THE PROFESSORS’ STRIKE
The final purpose of this book, you will now realize, is to bring about
a strike of college professors. The next question to be considered is,
what are the principles upon which this strike shall be based?
First and foremost, the question of tenure; which is exactly the same
thing as the claim of the worker to security in his job. The college
professor must not forfeit his standing except for cause, and upon due
and reasonable notice. He must have the right which every criminal
possesses, of knowing what are the charges against him, and of having a
hearing in which he is confronted by his accusers, and given the right
to cross-question them, and to answer their charges and prove them false
if he can. The decision in his case must rest, not with his masters and
exploiters, but with his fellow-workers; in other words, the ancient
right embodied in Magna Carta, to be tried by a jury of his peers. These
rights are elemental; there can be no freedom, no dignity or
self-respect for any man who does not possess them. They are possessed
by scholars in all other civilized countries; it is only in our sweet
land of liberty that scholars are slaves. Says James McKeen Cattell:
That a professor’s salary should depend on the favor of a president,
or that he should be dismissed without a hearing by a president with
the consent of an absentee board of trustees, is a state of affairs
not conceivable in an English or a German university.
The reason for this anomaly is that the American college has not been
organized on the principles of American government, but on those of
American business; the college is not a state, but a factory. I have
compared Columbia and Minnesota to department-stores and Clark and Johns
Hopkins to Ford factories; and in so doing I was not merely calling
names, but making a diagnosis. They are organized upon that basis, and
run upon that basis, and the problem of changing them is simply one of
the problems of Americanization. The college must become a democratic
republic, run by its citizens and workers.
That brings us to the second demand of the college professor; not merely
must he have security in his job, he must have collective control of
that job, he must say how the college shall be conducted, and what
higher education shall be. That means that he must take from the
trustees, and from their hired man, the president, the greater part of
their present functions.
I say democracy in education, and you have a vision of a great
university turned into a debating society, all the time which should be
spent in “getting things done” being devoted to squabbling and bickering
among various factions and cliques of the faculty. That will happen
sometimes, inevitably; it is one of the incidentals of all beginnings of
democracy to function. But we have been trying out democracy in this
country for three centuries, and we do not have to begin all over again
with the blunders of our childhood. We know today what a constitution
is; we understand the differences among the three functions of
government, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial; we
understand how an executive can be democratically chosen, and given
authority for a reasonable period of time, and loyally obeyed for that
time. We understand how it is possible to have a thorough and free
democratic discussion of policy, and to decide by majority vote, and
then to carry out the will of the majority. If we do not know how to do
these things, the students will teach us, for they are accustomed every
year to organize a football team, and to thresh out its policies, and
elect a captain, and then do what he says. On the football field they do
not stop to argue about signals; they play the game.
The question of a constitution for universities is one of detail; you
will find a very thorough exposition of it in Professor Cattell’s book,
“University Control.” Professor J. E. Kirkpatrick of the University of
Michigan has worked out practical suggestions. Also the matter is being
frequently discussed in “School and Society,” and in the bulletins of
the professors’ association. We have not the space in this book for
anything but a brief statement. It is a problem of reconciling the
rights of many different groups, which perform many different functions.
The largest single group upon the board of a college should obviously be
the faculty, who know most about the institution, and have its interests
most at heart. The alumni should be represented, for their interest is
real, and their services will became more valuable as colleges become
democratic, and as the spirit of class is broken in our society.
Likewise the students are entitled to representation, especially the
upper classes, which have come to know the institution. If the purpose
of the college is to train men to live and serve in a democracy, then
manifestly there should be democracy in their training; they should be
given encouragement to discuss their own needs and purposes, to arrive
at collective agreements, and to make their will effective.
So long as we have a system of private ownership of natural resources,
we shall of course have to have trustees who represent money interests.
But we should endeavor to pare down the powers of this special privilege
group as much as possible; and especially all faculty members should set
their face against the idea of any interference with teaching, or with
the opinions or outside activities of the faculty, by monied men who
represent ownership and not service in the institution.
