THE END OF A TYRANNY IN EDUCATION
Coleman, Mcalister
The End Of A Tyranny In Education By McALISTER COLEMAN LIKE the eel in Springtime in Robert Browning's poem, the heart of many a graduate of Columbia University "gave a leap" at the glad news...
...Butler, now over 80 years of age, has not really been "active" in the affairs of the university for some time, nevertheless everyone knew that he still presided over the court of last resort in campus affairs, and men went in fear of the implacable wrath of the old Hamiltonian in the President's office...
...Said the Times: "Dr...
...Said the Herald Tribune: (Dr...
...Pan-Handling On Wall St...
...Last year the capital resources of Columbia amounted to $231,561,-407...
...The End Of A Tyranny In Education By McALISTER COLEMAN LIKE the eel in Springtime in Robert Browning's poem, the heart of many a graduate of Columbia University "gave a leap" at the glad news that, at long last...
...That this mouse-like end-product of such mountainous labors is largely due to the tyrannical reign of Columbia's reactionary president is the reason for the rejoicing among men of good-will over the long overdue announcement of Nicholas Murray Butler's retirement...
...For one Arthur Garfield Hays, a graduate both of Columbia College and of its law school, there are a hundred conservative Columbia lawyers who make the courts of New York City a Chamber of Horrors for the poor and happy hunting-ground for the rich...
...While it is true that Dr...
...To be sure there was a group of Columbia faculty members who did yeoman's work for the people in the first 100 days of the Roosevelt Administration, but most of them tired quickly, like the ineffable Raymond Moley, and are now back at their old stands as apologists for special privilege...
...On the whole a surprisingly decent, alert-minded group of young businessmen...
...We were then assured that that old scalawag had a heart of gold and that his life had been devoted to establishing foundations for deserving causes...
...The function of a college president was to rattle a tin cup around the residences of the rich, even as Butler did, get up an awesome budget, set up a cafeteria system of education and then go out and show conscience-stricken millionaires how to pose as public benefactors by donating Hogenheimer Hall or Dooselberry Dormitory...
...In fact, he always dwells lovingly on the word "liberal," invariably assigning it to his belief in the people as "The Great Beast" which his beloved Hamilton (whom he erroneously refers to as a "Columbia graduate," whereas of course, Hamilton attended old King's College for less than a year) always said they were...
...Like any other tyrant, large or small, Nicholas Murray Butler would brook no word of opposition...
...Was he "kind" when he tried Dana and Cattell for no other crime than their opposition to World War I? Was he "kind" when he pursued Joel Elias Spingarn, the brilliant professor of comparative literature, when he made miserable the academic life of the greatest of American historians, Charles Beard, when he raved and roared at a host of lesser mentions of the faculty because Butler's spies had reported some indiscreet or irreverent remarks made at faculty club luncheons...
...The weird congeries of schools that were housed under the sheltering arms of Columbia during Butler's regime included courses in janitorial management (although Columbia's janitors are shamefully underpaid), courses in football coaching (Coach Little receives $15,000 per annum and board and keep, though his teams haven't won more than one major contest in 2 years), courses in diaper wrapping for young husbands, courses in almost every subject a smart press-agent could think up, except, of course, genuinely liberal courses in the humanities...
...The shame of it is that with the expenditure of such vast sums of money, with such magnificent equipment, such tremendous potentialities, Columbia University's contribution to genuine democratic learning should be so pawky...
...However reactionary his successor may be, at all events the cold and clammy hand of the Miraculous will be loosened from its long grip on the Morningside Heights Institution which has suffered from Butlerism for lo, these 44 years...
...In only one field has Butler been a conspicuous flop and that is-the political field...
...Butler even went so far on one of his sucker hunts as to have a model of a building which he wanted donated erected in his office...
...No doubt the miniscule minority of Columbia men who dare to think for themselves is duplicated in most of the smaller institutions...
...Reason For Rejoicing But then, men like Hays are rare in any age...
...This 'Kind Heart' Fittingly enough the most powerful and also most reactionary New York newspapers, the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune, paid glowing editorial tribute to Dr...
...I would say, however, that the sort of assembly-line education to which the average Columbia student is exposed has had little effect one way or the other...
...Butler on the same day and in much the same adulatory language...
...Thither he escorted his bemused prospects and pointed out to them how swell it would be to have their names inscribed on the facade...
...With great lip-smacking, the Times quotes the amazing results of Butler's successful pan-handling on Wall Street...
...The shining gem of this collection is the Times' reference to Dr...
...When men speak of the influence of Columbia University on the rest of the academic world, it is such statistics as the Times quotes which they have in mind...
...No high-pressure, desk-pounding salesman ever overcame as much sales resistance as this organ-toned old gentleman, who can still make the speeches of Alexander Hamilton sound like the "liberal" utterances which he assures us they are...
...Butler's "kind heart...
...Merely to mention the list of sensitive, high-spirited men whom at one time or another he drove ruthlessly from Columbia is enough to indicate the superb irony of the Times editorial writer...
...Butler has had, and still has a firm hand, a forthright tongue and a kind heart...
...Academic giantism became the order of the day under the Butler influence...
...Butler) "whose extraordinary labors over close to half a century have not only created the Columbia we know, but profoundly influenced educational policy throughout the United States, and to a degree abroad...
...What sort of men does this cafeteria university turn out...
...To be sure he managed to squeeze onto the Republican national ticket in 1912 as candidate for Vice President because of the mid-campaign death of regularly nominated V. P. That year Maine, Vermont, and Utah went overwhelmingly for Butler, but unfortunately no other states were as gullible...
...He could say, like Mayor Hague of Jersey City, "I am the law," and woe be to anyone who might dispute that imperious dictum...
...Nevertheless the boys in the back-room often let him make speeches at conventions as an innocent, intellectual front and he fancies himself as quite a political sharp...
...The only persons to whom Butler would really bow his head were the collection of rich suckers whom he got together on his Board of Trustees, headed by J. P. Morgan...
...The editorials are reminiscent of those written after the death of John D. Rockefeller...
...The last adjective which anyone who has known the career of the cold and calculating Mastermind of Morningside could apply to Butler is "kind...
...Then Ghengis Khan was a sweet-tempered fellow and Torquemada undoubtedly was kind to his mother...
...And as Columbia's sinister influence extended over the entire field of what Thorstein Veblen called "the hire learning," so every institution devoted to academic freedom and the integrity of the individual teacher and scholar may rejoice at the departure of this well-nigh omnipotent figure from the scene of his sorry triumphs...
...At its peak in 1931, Columbia's total budget appropriation was $17,592,905, and in 1929-30 enrollment at all sessions reached 38,230 "students...
...Was Butler "kind" when he harassed the gentle poet George Edward Woodberry, when he persecuted the great American composer MacDowell, when he threw Harry Shurston Peck, the distinguished Anthon Professor of Latin, off the campus as he would throw a drunken sophomore...
...Is it a "kind heart" that sends forth sycophants to snoop among the professors and students alike for any hint of what might be taken as "disloyalty" to the Miraculous...
...In 1920 he thought he had the Republican nomination for President in the bag, but only the New York delegation gave him a grudging "favorite son" vote...
...Nicholas Murray Butler had handed in his resignation as president...
Vol. 9 • May 1945 • No. 20
