THE GEOGRAPHY LINE
Needless to say, Clark University had been for a generation a cause of
indignation to the town of Worcester, which is the largest manufacturing
center in New England, and next to Pittsburgh the most notorious “kept
city” and “open shop” town in America. Clark regarded Worcester as the
Mammon of Unrighteousness, while Worcester regarded Clark as a nest of
atheism, infidelity, and Bolshevism. An American university with no
stadium, no gymnasium, and no chapel, no “eleven” and no “nine,” no
rowing crew and no “petting-parties”! Obviously, no gentleman would send
his son to such a place; it would be left for “muckers” and Bolsheviks.
One of the trustees expressed his opinion of the matter to a student
with whom I talked: “The college would fare better if it turned out a
winning football team than if it had eleven of the most famous
scientists in the country. That’s what the public wants, and that’s the
way to get the money.”
When President Hall resigned, the plutocracy of Worcester perceived that
their chance had come. They arranged for the president of Clark College
to resign at the same time, and they cast about for some man of their
own type to take charge of both institutions. The selection was made by
Mr. Thurber, business manager of Ginn & Company; and again I don’t know
whether I should describe it as “honest” or “dishonest” graft. One of
the principal “lines” of Ginn & Company is the Frye-Atwood elementary
school geographies, which are handsomely illustrated, and have been sold
to the extent of over half a million copies to school boards throughout
the United States. The author of these books was a professor of
geography, first at the University of Chicago, then at Harvard. It
occurred to Mr. Thurber what an admirable thing it would be, if, instead
of advertising these geographies as written by a professor at Harvard,
he could advertise them as written by the president of Clark University!
Also if he could use Clark University as a place for tea-parties to
entertain visiting delegations of school superintendents and teachers
desirous of meeting the distinguished author of Ginn & Company’s leading
“line”!
Of course I don’t mean literally “tea-parties”; in the educational world
these publicity enterprises proceed under the decorous title of Summer
Schools. Elaborate advertising campaigns are undertaken, the praises of
this or that particular “line” are seductively set forth, and the
schoolmarms flock from all over the United States—likewise the
principals and the high-up superintendents—and they meet the
distinguished authors of school books, and listen to their patriotic
eloquence, and go home singing the wonders of the various “lines.” Then
when the new orders are placed for text-books, the enterprising salesmen
are on hand to get the business.
Mr. Thurber announced that he had a new president for Clark College and
Clark University; he announced it at the commencement dinner, and there
was consternation on the faces of everybody present, because nobody had
ever heard of Wallace Walter Atwood, professor of physiography at
Harvard University, and author of “The Mineral Resources of Southwestern
Alaska,” and “The Glaciation of the Uinta and Wasatch Mountains.” I am
told that one of Professor Atwood’s colleagues at Harvard, hearing the
news, remarked: “I suppose Clark thinks it is getting a geographer and
an educator; Clark will find it has neither.” And Clark did! President
Atwood may be a well-informed man in his narrow specialty; certainly he
fulfils the ideal of the interlocking trustees, in that he is a hundred
percent pious and a hundred percent patriotic and a hundred percent
plutocratic. But when it comes to the administration of a university,
and to broad questions of public welfare—I have cast about and tested
all the terms in my vocabulary, but I have been unable to find any one
word to describe the ignorant crudity and childish absurdity of this
former Harvard physiographer.
He announced at the very beginning that he had no interest in being the
president of a poor man’s university; he was going to start a “drive”
for funds, and make Clark a normal and respectable place. In an address
to the students he set forth the advantages of a technical education,
using the standard phrases of the “go-getters”: “As an expert witness
you can sometimes get as much as a hundred dollars a day.” This to a
group of men whose chief pride was that they had a real understanding of
the intellectual life! One student came to him to ask for time to pay
his tuition fee. “Why do you come here if you can’t pay what you owe?”
asked the president, sharply. On the other hand, to a famous athlete,
member of a wealthy family, who had found it impossible to pass his
examinations, he said: “Don’t worry too much about that; we all get by
in the end; it took me five years to get through myself.”
At the formal inauguration ceremony President Atwood announced—doubtless
with a sly wink at Mr. Thurber on the platform—that he was going to make
Clark University the great center of American geographic and
physiographic education. Now I have no desire to deny the importance of
these subjects; they are interesting specialties and have their place;
but when some one sets out to raise them into major sciences, we may be
sure that we are dealing with a buncombe artist, and may look with
certainty for commercial motives. In the Clark University bulletin we
find the commercial ideal set forth in the plainest possible language:
“Many of the universities and colleges of this country are now calling
for trained geographers. Commissioners of education, normal schools, and
high schools are looking for men or women who can serve as supervisors
or as special teachers of geography. The large financial houses are
endeavoring to train men in commercial geography in their own schools.
The departments of the government are now using trained geographers, and
the Civil Service Commission has recently recognized the profession of
geography”—etc., etc.
Under President Atwood’s regime the graduate work in mathematics and
biology has ceased. The two best psychologists are gone, and the
department has declined to nothing. The department of chemistry is
undermanned and woefully deficient in equipment. History and the social
sciences are even worse off, and no adequate work in government is
offered, in spite of the fact that the will of the founder specifies the
preparing of useful citizens as the first task of the university.
Instead of that—we have geography! There is an independent “Graduate
School of Geography,” free from faculty control and headed by President
Atwood himself, with a professor of meteorology and climatology, and a
lecturer in anthropogeography—delicious mouthful for schoolmarms to take
home to Main Street!—also four other professors and lecturers, and four
more listed as “offering closely related work.” There are twenty-one
courses in this Graduate School, and a “special series” of six lectures,
besides a program of anti-Bolshevik propaganda, described as a
“Conference on Russian Affairs,” with five lecturers, including Mr. A.
J. Sack, ex-chief of Ambassador Bakmetieff’s lie-factory! In addition to
this, there is the Summer School, with only one course in psychology,
and only two in education, and only two in social science—but with
twelve in geography! And worse yet, there is to be a “Correspondence
School,” with endless courses in the Frye-Atwood geographies, for rural
school and grade teachers, with the horrified and agonized faculty of
the university compelled to give university credits for this commercial
work!
Men who can thus turn culture into cash are seldom permitted to hide
their light under a bushel in capitalist society. President Atwood has
also become editor of a magazine; or rather director of the “Institute
of International Information,” a contrivance for getting subscriptions
to a magazine called “Our World.” In its pages you may find a picture of
our worthy physiographer in full academic regalia, holding one of his
geography books, decorated with ribbons, clasped in his hands. For four
dollars you may join this “Institution,” and get the magazine for a
year, and “have the privilege of asking any question of international
significance, etc.” The funniest thing about the proposition is that our
pious and super-respectable president of a reformed atheist university
is here working hand in hand with and advertised alongside of Mr. Arthur
Bullard. Surely President Atwood does not know who this terrible
creature Bullard is—an international revolutionary conspirator who,
concealing himself under the alias of “Albert Edwards,” endeavored to
undermine American institutions by a Socialist novel called “Comrade
Yetta,” and a most shocking “free love” novel, “A Man’s World!”