What actually happened was something I had to drag from the young man by half an hour of tactful questioning. It was evident that the experience had been a cruel one; he did not want to think about it, he could not speak about it without his hands trembling, and his voice also. He had been stormed at and denounced, he had been told that he was a fool and a puppy, and that he should there and then take his pen in hand and write an abject apology to the great mogul he had so insulted. And here was a young man trying to exist upon the pitiful salary of a university instructor, and with a young wife expecting a baby. He demanded twenty-four hours to think it over, and he went away and wrestled it out with himself. He wrote the letter, and since that time has retired into his own shell; he never thinks about public questions, he writes no letters to anyone, he hardly even reads a newspaper, but lives and labors in a little specialty, where he hopes to make some contribution to human knowledge. Meantime, the dean who did this thing is one of the most prominent and powerful persons in the university, in charge of the moral destinies of several thousand future citizens of the state of Wisconsin. And that is what “academic freedom” means in America’s freest university!
CHAPTER XLIX THE PEOPLE AND THEIR UNIVERSITY
I do not want anyone who reads this book to get the idea that I am so naive as to imagine that there is no enemy of freedom of teaching save economic privilege. I know there are others, and all I am doing is tackle the biggest one first. If I work for the control of universities by organized farmers and labor unions, it is not because I am unaware that these groups have their interests and prejudices, but merely because I believe that these groups can learn to understand true freedom and justice, whereas I know that a plutocratic class has never been able to learn anything at any time in human history.
In the University of Wisconsin it is interestingly shown that as soon as you break down the rule of special privilege, you find yourself confronted by various kinds of mass prejudice and group interest. The people of the state consider that they own a university, and they expect this university to do their way. The question arises—who shall set the standards, the voters, or the faculty, who think they know more? The Wisconsin farmer drives up to Madison in his automobile, and demands an interview with a dean, saying: “Here I am supporting this university by my taxes, and here you’ve gone and flunked my son!” The farmers’ organizations keep jealous watch over the percentage of “flunkings,” and if it is too high, they say the university is being made into a place of academic snobbery. And maybe they are right—it is not so easy to say!