THE GOOSE STEPS HIGH

That iconoclast of the present era of university education, Mr. Upton Sinclair, must have laughed a grimly sardonic laugh when he read of the strike of five hundred students of Millikin University, at Decatur, Illinois. The contention, which he defended in "The Goose Step", that most American colleges are run under the influence and according to the malignant desires of the capitalistic classes whose representatives sit on various boards of trustees and governors, seems at least in one instance to have contained a certain measure of truth. The Board of Managers of Millikin University, which derives its income from an estate, refused, among other acts of a somewhat arbitrary nature, to renew the contracts of two professors; whereupon the entire student body went out on strike.

It should give Mr. Sinclair some satisfaction to realize that there is one garden spot on the map of intellectual American where young men are keen enough to perceive their danger when the freedom of their professors is threatened. Apparently not all students are willing performers in that universal goose-step which he so deplores. The strike at Millikin, one of the main features of which is the insistence of the undergraduates upon a free hand for the faculty in matters of instruction seems to indicate that the youth of the country is partially aware of the value of an education which is genuinely liberal, and unhampered by interference from outside sources.

The complaint of many liberals that universities have been too long controlled by business men, rather than by educators has, no doubt, some justification, at least superficially. And as far as educational policies are concerned, this criticism is quite just. There is no reason why the average trustee should completely comprehend the advantages of prescribed hygiene over elective biology--except in so far as he may have observed the results on graduates who have fallen into his hands. It is moreover true that the acquisition of wealth promotes a reactionary spirit; the reddest radical, becomes wealthy, turns into the bluest conservative. But modern universities have become great industries--largely devoted to turning out the men who will carry on industry in the future. The fitness of business men to direct such enterprises is fairly obvious. This does not mean that for the purposes of a liberal education, business control is best. It means merely that with regard to the present purposes and tendencies of education, such control is only natural; or conversely, that long continued utilitarian direction has finally created a corresponding spirit in most of the colleges. That this spirit is not yet universal is occasionally evidenced by such outbreaks as the one at Millikin.