justified?
What the State really needs at the present time is some agency that will develop the powers of discrimination, that will enable its citizens to arrive at conclusions independent of plausible presentations.
MONARCHY AND DEMOCRACY IN EDUCATION
It is a truism that since the day of Plato’s Republic no subject has had such widespread discussion as has that of the proper form of government. It is equally a truism that if imitation is the sincerest flattery, the hundreds of written constitutions that have sprung up since 1789 attest the belief that America has successfully put into practical form the theories of democracy. Yet a minority has always questioned whether democracy is after all the panacea for political evils, and recent writers like Mr. Lecky, have but given expression to a somewhat widespread feeling of uncertainty as to the permanent success of democratic institutions.
It is noteworthy, however, that the discussion of democracy has been confined to the field of politics, and that its adaptation to educational institutions, where presumably a high grade of intelligence, education, opportunity and experience seem to offer the greatest promise of success, is never publicly discussed, much less in this country practiced.[20]
It is equally anomalous that in Europe, with its tendency to monarchy in the state, there is found absolute democracy in the government of educational institutions, while America, democratic in the state, furnishes the most extreme illustration of absolute monarchy in the government of its educational institutions. It seems, if possible, even more strange that American college students have for years been going to European universities, and yet apparently have paid no attention to questions of educational organization. It can only be explained by the general lack of information and interest in the management of educational institutions.