Part 3

In America, society has been reorganized since 1870; the old universities have been totally changed and many new ones founded. The money to do this has come from the business world. The men chosen to do the work have been chosen by the business world. Of a truth, it must needs be that offenses come; but woe be unto him through whom the offense cometh. As the Boss has been the tool of the business man in politics, so the College president has been his agent in education. The colleges during this epoch have each had a “policy” and a directorate. They have been manned and commissioned for a certain kind of service, as you might man a fishing-smack to catch herring. There has been so much necessary business--the business of expanding and planning, of adapting and remodeling--that there has been no time for education. Some big deal has always been pending in each college--some consolidation of departments, some annexation of a new world--something so momentous as to make private opinion a nuisance. In this regard the colleges have resembled everything else in America. The colleges have simply not been different from the rest of American life. Let a man express an opinion at a party caucus, or at a railroad directors’ meeting, or at a college faculty meeting, and he will find that he is speaking against a predetermined force. What shall we do with such a fellow? Well, if he is old and distinguished, you may suffer him to have his say, and then override him. But if he is young, energetic, and likely to give more trouble, you must eject him with as little fuss as the circumstances will permit.

The educated man has been the grain of sand in the college machine. He has had a horizon of what “ought to be,” and he could not help putting in a word and an idea in the wrong place; and so he was thrown out of education in America exactly as he was thrown out of politics in America. I am here speaking about the great general trend of influences since 1870, influences which have been checked in recent years, checked in politics, checked in education, but which it is necessary to understand if we would understand present conditions in education. The men who, during this era, have been chosen to become college presidents have, as a rule, begun life with the ambition of scholars; but their talents for affairs have been developed at the expense of their taste for learning, and they have become hard men. As toward their faculties they have been autocrats, because the age has demanded autocracy here; as toward the millionaire they have been sycophants, because the age has demanded sycophancy here. Meanwhile these same college presidents represent learning to the imagination of the millionaire and to the imagination of the great public. The ignorant millionaire must trust somebody; and whom he trusts he rules. Now if we go one step further in the reasoning, and discover that the millionaire himself has a somewhat exaggerated reverence for the opinions of the great public, we shall see that this whole matter is a coil of influence emanating from the great public, and winding up--and generally winding up very tight--about the necks of our college faculties and professional scholars. The millionaire and the college president are simply middle men, who transmit the pressure from the average citizen to the learned classes. What the average citizen desires to have done in education gets itself accomplished, though the process should involve the extinction of the race of educated gentlemen. The problem before us in America is the unwinding of this “knot intrinsicate” into which our education has become tied, the unwinding of this boa-constrictor of ignorant public opinion which has been strangling and, to some extent, is still strangling our scholars.

I have no categorical solution of the problem, nor do I, to tell the truth, put an absolute faith in any analysis of social forces, even of my own. If I point out one of the strands in the knot as the best strand to begin work on, it is with the consciousness that there are other effectual ways of working, other ways of feeling about the matter that are more profound.

The natural custodians of education in any age are the learned men of the land, including the professors and schoolmasters. Now these men have, at the present time, in America no conception of their responsibility. They are docile under the rule of the promoting college president, and they have a theory of their own function which debars them from militant activity. The average professor in an American college will look on at an act of injustice done to a brother professor by their college president, with the same unconcern as the rabbit who is not attacked watches the ferret pursue his brother up and down through the warren, to predestinate and horrible death. We know, of course, that it would cost the non-attacked rabbit his place to express sympathy for the martyr; and the non-attacked is poor, and has offspring, and hopes of advancement. The non-attacked rabbit would, of course, become a suspect, and a marked man the moment he lifted up his voice in defense of rabbit-rights. Such personal sacrifice seems to be the price paid in this world for doing good of any kind. I am not, however, here raising the question of general ethics; I refer to the philosophical belief, to the special theory of _professorial_ ethics, which forbids a professor to protect his colleague. I invite controversy on this subject; for I should like to know what the professors of the country have to say on it. It seems to me that there exists a special prohibitory code, which prevents the college professor from using his reason and his pen as actively as he ought in protecting himself, in pushing his interests, and in enlightening the community about our educational abuses. The professor in America seems to think that self-respect requires silence and discretion on his part. He is too great to descend into the arena. He thinks that by nursing this gigantic reverence for the idea of professordom, such reverence will, somehow, be extended all over society, till the professor becomes a creature of power, of public notoriety, of independent reputation as he is in Germany. In the meantime, the professor is trampled upon, his interests are ignored, he is overworked and underpaid, he is of small social consequence, he is kept at menial employments, and the leisure to do good work is denied him. A change is certainly needed in all of these aspects of the American professor’s life. My own opinion is that this change can only come about through the enlightenment of the great public. The public must be appealed to by the professor himself in all ways and upon all occasions. The professor must teach the nation to respect learning and to understand the function and the rights of the learned classes. He must do this through a willingness to speak and to fight for himself. In Germany there is a great public of highly educated, nay of deeply and variously learned people, whose very existence secures pay, protection, and reverence for the scholar. The same is true in France, England, and Italy.