You have followed me from college to college, listing the grand dukes
and the interlocking directors, and you have thought perhaps that I
condemn these men because they are rich, and consider that people who
have money are ipso facto unfit to have anything to do with education.
All I can answer is that I number among my friends some rich people, who
are ardently striving to abolish special privilege from the world; and
if any rich man wants to come into a college and work for faculty
control and academic freedom, for the right of service and true
scholarship to guide our education, I will bid that man welcome, and
will promise to make no complaint because he happens to be president of
six national banks, director of eight railroads, ten steel companies and
a dozen pickle factories and sausage mills. The world for which I am
working is a world of freedom and fair play; my kingdom of heaven is
open to all, and any man may do his part to make it real on earth. All
that I insist is that the rich man shall renounce his class and his
class interests; he shall turn traitor to that predatory group which now
controls our country and its thinking.
I do not expect many of the interlocking trustees to accept this
invitation. I do expect, however, that developments in our public
affairs will force a constantly increasing number of college professors
to realize the intolerable nature of their present position, and to take
up the work of educating their colleagues and the general public. These
men will come to realize the broad nature of their task; how the roots
of our academic problem go down into the very deeps of our political and
economic life. The need of the college professor is one with the need of
the citizen and the worker; and so, when you agitate for academic
democracy and freedom of teaching, you are educating the community and
taking your part in that class struggle which is the dominant fact of
our time.
You will find that the struggle calls for its heroes and its martyrs, in
universities as in factories and mines. To college professors who read
this book—and especially the young ones—I say: what is life without a
little adventure? You will not starve; no educated man need starve in
America, if he keeps command of his inner forces, and uses but a small
quantity of that shrewdness with which his enemies are so well provided.
And surely it is not too much to ask that among the two hundred thousand
instructors in American colleges there should arise just a few who are
capable of combining intelligence and self-sacrifice!
What are you? You teach history, perhaps; you handle the bones of dead
heroes, the ashes of martyrs are the stuff with which you work. Or you
teach literature; the spirits of thousands of idealists come to your
study, and cry out to you in your dreams. Or perhaps you are a
scientist; if so, remind yourself how Socrates drank the hemlock cup
with dignity, in order that men might be free to use their reason; how
Galileo was tortured in a dungeon, in order that modern science might be
born. Is it then too much to ask that you should risk your monthly pay
check, to save the minds of the young men and women of our time? Think
of these things, the next time you are summoned by your dean for a
scolding, and tell him that a college professor remains an American
citizen, and that he does not sell all his brains for two or three
hundred dollars a month!
I ask for a little personal boldness, also a little for your
institution. What if the new endowment does not come, and you cannot get
the new buildings you had hoped for? The best work of men’s brains has
been done in garrets, and not in marble halls. Remember the glorious
example of Johns Hopkins and Clark in the old days! It is really
possible for a university to remain small, and for everybody in it to
starve along and serve the unfolding spirit of man. You do not know the
possibilities of sacrifice that lie in a group of scholars and thinkers
until you try; even your students would be willing to work and earn
money for their institution, if it were put up to them as a new crusade.
Yes, and you would find here and there an alumnus who would understand
and help. I do not urge that you should refuse money when it is offered
on honest terms; all I mean is that you should make plain your policy,
that money has no voice in the control of the institution, which knows
but one loyalty—to the truth—and but one instrument—the open mind—and
but one method—investigation and free discussion. Say to your would-be
benefactors: we are educators; we know what the pursuit of knowledge is,
and we teach it; if you wish to help in that, well and good; otherwise
we go our way alone. I conclude this chapter with three stanzas written
by Ralph Chaplin, one of America’s greatest poets, whom the United
States government has held in prison for the last five years, and plans
to hold for fifteen years longer, on account of his political opinions.
Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie—
Dust unto dust—
The calm, sweet earth that mothers all who die
As all men must.
Mourn not your captive comrades who must dwell—
Too strong to strive—
Within each steel-bound coffin of a cell,
Buried alive.
But rather mourn the apathetic throng—
The cowed and meek—
Who see the world’s great anguish and its wrong
And dare not speak!