The Higher Learning In America: A Memorandum On the Conduct of Universities By Business Men/Chapter 1 VI

VI

Since the paragraphs that make up the foregoing chapter were written the American academic community has been thrown into a new and peculiar position by the fortunes of war. The progress and the further promise of the war hold in prospect new and untried responsibilities, as well as an unexampled opportunity. So that the outlook now (June 1918) would seem to be that the Americans are to be brought into a central place in the republic of learning; to take a position, not so much of dominance as of trust and guardianship; not so much by virtue of their own superior merit as by force of the insolvency of the European academic community.

Again, it is not that the war is expected to leave the lines of European scholars and scientists extinct; although there is no denying the serious inroads made by the war, both in the way of a high mortality among European men of learning, and in the way of a decimation of the new men on whom the hopes of the higher learning for the incoming generation should have rested. There is also a serious diversion of the young forces from learning to transiently urgent matters of a more material, and more ephemeral nature. But possibly more sinister than all these losses that are in a way amenable to statistical record and estimate, is the current and prospective loss of morale. Naturally, it would be difficult and hazardous to offer an appraisal of this prospective loss of morale, with which it is to be expected that the disintegrated European community of learned men will come through the troubled times. But that there is much to be looked for on this score, that there is much to be written off in the way of lowered aggregate efficiency and loss of the spirit of team-work, -- that much there is no denying, and it is useless to blink the fact. There has already a good deal of disillusionment taken effect throughout the nations of Christendom in respect of the temper and trustworthiness of German scholarship these past three or four years, and it is fairly beyond computation what further shift of sentiment in this respect is to be looked for in the course of a further Possible period of years given over to the same line of experience. Doubtless, the German scholars, and therefore the German seats of learning whose creatures and whose custodians these German scholars are, have earned much of the distrust and dispraise that is falling to their share. There is no overlooking the fact that they have proved the frailty of their hold on those elementary principles of sobriety and single mind that underlie all sound work in the field of learning. To any one who has the interest of the higher learning at heart, the spectacle of maudlin chauvinism and inflated scurrility unremittingly placed on view by the putative leaders of German science and scholarship can not but be exceedingly disheartening. It may be argued, and it may be true, of course, that much of this failure of intelligence and spiritual force among Germany's men of learning is of the nature of a transient eclipse of their powers; that with the return of settled conditions there is due to come a return of poise and insight. But when all due argument has been heard, it remains true that the distrust set afoot in the mind of their neighbours, by this highly remarkable exhibition of their personal equation, will long inure to the disability of Germany's men of learning as a force to be counted on in that teamwork that is of the essence of things for the advancement of learning. In effect, Germany, and Germany's associates in this warlike enterprise, will presumably be found bankrupt in this respect on the return of peace, even beyond the other nations. These others have also not escaped the touch of the angel of decay, but the visible corruption of spiritual and intellectual values does not go the same length among them. Nor have these others suffered so heavy a toll on their prospective scholarly man power. It is all a matter of degree and of differential decline, coupled with a failure of corporate organization and of the usages and channels of communion and co-operation. Chauvinistic self-sufficiency and disesteem of their neighbours have apparently also not gone so deep and far among the other nations; although here again it is only a relative degree of immunity that they enjoy. And all this holds true of the Americans in much the same way as of the rest; except that the Americans have, at least hitherto, not been exposed to the blight in anything like the same degree as any one of those other peoples with whom they come in comparison here. It is, of course, not easy to surmise what may yet overtake them, and the others with them; but judged on the course of things hitherto, and on the apparent promise of the calculable future, it is scarcely to be presumed that the Americans are due to suffer so extreme a degree of dilapidation as the European peoples, -- even apart from the accentuated evil case of the Germans. The strain has hitherto been lighter here, and it promises so to continue, whether the further duration of the war shall turn out to be longer or shorter. The Americans are, after all, somewhat sheltered from the impact; and so soon as the hysterical anxiety induced by the shock has had time to spend itself, it should reasonably be expected that this people will be able soberly to take stock of its assets and to find that its holdings in the domain of science and scholarship are, in the main, still intact. Not that no loss has been incurred, nor that no material degree of derangement is to be looked for, but in comparison with what the experience of the war is bringing to the Europeans, the case of the Americans should still be the best there is to be looked for and the best is always good enough, perforce. So it becomes a question, what the Americans will do with the best opportunity which the circumstances offer. And on their conduct of their affairs in this bearing turns not only their own fortune in respect of the interests of science and scholarship, but in great measure the fortunes of their overseas friends and co-partners in the republic of learning as well. The fortunes of war promise to leave the American men of learning in a strategic position, in the position of a strategic reserve, of a force to be held in readiness, equipped and organized to meet the emergency that so arises, and to retrieve so much as may be of those assets of scholarly equipment and personnel that make the substantial code of Western civilization. And so it becomes a question of what the Americans are minded to do about it. It is their opportunity, and at the same time it carries the gravest responsibility that has yet fallen on the nation; for the spiritual fortunes of Christendom are bound up with the line of policy which this surviving contingent of American men of learning shall see fit to pursue. They are not all that is to be left over when the powers of decay shall begin to retire, nor are they, perhaps, to be the best and most valuable contingent among these prospective survivors; but they occupy a strategic position, in that they are today justly to be credited with disinterested motives, beyond the rest, at the same time that they command those material resources without which the quest of knowledge can hope to achieve little along the modern lines of inquiry. By force of circumstances they are thrown into the position of keepers of the ways and means whereby the republic of learning is to retrieve its fortunes. By force of circumstances they are in a position, if they so choose, to shelter many of those masters of free inquiry whom the one-eyed forces of reaction and partisanship overseas will seek to suppress and undo; and they are also in a position, if they so choose, to install something in the way of an international clearing house and provisional headquarters for the academic community throughout that range of civilized peoples whose goodwill they now enjoy -- a place of refuge and a place of meeting, confluence and dissemination for those views and ideas that live and move and have their being in the higher learning.