It is the public that protects the professor in Europe. The public alone can protect the professor in America. The proof of this is that any individual learned man in America who becomes known to the public through his books or his discoveries, or his activity in any field of learning or research, is comparatively safe from the guillotine. His position has at least some security, his word some authority. This man has educated the public that trusts him, and he can now protect his more defenseless brethren, if he will. I have often wondered, when listening to the sickening tale of some brutality done by a practical college president to a young instructor, how it had been possible for the eminent men upon the faculty to sit through the operation without a protest. A word from any one of them would have stopped the sacrifice, and protected learning from the oppressor. But no, these eminent men harbored ethical conceptions which kept them from interfering with the practical running of the college. Merciful heavens! who is to run a college if not learned men? Our colleges have been handled by men whose ideals were as remote from scholarship as the ideals of the New York theatrical managers are remote from poetry. In the meanwhile, the scholars have been dumb and reticent.

At the back of all these phenomena we have, as I have said, the general atmospheric ignorance of the great public in America. We are so used to this public, so immersed in it, so much a part of it ourselves, that we are hardly able to gain any conception of what that atmospheric ignorance is like. I will give an illustration which would perhaps never have occurred to my mind except through the accident of actual experience. If you desire a clue to the American in the matter of the higher education, you may find one in becoming a school trustee in any country district where the children taught are the children of farmers. The contract with any country school-teacher provides that he shall teach for so many weeks, upon such and such conditions. Now let us suppose a teacher of genius to obtain the post. He not only teaches admirably, but he institutes school gardens for the children; he takes long walks with the boys, and gives them the rudiments of geology. He is in himself an uplifting moral influence, and introduces the children into a whole new world of idea and of feeling. The parents are pleased. I will not say that they are grateful; but they are not ungrateful. It is true that they secretly believe all this botany and moral influence to be rubbish; but they tolerate it. Now, let us suppose that before the year is out the teacher falls sick, and loses two weeks of school time through absence. You will find that the trustees insist upon his making up this lost time; the contract calls for it. This seems like a mean and petty exaction for these parents to impose upon a saint who has blessed their children, unto the third and fourth generation, by his presence among them. But let us not judge hastily. This strange exaction does not result so much from the meanness of the parents, as from their intellectual limitations. To these parents the hours passed in school are schooling; the rest does not count. The rest may be pleasant and valuable, but it is not education.

In the same way, the professional and business classes in America do not see any point in paying salaries to professors who are to make researches, or write books, or think beautiful thoughts. The influence which an eminent man sheds about him by his very existence, the change in tone that comes over a rude person through his once seeing the face of a scholar, the illumination of a young character through contact with its own ideals--such things are beyond the ken of the average American citizen to-day. To him, they are fables, to him they are foolishness. The parent of our college lad is a farmer compared to the parent of the European lad.

The American parent regards himself as an enlightened being--yet he has not, in these matters, an inkling of what enlightenment is. Now, the intelligence of that parent must be reached; and the learned classes must do the work of reaching it. The Fathers of the Christian church made war with book and speech on Paganism. The leaders of the Reformation went out among the people and made converts. The patriots of the American Revolution--nay, the fathers of modern science, Tyndal, Huxley, Louis Agaziz, Helmholtz--wrote popular books and sought to interest and educate the public by direct contact. Then let the later-coming followers in learning imitate this popular activity of the old leaders: we need a host of battlers for the cause.

