November, 1928 



EVOLUTION 



Page Nine 



The Great Crime Against Education 



An explanation oj ivhy tlie big text book publishers liavt- taken evolution out of 



biology. 



By Barrow Lvons^ 



If Europe laughed at America \\\\ea it 

 learned that there were backward sections 

 here where the teaching of evolution was 

 contrary to law, it will howl and guffaw- 

 when it learns that the influence ot those 

 backward sections has eliminated the men- 

 tion of organic evolution from most of the 

 biology school books in the United States. 



That the fundamentalists have suc- 

 ceeded in aborting virtually all of the 

 biology texts that are placed in the hands 

 of school and highschool children is the 

 testimony of the largest publishers of texts 

 in this country. What is more, the pub- 

 lishers are so afraid of the fundamentalists 

 that they dare not speak out. 



The situation is simply this: text book 

 publishing is a business. It is not con- 

 ducted for uplift, for reform or even for 

 educational purposes. The publishers have 

 all the education they want, but not all the 

 money they want. They run their busi- 

 nesses to make money. When they publish 

 text books that offend any large section of 

 the purchasing public they limit their sales. 

 Limiting sales means increase in produc- 

 tion cost. Increasing sales means lower 

 cost and selling price or larger profit. 



Text books are sold by price as much 

 as oranges or radiators. School boards 

 prefer to purchase at the lowest prices. 

 The opinions of teachers do not always 

 bear great weight with the purchasers of 

 the books. 



The text book publisher who can sell 

 over the widest range of territory has a 

 distinct commercial advantage over the 

 publisher whose field is limited and whose 

 books are slightly higher priced. Thus 

 «ven the liberal publisher is forced to con- 

 cede a great deal to the least liberal ele- 

 ments in the community at present. 



Notice, we said ''at present." If there 

 ■\vere an extensive and insistent demand 

 for text books which taught evolution, 

 more of such text books would be pub- 

 lished. One of the objects of presenting 

 this situation to the public is to stimulate 

 the demand for books which tell the whole 

 truth. 



What Publishers Say 



But hear the testimony of the publishers 

 themselves. First, one of the most cour- 

 ageous of large text book publishers. 



''Please have it understood at the begin- 

 ning," this editor commenced, "that the 

 name of our company, or my name, or 

 anything which would tend to identify us 

 IS not to be used in your article. It would 

 do the sale of our books no good if the 

 reactionary elements were antagonized. 

 We cannot, as publishers, afford to get 

 mixed up in any controversy." 



Staring this man in the face were the 

 bigots of Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, 

 Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, Georgia, 

 Texas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, North 

 Carolina, etc 



"Competition makes it imperative that 

 we produce books which can be sold in 

 territory where evolutionary theory is not 

 acceptable to those who control public 

 opinion," he continued. "There are, of 

 course, sections of the country where books 

 which recognize evolution cannot be sold. 

 While I would not say that none of our 

 books have been altered to suit the anti- 

 evolutionists, I can state that this has 

 never been done unless the author was en- 

 tirely willing. 



'"We have a te.xt book on biology, which 

 does not contain a chapter on evolution. 

 It has had a great success in the states 

 where evolutionary theory has been under 

 a cloud. In other states it is by no means 

 the preeminent success it has been in the 

 South. In a sincere inquiry as to why this 

 book was not selling better in northern 

 states we consulted our sales force some 

 weeks ago. It was the opinion of some 

 of our salesmen that if the book contained 

 a good, stiff chapter on evolution it would 

 go better in their territory. 



How Authors Are Persuaded 



"I believe this firm, has shown a great 

 deal more courage in such matters than 

 most firms. The utmost we have done has 

 been to suggest to the author that mention 

 of evolution ivas irrelevant to his book and 

 l/iat its omission would increase the book's 

 sale." 