There is, therefore, a work of reconstruction to be taken care of in the realm of learning, no less than in the working scheme of economic and civil institutions. And as in this other work of reconstruction, so here; if it is to be done without undue confusion and blundering it is due to be set afoot before the final emergency is at hand. But there is the difference that, whereas the framework of civil institutions may still, with passable success, be drawn on national lines and confined within the national frontiers; and while the economic organization can also, without fatal loss, be confined in a similar fashion, in response to short-sighted patriotic preconceptions; the interests of science, and therefore of the academic community, do not run on national lines and can not similarly be confined within geographical or political boundaries. In the nature of the case these interests are of an international character and can not be taken care of except by unrestricted collusion and collaboration among the learned men of all those peoples whom it may concern. Yet there is no mistaking the fact that the spirit of invidious patriotism has invaded these premises, too, and promises to bungle the outcome; which makes the needed work of reconstruction all the more difficult and all the more imperative. Unhappily, the state of sentiment on both sides of the line of cleavage will presumably not admit a cordial understanding and co-operation between the German contingent and the rest of the civilized nations, for some time to come. But the others are in a frame of mind that should lend itself generously to a larger measure of co-operation in this respect now than ever before.

So it may not seem out of place to offer a suggestion, tentatively and under correction, looking to this end. A beginning may well be made by a joint enterprise among American scholars and universities for the installation of a freely endowed central establishment where teachers and students of all nationalities, including Americans with the rest, may pursue their chosen work as guests of the American academic community at large, or as guests of the American people in the character of a democracy of culture. There should also be nothing to hinder the installation of more than one of these academic houses of refuge and entertainment; nor should there be anything to hinder the enterprise being conducted on such terms of amity, impartiality and community interest as will make recourse to it an easy matter of course for any scholars whom its opportunities may attract. The same central would at the same time, and for the time being, take care of those channels of communication throughout the academic world that have been falling into enforced neglect under the strain of the war. So also should provision be made, perhaps best under the same auspices, for the (transient) taking-over of the many essential lines of publicity and publication on which the men engaged in scholarly and scientific inquiry have learned to depend, and which have also been falling into something of a decline during the war.

Measures looking to this end might well be made, at the same time, to serve no less useful a purpose within the American Academic community. As is well known, there prevails today an extensive and wasteful competitive duplication of plant, organization and personnel among the American universities, as regards both publications and courses of instruction. Particularly is this true in respect of that advanced work of the universities that has to do with the higher learning. At the same time, these universities are now pinched for funds, due to the current inflation of prices. So that any proposal of this nature, which might be taken advantage of as an occasion for the pooling of common issues among the universities, might hopefully be expected to be welcomed as a measure of present relief from some part of the pecuniary strain under which they are now working.

