CHAPTER LXXXV

THE ACADEMIC RABBITS

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 and chances of promotion. I have mentioned the existence of eight “renommir professoren.” At Wellesley is Vida Scudder, who “gets by” because she is a devout Episcopalian; also Professor Ellen Hayes, who “gets by” because she is old, and because she teaches astronomy. These reasons are not my guesses, but were the statements of the president of the college, when she was asked at a women’s club in Denver why she kept a notorious Socialist and labor agitator on her faculty.

Professor Hayes got this reputation by running for office on the Socialist party ticket; I visited her on my trip, and heard some funny stories. Here is one of the sweetest and most lovable old ladies you ever met, who is not mealy-mouthed about her belief in the right and destiny of the workers to control the world’s industry for their own benefit. She deliberately lives in a working-class neighborhood—with rather comical results. Her neighbors are in awe of her, because she is a college professor, and a little afraid of her, because of her bad reputation; the one way she might get to know them, through the church, is not available, because Professor Hayes is a scientist.

On the other side of the continent is Guido Marx of Stanford, who shamelessly avows his sympathy with the co-operative movement, and likewise with faculty control of universities. Professor Marx, it is amusing to notice, teaches mechanical engineering, a subject almost as safe as the stars. If there is a single professor in the United States who teaches political economy and admits himself a Socialist, that professor is a needle which I have been unable to find in our academic hay-stack.

Of course there are many radicals who conceal their views, and judiciously try to open the minds of their students without putting any label upon themselves. I have told in “The Profits of Religion” about Jowett at Oxford, who got by with the Apostles’ Creed whenever he had to recite it in public, by inserting the words “used to” between the words “I believe,” saying the inserted words under his breath, thus: “I _used to_ believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” I encountered several college professors who have equally ingenious devices for salving their consciences in their unhappy situation. I might terrify the plutocratic world by stating that I know two presidents of small colleges in the United States, who in their own homes and among their trusted friends are real “reds.” One of them, a young man recently appointed, was asked by his assembled trustees: “What are your views on property questions?” He answered, with an easy smile: “I fear I am far too conservative for a man of thirty-seven”—and he got by with that! The other one is head of a woman’s college, and was asked by her trustees: “Are you a Socialist?” She said to me: “I could answer no with a perfectly good conscience, for I had just made up my mind that I am a convert to the Soviet form of political and industrial organization!”

Of course, it is perfectly possible to teach modern ideas without the labels, and to open the minds of your students by seeing that they hear both sides of every case. If you avoid the extremely crucial questions, such as the I. W. W. and Russia, you can get by with this in the majority of institutions, especially if you eschew outside activities and never get into the newspapers. Many professors are doing this, others have tried and slipped up, and have sacrificed promotion and security. Many professors are rovers in the academic world, staying in one place for two or three years, and when they are not able to stand it any more, moving on. There is an infinite variety of degrees and shadings in such cases; conditions differ with institutions, and with subjects taught, and with individual teachers. Some “get away” with what others dare not attempt. Some spoil their chances by bad manners or bad judgment; and, of course, many others are accused of doing this. You will seldom find a fight over a question of academic freedom where there are not other factors present or alleged, personal weaknesses or eccentricities. It is always easy to find defects in the characters and temperaments of persons whose ideas are offensive to us.

Likewise, of course, it is easy to find excuses for seeking the safest way, and holding on to our jobs. The psychoanalysts have a useful word for mental processes of this sort—they are “rationalizations”; and the masters of our educational system have provided an elaborate set of “rationalizations” for college professors who wish to avoid the painful duty of being heroes. They will be loyal to the institution and to their colleagues. They will be scholars and not propagandists. They will be judicious, instead of being “emotionally unbalanced, like Scott Nearing.” They will argue that their specialty is one of unusual importance, and they are privileged beings, set apart to work at that. Or they will plead that social evolution takes a long time, and that every man’s first duty is to look out for his wife and children. These, too, are phrases which I heard over and over again, and they reveal the psychology of the academic rabbits. You will perhaps be interested to meet one of these rabbits, so here is part of a letter written by a professor in a large college in New York City:

I do not believe that there is a single group of “special privilege.” The human race is made up of people who are looking after their own interests first—some with energy and ability, some with weakness and folly, but not with less singleness of purpose. All such groups, in so far as they have ability enough, want to control education and all other group activities in their interest. This is perfectly natural.... Of course the big book corporations work for the promotion of their friends just as you and I do. If they put bad people into the schools and colleges it is the fault of the employing agencies.

Before I conclude this