AMERICAN SOCIETY OF EQUITY 



by placing officials who will authorize and permit such useless waste of 

 the people's money in the institutions at Mendota [the state insane asylum] 

 or Waupun [the state penitentiary]." A few months earlier, when students 

 preparing for the consular service petitioned the university authorities for 

 courses in Chinese and Japanese, the Equity publication demanded that 

 the requests be turned down. These were "special" and purely "personal 

 professions," it held, "from which the general public will derive no bene- 

 fit whatever." 40 



Finally in 1914, the state board of public affairs, much to the satisfaction 

 of the Equity authorities, began an investigation of the university, includ- 

 ing the college of agriculture. The resulting Survey of the University of 

 Wisconsin, whatever the animus which inspired its compilers, contained 

 much valuable information and gave a clear insight into the thinking of 

 various groups. It jet forth the facts concerning the teaching of agricul- 

 tural economics and rural problems, including marketing. It pointed out, 

 deprecatingly, that the Wisconsin college of agriculture was "more than 

 forty years old before it began to teach the distribution and marketing of 

 farm wealth in general, and to study Wisconsin market problems in par- 

 ticular." These facts could not be disputed, but it was also true that the 

 Wisconsin college of agriculture was one of the few such institutions in 

 the nation to offer courses in agricultural economics at all. 41 



The state board, in the course of its investigations, found that many 

 times the college authorities held opinions at variance with the "definite" 

 and "positive" demands of certain farmer groups. It admitted, however, 

 that the college staff "opposed" or "held aloof" from many such proposals 

 because they were deemed "violative of economic, social or civic law." It 

 conceded also that the farmers' complaints were "apt to be crude, unwise, 

 and ineffective in the proposed principles and methods of action." 



The college cannot be expected to head an agrarian revolution for distributive 

 justice. If it were proper to do so, it is beyond reason to expect it. It is not 

 recorded in history that fat men, lawyers, and college professors ever headed a 



40. Wisconsin Equity News, May 10, 1908, p. 6; August 10, 1909, p. 10; August 

 25, 1909, p. 5. 



41. Report upon the Survey of the University of Wisconsin: Findings of the State 

 Board of Public Affairs and its Report to the Legislature (Madison, [1915]), pp. 

 942-45. 



