Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/410

 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

already provided for, and to do such other teaching as should not interfere with the regular duties of his chair. His lectures were received without opposition, although they were evidently contrived to give the sharpest criticism to certain accepted views and to present others of socialistic tendency, as if they were beyond criticism It was also noticeable that statements of doubt- ful authority, newspaper clippings and the like, were sometimes made the basis of reasoning, though more often of innuendo. The lectures occasioned more friction when the lecturer, having charge of classes in rhetorical work, required reports of these lectures as exercises. The republican press of the state assumed Professor Will to be the exponent of the views of a populist board, and so referred to him. The board fostered this view by giving to the binennial report of that year a partisan bias in mention- ing the extension of economic science. A decrease of thirty in attendance is said to be "due to the prevailing financial depres- sion caused by the policy of dominant political parties." A further quotation will better show the exact disposition of the board, or rather of the committee, Regents Kelley and Hoff- man, who prepared the report.

"Your board of regents, in coming in contact with the sons and daughters of the farmers of the state, who constitute a large portion of the students, have realized more than ever, that it is not a lack of industry or unfavorable methods of farming or the unfavorableness of climate, which have caused the widespread and steadily increasing poverty among the agricultural and laboring classes. The unremitting toil of the farmer in which sons and daughters take part even during childhood, has indeed yielded him large quantities of grain, great numbers of cattle, hogs, horses, and other domestic animals. He has produced enough of the useful and necessary things of life that with fair, equitable exchange would bring prosperity in place of poverty, comfort in place of humiliating drudgery, and content and patriotism in place of unrest and dissatisfaction.

" It is hoped that giving more attention to the study of economic principles which govern the distribution of wealth will