The Goose-step: A Study of American Education

Once upon a time there was a little boy; a little boy unusually eager, and curious about the world he lived in. He was a nuisance to old gentlemen who wanted to read their newsp...

The College of the City of New York at that time occupied an old brick building on Twenty-third Street and Lexington Avenue. It gave a five years’ course, leading up to a colleg...

Columbia University at the time I went to it had just moved up to its new buildings on Morningside Heights. The center of the group was a magnificent white marble library, built...

In the year 1901 I was twenty-one years of age, and was ready to quit Columbia. The great university had become to me nothing but a library full of books, and some empty class-r...

The first step toward the intelligent study of American education is to consider the country in which this education grows. We are told upon good authority that men do not gathe...

The headquarters of the American plutocracy is, of course, New York City. Here are the three central banks, and here the hundred and twelve corporations have their offices, and...

We have investigated the governing board of the University of the House of Morgan. We have next to investigate the president they have selected to carry out their will. Naturall...

What is the function of an American university president? Apparently it is to travel about the country, and summon the captains and the kings of finance, and dine in their splen...

We are now familiar with the social and political career of Nicholas Murray Butler; we have next to observe him as an educational administrator. We shall devote generous space t...

President Butler’s career at Columbia has been like that of a drunken motorist in a crowded street; he has left behind him a trail of corpses. In the course of twenty years of o...

A well known American scientist made to me the statement that there has not been a man of distinction called to Columbia in ten years, nor has one arisen there. To attribute so...

I have several times mentioned in this narrative Professor Cattell and his opinions of Columbia. My story would not be complete without an account of his adventures, for he was...

Those who have stayed in the great academic department-store have stayed under the shadow of disgrace; branded as men who love their pitiful salaries more than they love their s...

There is a saying that when you go to Philadelphia they ask you who your grandfather was, and when you go to New York they ask you what you are worth, and when you go to Boston...

Harvard has a tradition, which is a part of the tradition of New England; it is one of scholarship, of respect for the dignity of learning. Money counts in New England, but mone...

We have referred to the Harvard Liberal Club, an organization formed by some graduates who sympathized with the cause of social justice. This club brought speakers to Harvard, a...

We have seen President Lowell’s behavior when a group of Wall Street lawyers attempted to dictate to his university. We have next to investigate his attitude when it is his own...

A more recent test of Harvard University was made by Harold J. Laski, a brilliant young writer whom President Lowell in an unguarded moment admitted to teach political science....

We have studied the “Laski Lampoon” to see what we can learn about Professor Laski. Let us now examine it to see what we can learn about Harvard. You remember the student who wa...

Having visited the city in which they ask you what you are worth, and the city in which they ask you what you know, we have next to visit the city in which they ask you who your...

Before we go on with this story we should make the acquaintance of the executive head of the University of U. G. I., who bears the title of provost instead of president. From 19...

No study of the University of Pennsylvania would be complete which failed to mention that it was founded by Benjamin Franklin, and gave an honorary degree to Thomas Paine. Frank...

What is the intellectual state of the University of U. G. I. at the present moment? I questioned four different professors about it—taking the precaution to meet each one secret...

For four years during my early life as a writer I lived—first in a tent, then in a little cabin which I built, then in an old farm-house—in the wooded hills about five miles nor...

Evans Clark, now of the Labor Bureau in New York, was for three years a “preceptor” at Princeton, and tried to interest the young men in what was going on in the outside world;...

A short journey on Mr. Morgan’s Pennsylvania Railroad, with its Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Yale, Bryn Mawr, Wilson, Lafayette, Rutgers, Teachers’ College, Lehigh, Pittsburgh, Mas...

We have completed a survey of our five largest Eastern universities, Columbia, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton and Yale; we shall now cross the continent, to the Western domain...

My first visit to Berkeley was in the winter of 1909-10. I had come to see a professor—I shall not name him, since he does not welcome publicity; suffice it to say that he is on...

We return to David P. Barrows to follow his career as he rises to the heights of academic prominence and power. For seven years he stumped the state of California, proclaiming t...

President Wheeler having been intimate with the German kaiser, and ardent in his defense, the interlocking regents wanted somebody else to attend to their interests in war-time....

These great military universities come to be run more and more on the lines of an army; everything rigid, precise and formal, all emergencies provided for, all policies fixed. T...