But competition is well ingrained in the habitual outlook of the American schools. To take the issue to neutral ground, therefore, where this competitive animus may hopefully be counted on to find some salutary abatement, it may be suggested that a practicable nucleus for this proposed joint enterprise can well be found in one or another -- perhaps in one and another -- of those extra-academic foundations for research of which there already are several in existence, -- as, e.g., the Carnegie Institution. With somewhat enlarged powers, or perhaps rather with some abatement of restrictions, and with such additional funds as may be required, the necessary work and organization should readily be taken care of by such an institution. Further growth and ramification would be left to future counsel and advisement. The contemplated enterprise would necessarily require a certain planning and organization of work and something in the way of an administrative and clerical staff,a setting up of something in the way of "organization tables"; but there can be no question of offering detailed proposals on that head here. Yet the caution may well be entered here that few specifications are better than many, in these premises, and that the larger the latitude allowed from the outset, the fewer the seeds of eventual defeat, -- as is abundantly illustrated by contraries. It is also evident that such an enterprise will involve provision for some expenditure of funds; presumably a somewhat generous expenditure; which comes near implying that recourse should be had to the public revenues, or to resources that may legitimately be taken over by the public authorities from private hands where they now serve no useful purpose. There are many items of material resources in the country that come legitimately under this head. At the same time it is well in this connection to call to mind that there is no prospect of the country's being in any degree impoverished in the course of the war; so that there need be no apprehension of a shortage of means for the carrying on of such an enterprise, if only the available sources are drawn on without prejudice. In the mind of any disinterested student of the American economic situation, there can be no serious apprehension that the American people, collectively, will be at all worse off in point of disposable means at the close of the war than they were at its beginning; quite the contrary in fact. To any one who will look to the facts it is evident that the experience of the war, and the measures taken and to be taken, are leading to a heightened industrial productiveness and a concomitant elimination of waste. The resulting net gain in productive efficiency has not gone at all far, and there need be no apprehension of its going to great lengths; but, for more or less, it is going so far as safely to promise a larger net annual production of useful goods in the immediate future than in the immediate past; and the disposable means of any people is always a matter of the net annual production, and it need be a question of nothing else. The manner in which this net product is, and is to be, shared among the classes and individuals of the community is another question, which does not belong here. A question of graver weight and of greater perplexity touches the presumptive attitude of the several universities and their discretionary authorities in the face of any proposed measure of this kind; where the scope of the enterprise is so far beyond their habitual range of interest. When one calls to mind the habitual parochialism of the governing boards of these seminaries of the higher learning, and the meticulous manoeuvres of their executives seeking each to enhance his own prestige and the prestige of his own establishment, there is not much of an evident outlook for large and generous measures looking to the common good. And yet it is also to be called to mind that these governing boards and executives are, after all, drawn from the common stock of humanity, picked men as they may be; and that they are subject, after all, to somewhat the same impulses and infirmities as the common run, picked though they may be with a view to parochialism and blameless futility. Now, what is overtaking the temper of the common run under the strain of the war situation should be instructive as to what may be also looked for at the bands of these men in whose discretion rest the fortunes of the American universities. There should be at least a fighting chance that, with something larger, manlier, more substantial, to occupy their attention and to shape the day's work for them, these seminaries of learning may, under instant pressure, turn their best efforts to their ostensible purpose, "the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men," and to forego their habitual preoccupation with petty intrigue and bombastic publicity, until the return of idler days.

NOTES:

1. An inquiry of this kind has been attempted elsewhere: Cf. The Instinct of Workmanship. chapter vii, pp. 321-340; "The Place of Science in Modern Civilization", American Journal of Sociology. Vol. XI (March, 1906), pp. 585-609; "The Evolution of the Scientific Point of View," University of California Chronicle (1908), Vol. X, No. 4, pp. 395-416.

2. Cf. The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of the Industrial Arts, ch.i and pp. 30-45, 52-62, 84-89.

3. In the crude surmises of the pioneers in pragmatism this proposition was implicitly denied; in their later and more advisedly formulated positions the expositors of pragmatism have made peace with it.

4. The essential function of the university is to bring together, for the transmission of experience and impulse, the sages of the passing and the picked youths of the coming generation. By the extent and fulness with which they establish these social contacts, and thus transmit the wave of cumulative experience and idealist impulse -- the real sources of moral and intellectual progress -- the universities are to be judged. -- Victor Branford, Interpretations and Forecasts, ch. VI. "The Present as a Transition." p 288.

5. Cf., Geo. T. Ladd, University Control, p. 349.

6. Cf., e.g., J. McKeen Cattell, University Control, Part III, ch. V., "Concerning the American University." "The university is those who teach and those who learn and the work they do." "The university is its men and their work. But certain externals are necessary or at least usual -- buildings and equipment, a president and trustees." "The papers by other writers associated with Mr Cattell in this volume run to the same effect whenever they touch the same topic; and, indeed, it would be difficult to find a deliberate expression to the contrary among men entitled to speak in these premises. It may be in place to add here that the volume referred to, on University Control, has been had in mind throughout the following analysis and has served as ground and material for much of the argument.

7. Cf. The Instinct of Workmanship, ch. vi, vii.

8. With the current reactionary trend of things political and civil toward mediaeval-barbarian policies and habits of thought in the Fatherland, something of a correlative change has also latterly come in evidence in the German universities; so that what is substantially "cameralistic science" -- training and information for prospective civil servants and police magistrates is in some appreciable measure displacing disinterested inquiry in the field of economics and political theory. This is peculiarly true of those corporations of learning that come closely in touch with the Cultus Ministerium.

9. Cf. "Some Considerations On the Function of the State University." (Inaugural Address of Edmund Janes James, Ph.D., LL.D.), Science, November 17, 1905.