The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1897-09-22
AN ARIsT0CRACY
TO BE BRED IN OUR AMERICAN
UNIVERSITIES BY "EXCLUDING
THE ALL POLYTECHNIC
PATCHWORK"
A ScOrchfnE Review of the Danger
Surrounding Our Educational In
stitutiOns Dominated by Rock.
efelIer and other Maxnates

Independent Reform Press, Pueblo, Col
oradO, Aug. 10, 1897.
A few months ago, when Professor
pet Chicago university, the charge was
boldly made that the great money COM
bine was driving honest men out Of
these places to silence free thought, in
an attempt to change the higher schools
into colleges of arstOcracy. Public SEN
timent was aroused SO fiercely, at that
time that the Chicago university had to
do some tall lying, to hold their jobs;
and many people really believed their
denials. Since that time a string of in
cidents' have passed in review, advanc-
Ing in bOldness, until Rockefeller open
ly demanded the removal of DR.. An
drews from Brown university, so he
could donate some absorbed money.
But here comes plain declaration OF
the plan, by Prof. Harry Thurston Peck,
of Columbia university, in an article
in the July Cosmopolitan, openly op-
posing the education of the masses, and
urging that the universities are for the
better classes.
He speaks of the profoundly seri-
GUS mistake of fancying that educa-
tiOn in itself and for all human beings
is good and thoroughly desirable pos
session. He asserts that state compul-
sorry education, as a principle is 'funda-
mentally untrue We quote some of his
reasons.
For education means ambition, and
ambition means discomfort" While rec
ognizing discomfort as the mother of
progress" in some minds, he claims that
in feebler brains, it is the mother of
unhappiness alone"
In other words, he says, compulsory
education means compulsory discon-
tent" and asks: Could anything be more
fatuous or more dangerous from a
statesmans point of view?
No doubt some statesmen CD would
be very glad to get rid of popular edu-
cation.
He points out the dangers (and here
he shows himself to be but a college
mOuthpiece for modern plutocracy) of
our present system of education, as fol-
lows:
I'VE see on every hand great masses
of men stirred by vague dissatisfaction
with their lot, their brains added and
f1Ic hv hot &c ho1f
the truth and vaguely understood, yet
thoroughly adapted to make them ripe
for the work of agitator and the enemy
of public order"
OF course a little learning is a dan
gerOus thing if it makes the common
people dissatisfied with white slavery!
"A sounder policy" says Prof. Peck,
would make the way to education easy,
but not free to ALL
Now then, here is the professors idea
of what higher education (of the uni
versity sort should accomplish Mark
well these words, dear reader, for it is
the plutocratic idea-the ultimate of
modern civilizations:
l.
the state such men as those who in the
past made empires and created COM
monwealths-a small and highly trained
patriciate, caste, an aristocracy, if you
will
That Prof. Peck believes in building
up such an aristocracy is evident, for he
says: Really, every really great thing
that has been accomplished in the his
tory of man has been accomplished by
an aristocracy."
Whether said ariStOcracy was of the
priesthood, the military, or OF the no.
bility, it resulted in the rule Of the few
whose brain made them capable of
driving in harness the hewers of wood
and drawers of water VINO eolstl.u e
the vast majority of the human race,
and whose happiness is greater and
whose welfare is more thoroughly con-
served when governed than when gov
erning"
He refers to "the small, compact and
efficient body of free citizens who, amid
ahe unfree and disfranchised, made up
he aristocracies of Athens and Sparta
Dnd the patrician class of Rome, down
10 the gentlemen of England" and then
adds:
"A caste, an aristocracy of intellect
like this, might still be bred in our
American universities" provided said
universities would only take advice and
exclude the factories and workshops
and all the polytechnic patchwork now
taught in many colleges "and retain on
ly humanities and liberal arts
OF course this would exclude the "low
and uncouth miners" that a certain
Denver clergyman, of the NJ E. profess
sion, referred to during the past year.
In short make higher education a thing
for gentlemen only, leaving out every
thing that goes to teach young men
how to earn their own bread and butter,
which is low and degrading Then