Thirty miles south of San Francisco, sheltered behind the coast range of mountains, lies the great institution with whose students the “Golden Bear” does its fighting. Stanford...

The poor old lady died at last, but she did not leave her fortune to be adminstered by an eminent ichthyologist, badly tainted with democracy and pacifism. On the contrary, she...

I have referred to the dissatisfaction of Grand Duke Timothy Hopkins at the coming into power of a progressive government in California. This event was especially embarrassing t...

We take the Southern Pacific Railroad, which was plundered by the founder of Stanford, aided by the father of a Stanford trustee and the father of a California trustee, and whic...

We move a couple of hundred miles farther north to Seattle. It may be difficult to believe that there was ever a time when students in an American university took an active inte...

We take the Northern Pacific Railroad, which has Mr. Morgan himself for a director, also two Morgan partners, one of them a recent Harvard overseer and a Massachusetts Tech trus...

We next take the Union Pacific Railroad, with its Columbia trustee for chairman, and a Rutgers trustee and two Massachusetts Tech trustees and a Hebrew Tech trustee for director...

We continue our journey on the Union Pacific Railroad, and come to the metropolis of the Rocky Mountains, a city entirely surrounded by gold mines, silver mines, coal mines and...

The interlocking directorate of Colorado maintains also a state university at Boulder, on the Colorado and Southern Railroad; which road has a trustee of Williams College for pr...

We travel Northeast, and leave the mining country. On the lonely plains of the state of North Dakota we find men toiling for long hours, and raising a hundred million bushels of...

In January, 1911, there was held in the Twin Cities a gathering of the interlocking directorate, called by A. R. Rogers, lumber magnate, Howe, the elevator man, and a group of t...

The state of North Dakota is small in population, likewise in its influence in the academic world; but its story is important, because its people have blazed a path upon which t...

Let us continue East on the Northern Pacific Railroad, which has Mr. Morgan and two of his partners for directors, a recent Harvard overseer and Massachusetts Tech trustee for c...

They have had a series of presidents at the University of the Ore Trust. The old president was Northrop, an amiable gentleman, much liked by the faculty because he did not under...

From the University of Minnesota we take the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, which has a Princeton trustee and a recent New York University and Yale trustee for directors, an...

On Tuesday morning the regents of the University of Wisconsin held a session; and I assumed that, having made the acquaintance of a university president, you might also be inter...

The University of Wisconsin has the reputation of being the most liberal institution of higher education in the United States, and on the whole I think the reputation is deserve...

I do not want anyone who reads this book to get the idea that I am so naive as to imagine that there is no enemy of freedom of teaching save economic privilege. I know there are...

There was one American captain of industry with a monstrously developed bump of acquisitiveness; as he described himself: “I am a great clamorer for dividends.” It was frequentl...

Providence arranged it that soon after the University of Chicago was built, the oil king’s digestion gave out, and he retired to the country to live on graham crackers and milk...

The touchiest problem with all academic authorities is that of “outside speakers.” They can handle their own professors; by care in selecting instructors, and weeding out the un...

There is another great ruling class munition-factory in the vicinity of Chicago, Northwestern University, at Evanston, Illinois. It is one of those terrible places, of which the...

We take the Illinois Central Railroad, with its Columbia trustee, a recent University of Chicago trustee, a Knox College and a Rockford College trustee, and an Armour Institute...

We take the Wabash Railroad to Detroit, traveling under the protection of a Columbia University trustee; and from Detroit we take the Michigan Central Railroad, with a Columbia...

We set out for Pittsburgh; and we can take either the Baltimore and Ohio, with a Johns Hopkins trustee for president and another Johns Hopkins trustee for director, also a Pitts...

We travel to Buffalo by the Pennsylvania Railroad, and from Buffalo we continue our journey by way of the New York Central Railroad, which has a Columbia trustee and a Cornell t...

For a score of years the worst scandal at Syracuse was a sort of Rasputin, whom the chancellor maintained at the university as his intimate and confidant. The man was a Nova-Sco...

We continue on the New York Central Railroad to Albany, and then take the Boston & Albany, which is leased to the New York Central, and has a Harvard “visitor,” a recent Harvard...

Needless to say, Clark University had been for a generation a cause of indignation to the town of Worcester, which is the largest manufacturing center in New England, and next t...

