The American College
[Reprinted from The Masses for August, 1916.] :Author: Isaac Sharpless. The American Books Series. Doubleday, Page & Co., 1915.
“The American College” is the title of a little handbook by Isaac Sharpless, President of Haverford College. Its aim is “to give to the general reader a fair idea, hiding neither blemishes nor virtues of that peculiarly national institution:” and, if the blemishes are more apparent than the virtues, that is not his fault?though it is doubtful if he knows how apparent they are. Begotten, most of them, in theology, as he relates, American colleges have remained detached (though he does not say so) from the life of the nation. No American university has ever been the center of an intellectual conflict; it would be possible to write the history of the United States without mentioning an American university. The fact that Harvard had at one time on its staff as many as two distinguished men, James and Santayana, is an anomaly in American university history; and the sociological activities of the University of Wisconsin are more anomalous still. What is more characteristic of the American college is the fact that the greatest original thinker now living in America, Thorstein Veblen, is relegated to a subordinate position in the University of Missouri. Such is the American College. It is not strange that this tideless and stagnant backwater of AmerREVIEWS AND CRITICISM. 207 ican life should have no history?or a history so devoid of significance that it is adequately disposed of in a few pages of Dr Sharpless’ book. At first glance his account, covering the academic achievements of nearly three centuries in forty pages, may seem sketchy: but forty pages is enough?the brief and simple annals of the dull.
Escaping with apparent relief from this part of his task, Dr Sharpless takes up with some enthusiasm, and in great detail, the subject of “College Administration.” Dr Sharpless has administered a college, he knows how it should be done, and he tells all about it. “The ideal president will be to the student a paternal adviser and a strict disciplinarian. … He will not seek information from the students against an associate… . His final attitude [in the case of the irreclaimably vicious student] will be more of sorrow than of anger or triumph… . He will know how to talk to his college as a whole, not too frequently, for much talking is a weariness to hearers and a weakness to himself, but wisely, tactfully, and, if he has it in him, humorously and interestingly… . Sometimes he will preach. When his heart fills with a desire for the good of the fives for which he has assumed a responsibility and words come unbidden,” etc. It is, in fact, a primer for college presidents; and if any great proportion of his readers are going to be college presidents, the advice here given will no doubt be of value. But there are other passages of an informative nature. “The President, no matter how ideal,” says Dr Sharpless, “is in one sense an employee of the Board of Trustees. They have selected him, fixed his salary … and may discharge him.” However, as Dr Sharpless adds “It is better all-around that this relation should be kept in the background.”
Concerning freedom of speech and its limitation in American colleges Dr. Sharpless recounts the familiar facts: “There have been cases where professors have published economic or social theories which certain members of the governing board considered unsound and dangerous to have instilled into the thought of students. There have been cases where some hoped-for donor demanded to be propitiated by-the sacrifice of an offending teacher.” Dr Sharpless thinks it is safe to “err” on the side of large freedom for an efficient and experienced teacher. But?”if a young man with more enthusiasm than judgment, and with views which most sensible people consider morally and socially dangerous, unnecessarily and publicly advertises them”?I italicize the key words of the sentence? “it may be quite proper to drop him.” Quite so!
But it is odd to find, as an instance of unjust limitation of the freedom of speech in colleges, the case of “a tried and faithful professor … dismissed in old age purely because a young, unmarried man would do his work for less money.” The real trouble is that this is not done often enough. The ordinary American College is a Home for the Aged and Mentally Decrepit. A teacher can easily get fired for being young; but Age is a quality dear to the heart of American academicism.
But if youth is discouraged in professors, not merely youth but boyhood, or rather some qualities of boyishness, are carefully fostered in the student. Treated like a child, he studies like a child, plays like a child, is wilfully naughty like a child. Dr Sharpless writes at length of these organized survivals of infantilism without understanding what he is dealing with. He accepts infantilism as an inherent part of college life, to be coaxed and punished in the nursery manner. It never occurs to him that college students can regard themselves, or be regarded by others, as men.
And perhaps he is right. And that is in the nature of a final criticism, a final dismissal, of the College as an institution of learning and of life. Floyd Dell.
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