Needless to say, this publisher chafes 

 under this condition. He sees other large 

 publishers yielding supinely to the influ- 

 ence of benighted crusaders — men whose 

 ill informed minds seethe with superstition 

 and prejudice, and whose influence is 

 poisoning American thought. He sees such 

 publishers gaining the big advantages in 

 trade, increasing their gains at the ex- 

 pense of sound education, doping the minds 

 of American children everywhere. 



"You will be doing a great service to 

 publishers who regard their calling as a 

 public trust, who consider themselves a 

 real part of our educational system, if you 

 will call this situation to the attention of 

 the public," this editor declared. "There 

 is too great a tendency to acquiesce entire- 

 ly to the opinion of Fundamentalists. But 

 let me ask you again, that our company's 

 name be left out entirely. A publisher has 

 virtually nothing to gain by letting it be 

 known that he has endeavored to take a 

 progressive stand, and everything to lose." 



If you feel that the stand of this pub- 

 lisher is not entirely fearless, consider the 

 testimony of the next man interviewed. He 

 is editor for a very large house, which 

 publishes text books only. Naturally he 

 obtained immunity against being quoted. 



"No one in this company can speak for 

 publication simply because we cannot af- 

 ford to get into any controversy," he ex- 

 plained. "Our business is to publish books. 

 All of our books, whether on history, reli- 



gion, economics or science are so written 

 as to give offense to no faction. 



"For instance, our history books dealing 

 with labor problems must be particularly 

 careful to make no statements that will 

 offend either capital or labor. The trouble 

 starts, as a rule, when some child goes 

 home and tells his parents what the teach- 

 er said or what he read in his text book. 

 When that offends someone the fireworks 

 begin. So we make it a fixed policy with 

 all of our books, either to avoid entirely 

 subjects that offend, or else, in some in- 

 stances, state what both sides maintain to 

 be the facts, showing no bias either way." 



The Truth Suppressed 



The thing this publisher is doing seems 

 to me one of the greatest crimes that can 

 be charged against any educational system 

 — the suppression of the truth as seen by 

 the ablest minds who have examined it. 

 We have inherited the accumulated super- 

 stitions of the ages. A thousand influ- 

 ences prevent men from thinking fearlessly 

 and straight. It is only as new knowledge 

 is brought forward that the thick mists 

 of ignorance and misunderstanding from 

 which human beings have suffered are 

 gradually swept away. If the facts as 

 they are brought forward and substantiated 

 by science are not presented clearly to 

 young people there is little hope for pro- 

 gress. Yet this great publisher declares: 



"We w'ould be foolish to adopt any other 

 policy. One cannot fight prejudice and 

 our sales would immediately drop off if 

 we attempted to. We are one of the largest 

 publishers of text books in the country, but 

 we could not hope to continue to be if we 

 laid ourselves open to the criticism of try- 

 ing to give people what they don't want. 

 ■'If any large group of prospective pur- 

 chasers object to statements in our books, 

 we could hardly expect to sell these books 

 in sections where those statements are not 

 tolerated. 



"Virtually all text books on the market 

 have been revised to meet the demands of 

 the Fundamentalists. In some instances, 

 however, practically all of the evolution- 

 ary material has been kept in the books, 

 so camouflaged as not to give offense, the 

 word evolution being eliminated." 



How one man, who offered his testimony 

 at the famous Scopes trial in support of 

 that teacher, has written such a camou- 

 flaged text, will be told in my next article. 



I shall also show how important biology 

 texts have been altered to suit the demands 

 of Fundamentalists, so that the majority of 

 school children are being taught biology 

 from books which do not mention, by name 

 at least, one of the most important bio- 

 logical truths that modern science has 

 established. 



NEXT ISSUE DATED AHEAD 



The next number of EVOLUTION will 

 be out within three weeks, and will be 

 marked \'ol. II, No. 1, January 1929. 

 This is to make the volume co-incide with 

 the year and to have the advantage of 

 pre-dating. Of course every yearly sub- 

 scriber will receive full twelve numbers. 