For whom do these universities exist, after all? Is it not for the people at large? Are not the people the ultimate beneficiaries? Then why should the people not be immediately instructed in such manner as will lead to their supporting true universities? It is hard to say why our professors are so timid. Perhaps too great a specialization in their own education has left them helpless, as all-around fighters. But the deeper reason seems to be a moral one; they think such activity is beneath them. It is not beneath them. Whatever be a man’s calling, it is not beneath him to make a fight for the truth. As for a professor’s belonging to a mystic guild, no man’s spiritual force is either increased or diminished by the name he calls his profession. Learning is their cause, and every honest means to promote learning should be within their duty. Nor does duty alone make this call for publicity. Ambition joins in it; the legitimate personal ambition of making one’s mind and character felt in the world. This blow once struck means honor, and security of tenure in office, it means public power.

In fine, the scholars should take the public into their confidence and dominate the business men on our college boards. This will be found more easy than at first appears, because the money element, the millionaire element, is very sensitive to public feeling, and once the millionaire succumbs, the college president will succumb also. The step beyond this would consist in the scholars’ taking charge of the college themselves, merely making use of certain business men on their boards for purposes of financial administration.

THE DRAMA.

When a subject is too complex and too subtle to admit of any adequate analysis, people dogmatize about it. They believe that they are thus recurring to first principles. But what are the principles? That is just what no one can state. The drama is one of those difficult subjects which lure the writer on and draw him out. It is a subject upon which ideas flow easily, theories form of themselves, and convictions deepen in the very act of improvisation. The writer who will trust his own inspiration can hardly fail to end by saying something very true about the drama. That is the trouble with the drama: so many things are true of it. It is scarcely less confusing than human life itself. The difficult thing is to strike some balance between all these interlocking and oscillating truths.

Consider, for example, how many and illusive are the influences that go to make up a good dramatic performance. The elements are interwoven in our consciousness, mingled and flowing together like motes in the sunbeam, rising, falling, fading, changing, glowing, and ever suffering transformation and re-birth, like the dream-things that they are. No matter what you say about a performance you can hardly be sure that you have hit upon the right explanation. Let us suppose that there has been an evening of inspiring success. Some golden lead of the imagination has sprung up and overshot one performance--paused, passed and vanished--leaving audience and actors, and even critics, to account for it as they may. You think you have a clue to the situation; but you have barely time to rejoice over your discovery, when, on the next evening, disaster follows from the same apparent causes as led to the first success. The fact is that some unseen power has been at work upon one evening and not upon the next. The weather, or the composition of the audience, or the mood of the actors has changed. The fact is that no two occasions are really alike; but they differ in so many ways that one can scarcely catalogue their divergencies.

There is no ill-considered thing that an author may write, or an actor do on the stage, no mistake or violation of common sense and good art, that may not be counterbalanced by some happiness which carries the play in spite of it. And conversely, there is no well-reasoned, profound, and true theory of play-writing or stage management which, if logically carried out, may not prove the very vehicle of damnation. The reason is that your theories are mere nets waved in the air some miles below the stars which they seem to imprison. Your true theories are true only to theory; the conditions always upset them. It is, therefore, not without some trepidation that I tread the paths of this subject. I almost fear the sound of my own voice and the conclusions of my own reason. This fear shall be my compass, this the silken thread, unwinding as I walk, which shall lead me back again out of the labyrinth and into the daylight.

The aim of any dramatic performance is to have something happen on a stage that shall hold people’s attention for two hours and a half or three hours. Anything that does this is a good drama; and there are as many kinds of good drama as there are flowers in the meadow. All of these species are closely related to each other. They are modifications that spring up from the roots of old tradition, like shoots in an asparagus bed.

The different great divisions and species of drama depend on the size and shape of the theatre used, more than on any other one thing. For the great theatre you must have slow speech, or, at any rate, a concentration of theme. For a small modern theatre you must have quicker motion and more variety. Not only the actor but the playwright must have some special size of theatre in his mind as he plans a play, and must adapt his whole art to that size, as he fashions his work. You might call this the first canon of the drama.

