July 10, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



61 



matters vital to human weKare discussion of 

 wticli is socially and publicly taboo. We have 

 in name freedom of the press ; in fact journal- 

 istic intelligence is narrowed in its expression 

 by public indifference and muzzled by the 

 private interests of private owners. I suppose 

 that the artist's right to express his own soul 

 is theoretically conceded; but I am confident 

 that any artist who should attempt Gallic 

 liberties in his seK-portrayals would but plac- 

 ard his name to distrust and put his genius in 

 perpetual quarantine. The case of the teacher 

 who happens to be also a thinker is better than 

 these chiefly from the circumstance that his 

 right to express his thought is a more present 

 issue and is likelier to come to an early solu- 

 tion. 



The issue of " academic freedom " is the 

 problem of adapting institutionalism to per- 

 sonalities. Education has become an involved 

 affair, with elaborate " plants," ornate admin- 

 istrations, and a distinguished sense of what 

 the eloquent speech of Manhattan would call 

 its " front." Few, I imagine, doubt the utility 

 of these perquisites; while none conceding 

 this can question the importance of the insti- 

 tution or the high sufficiency of its adminis- 

 trative avatars. And yet if the institution of 

 education becomes too gross of organization, 

 it loses the end of education. Perfunetion is 

 the oil that smooths administration, but it 

 clogs and dams personality; and education 

 apart from personalities, in place of a Socratic 

 mid-wifery to souls, becomes the deft art of 

 spiritual undertakers — ^the school is replaced 

 by the morgue. Our danger is obviously lest 

 the instrument kill the growth it was designed 

 to foster. 



Putting the matter concretely, education, as 

 it is nowadays conceived, has two require- 

 ments different to the point of antagonism. 

 On the one hand there is the need for elabo- 

 rate material and financial equipment, and 

 with it all the accompanying interplay of 

 institution and public. This is a problem of 

 ingenious government and politic adminis- 

 tration, demanding for its success an essential 

 solidarity. On the other hand, if the function 



of the institution is to be fulfilled, the right of 

 the teacher to think and to speak his thought 

 must be subject only to his own wisdom — at 

 least within the province of his subject; and 

 this spells essential individuality. Thus we 

 are presented to a dilemma, with horns equally 

 brazen. 



Doubtless the ideal solution would be the 

 creation of a breed of teachers gifted with a 

 military scorn of danger and a high indiffer- 

 ence to economic death. There is, as the 

 matter stands, a lingering suggestion of 

 effeminacy about the professorial craft. Men 

 generally suspect in the professor a deficient 

 virility, and they look upon scholarship as a 

 kind of spiritual cosmetic designed to con- 

 ceal an enfeebled soul. It might habilitate 

 the teacher's profession in the general eye, and 

 perhaps enhance the teacher's own esteem of 

 it, if the business were made perilous and 

 publiely spiced with rash braveries of expres- 

 sion. But the difficulty of this heroic road is 

 that only the tame would be left to teach. 

 Eventually — and in no long eventuality — it 

 would destroy the schools. 



What is needed is clearly a compromise (and 

 let not the term be regarded as a sign of fear; 

 all practicalities are compromises, and lan- 

 guage, the most practical of all is the most 

 compromising of all, for every word is a com- 

 promise of its meanings). The institution, in 

 its essential solidarity, is necessary to the 

 professor; the professor, in his essential indi- 

 viduality, is necessary to the institution. 

 This mutual necessity must surely yet mother 

 a thrifty progeny. 



Every one interested in the situation has, 

 I suppose, his scheme of melioration. I have 

 mine. Let me briefly sketch it. I am speak- 

 ing, be it understood, of coUeges and uni- 

 versities. 



Suppose that in each institution there were 

 a clear legal distinction between the profes- 

 soriate and the administrative body. In the 

 hands of the latter should rest aU problems of 

 organization, publicity, expansion or Gontrao- 

 tion of curricula, material control, and all 

 appointments except to the professoriate; it 



