John Kirby, president National Association of Manufacturers, and
Joseph W. Bryce, president of the Trades and Workers’ Association
of America; James O’Connell, president Metal Trades Department
and vice-president American Federation of Labor, and C. G.
Norman, ex-chairman Board of Governors of the Building Trades
Employers’ Association.
The meetings seem to have reached the results sought in more than
one way. They have been well attended both by students and public,
although comparatively few students have registered and done the
reading required and passed the examination in order to secure
university credit. For those students, however, who entered upon the
work seriously the course has been as severe both in the quantity
of reading required, in the reports upon that reading and in the
examination as the regular university courses, and students have
expressed their appreciation of the interest as well as the value of
the course. Similar expressions have come from citizens in numerous
instances. There have been regular attendants from Manhattan,
Brooklyn, the Bronx, Yonkers and also from New Jersey. Requests
have been made for an extension of the forum to other boroughs and
the matter is under consideration for the coming year. Inquiries
have come from as far west as Kansas and Calgary in western Canada
regarding the methods employed; and numerous requests for printed
reports of the addresses and discussions have been received.[3]
The audiences in one respect at any rate seem to have lacked somewhat
the university spirit of inquiry, having retained rather the normal
human spirit of liking to hear views that agree with one’s own. It
was noticeable, for example, that the people who came to hear the
Socialist speaker were the Socialists coming to be flattered, and not
the anti-Socialists coming to learn. Likewise, the anti-Socialist
speaker was not listened to by so many Socialists as by those of
his own opinion. Perhaps equally noticeable was this tendency to
listen to speakers of their own side in the case of the discussion on
woman’s suffrage. Surely it is to be hoped that in another year the
academic spirit will have increased sufficiently so that each group
will be equally anxious to hear their opponents, because it is, after
all, primarily from those who differ from us that we learn, rather
than from those with whom we agree.