EDUCATION--BUSINESS--POLITICS

"A Plea for the Emancipation of Our Culture from Well-Meaning Commercialism" is Mr. John Jay Chapman's latest contribution to the body of literature aimed at the conduct of American Universities. Although his charges are by no means novel, they have gained wide publicity through the action of Messrs. Bates and Blanchard in filing a petition with the Massachusetts Legislature for an investigation of the state of affairs at Harvard.

For the past century Harvard has been reputed the rich man's college. The Fellows and Overseers have usually been elected with an eye to their positions in the financial and social worlds. The recent case of the resignation of Professor Baker brought up the question of whether big business and liberal education could live together. When Mr. Chapman says not, he has the support of the best feelings of all true humanists. Colleges are becoming less and less cultural and more and more like standardized schools where the sons of business men learn willynilly the fine art of success in business. As Mr. Chapman says, "Harvard and Yale have become useful centers of social life, sport, and business. The intellectual life in both has become submerged and rudimentary. It can be found by a search for it, and that is all."

It is not likely that the Massachusetts legislature can change the intellectual calibre of Harvard. What it can accomplish is a revision of the system of administration, in so far as it may find true culture to be suffering from commercial oppression. But the real investigation of policy should originate from within. The legislature has the legal force, whereas the moral suasive power rests with the vast body of Harvard men. Harvard undoubtedly needs business men to administer its finances: If those men tend to stifle liberal education the administration of policy should be placed in other hands - the hands of men who have at heart the interests of the republic of letters and science.