Now, we have, at present, no controlling conventions, no overmastering habits of thought about stage matters, and this leads us to forget the original force, not to say tyranny, of convention in other ages. England has had no controlling convention in stage matters since Charles II’s time; and the English stage has thus become a free, wild sort of place where anything is permitted. It is like the exhibition of the “Independents” in Paris, where anyone may hire space and hang what pictures he please, leaving the public to reward or punish him for his temerity.

The disadvantage of this condition of things is that the public does not know what to expect, and therefore fine things may be misunderstood. The playwright is not sufficiently supported by the crutch of tradition. He has lost his task-master; but he has lost also the key to expression. A well-developed, formal tradition is as necessary to any powerful spiritual deliverance as a system of punctuation is to writing. It was not until Haydn and Mozart had developed the form of the symphony and sonata that Beethoven’s work became possible. The same holds true of all the arts; the great artist who finds no harness ready-made for his ideas must set to work like Giotto to painfully create a makeshift of his own.

If we have to-day no great tyrant of contemporary convention in any of the arts, we have a hundred fashions. The age is eclectic; the conventional side of art is at a discount. Now in the drama, the conventional side of art is of peculiar importance. The more you surprise an audience, the less you will please it. The thing that entertains and relaxes people is to have something unmistakable and easy unrolled before them; something in which the problems are plainly stated and solved beyond the possibility of a doubt. The good man and bad man must be labeled; and so must the different sorts of plays receive labels--as, Comedy, Tragedy, Farce, Problem-play, Tank-drama, etc.; otherwise a great part of the attention of the audience will be exhausted in finding the right humor. The modern playwright has thus a problem that is new to the stage, the problem of giving the grand cue to the audience as to which kind of play is coming.

After all, the condition of the contemporary stage is very much like the condition of contemporary painting. Any good historical gallery contains samples from the whole history of art. There are as well-defined classes of pictures as there are of dramas: _e. g._, the religious picture, the genre picture, the portrait, the landscape, etc.; and within each of these classes there exists a world of half-defined traditions in which educated persons are learned, and by which all artists are somewhat controlled. Now each of these classes was originally the product of an age devoted to it. But to-day the artist is eclectic. He is eclectic in spite of himself because he is not forced by universal expectation to do a particular thing: he must choose. Whether he be painter or dramatist, the artist in Western Europe to-day is born into an epoch of miscellaneous experiment. Let him choose. The spread of international education has brought about this state of things: art is becoming an international commodity.

Let us return to the drama, and seize upon some convenient model of a conventional play--for instance, the old-fashioned melodrama. What a relief it is to find in the opening act of a play that we are upon familiar ground, that we know very well what is coming and can enjoy the elaboration of it. We must have a taste for the whole species or we can never either like or understand the particular example. And so also in judging of any drama of another age we must positively bring the whole of the epoch to bear upon it or we are lost. The Elizabethans before Shakespeare’s time had developed a drama of horrors, or running-mad play, in which the audience knew from the outset that someone was to be dogged and tortured and dragged through a living Inferno before being thrown on the dung-hill. The audience expected to be moved to awe and to a certain sort of solemn horror by the tragedy. The play was to be in blank verse, a narrative play full of incident--with a host of characters and many changes of imaginary scene. The story was to be new to the audience and as exciting as possible. Very often it had, to our modern thinking, no plot; but was a helter-skelter of delirious cruelty, accompanied by torrents of passionately excited words which sometimes broke into great poetry and more often soared in a cloudland of divine bombast. The people loved this language. They reveled in the rhetoric of the dialogue, and wallowed in the boldness of the action. The first line, or even the very name of a horror-play in Elizabeth’s time, was enough to throw the audience into the proper mood. How mistaken is it for one of us to-day to read any old play without conjuring up something of its epoch.

Now let us remember the Greeks, since we cannot escape them. The cultivated, conventional, logical, and over-civilized Greek wished his tragedy to be elegant and in a just measure solemn, not to say awe-inspiring. He expected this, much as we expect coffee after dinner when we dine out. It was to be done through the means of one of the old Greek myths, a thing half history, half fable in its complexion.