A MATTER OF HABIT

The discussion of liberal speakers and the Union is sufficiently recent to make the comments of Professor John Dewey on "The Liberal College and its Enemies" both interesting and instructive. There is perhaps little reason to quarrel with his analysis that "subservience, timidity, and illiberality in the American college" are caused in the first place by the peculiarly inimate relations between public opinion and schools for higher education at the time of their origin and at present, and in the second by the "uncertain state of the sciences or inquiries that deal with social matters." Yet the solution he offers is on the surface somewhat unsatisfactory to the impatient mind of youth.

The hope and dependence of the liberal college, says Professor Dewey, "lie in the growth of the free mind and the perfecting of standards of thought and inquiry." It is doubtless toward this goal that the present tendencies are merging--for Professor Dewey himself declares that much progress has been made in the last quarter of a century. Yet rather than wait for the slow if inevitable triumph of liberalism and its methods over conservative reactionaries it is conceivably possible to aid its progress by attacking those causes of illiberalism which have been identified.

The close dependence of colleges on public opinion in matters of policy and finance can hardly be avoided, but to offset these disadvantages all that would seem to be necessary is the development of a tradition of bold analysis and liberalism. Nor is it necessary to wait for such a tradition to arise slowly. Discussion, unbiased and unprejudiced, should be able to construct a habit of liberalism in a comparatively short time.

The weight of responsibility for speeding up the cause of liberalism in American colleges therefore falls with peculiar soverity upon the undergraduates. Public opinion is sufficiently alert to condemn such obviously illiberal actions as that taken by the University of Tennessee; but the criticism of subservience and timidity among the student bodies must come from the undergraduates themselves. Certainly one effective means of causing such discussion and analysis is a constant exposure of the illiberal attitude into which, through want of mental energy and alertness collegiate bodies are likely to fall.