Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/523

 THE DEVELOPING UNIVERSITY 457 gone a change, at that moment the institution has ceased to be a university, and it cannot again take its place in the rank of universities as long as there continues to exist to any appreciable extent the factor of coercion. Neither an individual, nor the state, nor the church has the right to interfere with the search for truth, or with its promulgation, when found. Individuals or the state or the church may found schools for propagating certain kinds of instruc- tion, but such schools are not universities, and may not be so denominated. .... Concerning the second subject, the use and abuse of the right of free expression by officers of the University staff, as I have said, an instructor in the University has an absolute right to express his opinion. If such an instruc- tor is on an appointment of two or three or four years, and if during these years he exercises this right in such a way as to do himself and the institution serious injury, it is of course the privilege of the University to allow his appointment to lapse at the end of the term for which it was originally made. If an officer on permanent appointment abuses his privileges as a professor, the University must suffer, and it is proper that it should suffer. This is only the direct and inevitable consequence of the lack of foresight and wisdom involved in the original appointment. The injury thus accruing to the University is moreover far less serious than would follow, if, for an expression of opinion differing from that of a majority of the faculty, or from that of the Board of Trustees or from that of the President, a permanent officer might be asked to present his resignation Freedom of expression must be given the members of a university faculty even though it be abused, for, as has been said, the abuse of it is not so great an evil as the restriction of such liberty. The President then proceeded to point out the different ways in which a professor might abuse his privilege of freedom of expres- sion, enumerating seven of these, and after saying that he might do all these things and yet remain an officer of the University, he continued : But will a professor under any circumstances be asked to withdraw from the University ? Yes. His resignation will be demanded and will be accepted, when in the opinion of those in authority, he has been guilty of immorality, or when for any reason he has proved himself to be incompetent. Thus was the 'University falsely charged by one party with denying to its prbfessors academic freedom, and assailed by another party because it gave its professors wide liberty and thus une- quivocally did it reply to both. Its professors never understood that liberty meant license, and, as a matter of fact, they were investigators with a profound reverence for truth, and, as a rule, not given to the promulgation of unestablished theories or sensational