The program of converting Clark University into an advertising department of Ginn & Company proceeded merrily so far as concerned Ginn & Company; but it caused great distress to...

While we are contemplating academic tragedies, let us take our familiar Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, with a Johns Hopkins trustee for president and another Johns Hopkins trustee...

There are a few other universities, which in past times have established reputations in America; for example, Cornell University, located at Ithaca, New York, on the Lackawanna...

Some fifteen years ago my postman brought me a puzzling communication from Sweden; a large and expensive linen envelope, carefully sealed with a great deal of red wax, registere...

Modern industry is an enormously complicated thing, and specialized teaching of industrial processes is just as necessary as any other kind of education. I would not give anyone...

In all these new academic department-stores one of the leading departments is that of journalism. Here they teach you how to write for and edit newspapers; and needless to say,...

There is another crowded institution in the great metropolis, the College of the City of New York, where I got the one degree of which I boast. I went back there this spring, af...

America is half a continent, and its wealth is enormous, and there is a constantly increasing swarm of young people who want the social prestige which a college education gives....

So far we have been dealing with the great educational centres, which number their students in thousands and even tens of thousands; but for every one such institution there are...

I have tried in the closing chapters of “The Profits of Religion,” and also in “The Book of Life,” to make plain that I honor the religious impulse in its true form. But that do...

There is a part of the United States which suffered for a century or two under the blight of Negro slavery; in consequence, from Virginia to Texas, the population still lives in...

It is natural that in a time of reaction such as the present, every form of organized cruelty and hatred should lift its ugly head; and so we have in our colleges not merely cam...

Race prejudice is merely one side of the many-sided snobbery of college life. The college is the collective prestige of a mob of socially superior persons, and each and every on...

The most conspicuous of the activities of the alumni have, of course, to do with athletics; this is the part of college life which the students have made for themselves, and it...

The failure of colleges to impart culture is a standard topic of our time, so I shall not dwell upon it. The theme of this book is something of far greater importance—the succes...

I promised early in this book to consider how it happens that so many college presidents are men who do not always tell the truth. We have now seen far enough into the inside of...

We have seen the successful sons returning to shed their glory upon their alma mater; and we have seen the successful grandsons enjoying their four years of play at learning and...

What every man and every organization of men in America want is to grow big. If you ask why they want to grow big they are puzzled, because it has never before happened to them...

Knowing as I do the economics of our plutocratic empire, I had a general idea of what I should find in my tour of the colleges; but I had little idea of the details, and went wi...

I have taken you about from college to college and shown you the interlocking trustees, using the institution for the protection of their money-bags; also the successful sons, g...

We shall next have a glance at those organizations and foundations which are frankly propagandist in their purposes, and which conduct departments of espionage and slander. We h...

I have reserved for a separate chapter our most active anti-socialist organization, the National Civic Federation, a combination of class-conscious capitalists such as Elbert H....

There is at Annandale, New York, an Episcopal church institution called St. Stephen’s College, having as its president the Reverend Bernard Iddings Bell, who was dean of the cat...

The reader will be ready by this time with the question: are there no free colleges whatever in America, no institutions of higher learning where truth is sought and respected?...

There are, of course, a large number of individual professors in institutions of higher learning who take their stand for what they believe to be the truth, and risk their jobs...

We come now to one of the most important aspects of American education, the movement of the workers to take charge of their own minds. We have surveyed the field, and seen that...

We have noted Professor Egbert of the University of J. P. Morgan & Company, advising the workers to avail themselves of the existing college system—in other words, to let the ca...

I begin this chapter by telling you about a very pleasant enterprise, the resident college which has just been started by the labor education movement, the Brookwood School at K...

The labor movement at its present stage can, of course, not support all the college professors who would like to be free, so it becomes necessary to seek another remedy. This re...

The final purpose of this book, you will now realize, is to bring about a strike of college professors. The next question to be considered is, what are the principles upon which...

There is another group in the colleges which must help to reform them, and that is the students. I have already shown that the student-body alone cannot dominate a college for a...

I have ventured to suggest student representation on boards controlling our colleges; and perhaps you thought I was showing too much confidence in student wisdom. Fortunately I...

I am writing in a time of reaction, but already the streaks of dawn are beginning to show. We are soon to witness the social revolution in Western Europe, and it will not be pos...