470 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1031 



different subject? How can a new point of 

 view come into being or be developed ex- 

 cept as we let those whom we have assumed 

 to be able to foster such alone, to spread 

 the new belief with all the power in them? 

 When this day comes men will again call 

 themselves the products of men and not, as 

 now, the products of teaching factories. 



But the undertow of interference with 

 freedom of teaching actually goes deeper 

 than this formalism. In Germany even a 

 docent teaches as and what he pleases, and 

 this in spite of all our notions regarding 

 restriction of expression of opinion under 

 European flags. With all our extravagant 

 claims of free press and free speech, our 

 universities are forever debating whether 

 this or that may be discussed in a class 

 room and this or that speaker may use our 

 platforms. Presentation of any living issue, 

 especially if it involves polities, religion or 

 the social sciences, seems tabooed from the 

 start. And yet if subjects with a little less 

 perspective than that given by four hun- 

 dred years are not the true raw material 

 upon which our universities are to work, 

 what are? Must we forever in practise 

 admit the truth of the father's view in 

 Shaw's play who sends Fannie to Cam- 

 bridge because he knows that there, if any- 

 where, will be found alive the atmosphere 

 of the eighteenth century? 



We can not leave to anyone 's censorship 

 the matter of who and what may or may 

 not be heard in the forum of our univer- 

 sities. We have learned to honor a Luther 

 because he preached the bars down in 

 matters religious; a Jefferson because he 

 preached them down in matters political; 

 a Humboldt because he preached them 

 down in matters educational. The univer- 

 sity preaches the bars down for the dis- 

 cussion of all subjects. Those who visit her 

 do not come to be taught a gospel but to 



use judgment in selecting the best from 

 the gospels presented. 



It remains to justify this special protec- 

 tion, this, to some, reckless use of material 

 wealth in support of those who constitute a 

 university. But what need we say of those 

 who have proved themselves the greatest 

 single force for the increase, distribution 

 and maintenance of the one universally 

 desired and valuable commodity — ^happi- 

 ness? Can we express in comprehensible 

 values the freedom given the mind by a 

 Newton, a Hersehel, a Laplace? Has the 

 public ever paid too much for the blows to 

 superstition of Vesalius, Servetus, Agassiz ? 

 Do we remember that for the dynamo and 

 motor and their thousand delightful conse- 

 quences England never paid Faraday more 

 than twenty-two hundred dollars a year? 

 Was a docent 's income too high a price 

 for the Hertzian waves and wireless ? Has 

 any one counted up the hours of pain that 

 ether and chloroform have forever abol- 

 ished? Do we walk daily through pesti- 

 lence and remember to bend the knee to 

 Pasteur? Shall we detail the millions 

 which a Liebig has added to agriculture? 

 Have we gained anything when the desert 

 brings forth fruits and the swamp some- 

 thing besides death ? Will Smith, Laveran, 

 Ross and Reed be even thought of when the 

 boats of a hundred nations push their way 

 through the Panama ditch which the work 

 of these men alone made possible? 



If we would further replace intolerance 

 by tolerance, superstition by knowledge, 

 hunger and famine by food, sickness by 

 health and death by life, if we would see 

 happiness where there are tears and blood, 

 the way is clear. A university is not a 

 luxury for the favored of fate. From her 

 cup drink alike and are satisfied sovereigns 

 by the grace of God, aristocrats, bour- 

 geois and proletariat. If gratitude is a 



