The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1911-07-20
Hoard Scores the University.

ItOui " SSoiSS wv
Out of the University of Wisconsin
has arisen a class of men with Pres
dent Van Hise at their head whose
secret ambition is to govern the state
to shape and control its educatona
policies, the making of its laws, to de
clare and establish its policies in be
half of one faction of the Republican
party and control its taxation. In short
to dominate the whole state at all points
The excuse for all this assumption oil
power over the destinies of the people
of Wisconsin is that they, Van Hise ct
al, are educated people, college bred,
and for that reason should constitute
the controlling power over democracy.
In their opinion there is no wisdom in
the common people: the common peo-
pie do not know what they want, nor
have they the ability to determine the
methods whereby they shall obtain
what they want.
Now, all this is but an attempt to es-
tablish a university oligarchy or ari-
stocracy. TO certain extent this has
been done in determining the kind of
all education that shall be impaired by
onr high schools. The university con-
trolls here absolutely.
The people of Fort Atkinson, for in
stance, cannot say what the curriculum
of their high school shall be. The uni
versity declares that. 1t is all for the
purpose of helping 5 per cent of our
scholars to get a university education,
while % per cent are denied what they
should have. There is neither sense
nor reason, nor the Justification of his
tory in this assumption.
The university is not fitted to govern
this state, for its professors from Van
Hise down lack the highest of all gov
erning attributes-common sense-that
sense which can best govern common
wealth composed in the main of COM
mon people.
Max Eastman, in the July Atlantic,
hits off this assumption of authority
and control very well. He says:
ga little kitchen or backyard com
mon sense at least is more opposite TO
such understanding than is any educa-
tional attainment which we might
measure. Indeed, we cannot better
conclude an estimate of the amount of
respect due to intelligence than with an
admonition that the intelligence to
which respect is due is not identical
with school education. 1t is a gift of
nature evoked 10y experience.
That's the doctrine exactly. Leader
ship should be accorded by the people
in the control of their affairs, 10y the
amount of wisdom and good judgment
the would-be leader has. 1t is no sign
whatever that he has such wisdom be-
cause he is a university man. Mr.. East
man further says:
"And it should be the pride OF this
republic to acknowledge, not only that
those great minds which were pecul-
iarly her own. Lincoln, Walt Whitman
and Mark Twain were without formal
schooling, but that much Of the sinew
of her collective good sense lies in the
homely thought of lesser citizens Of
the same type
Now the average university professor
of the Van Hise type does not believe
that. He thinks that by virtue of his
university training he is the repository
Of all governmental wisdom; that the
state should be governed through the
university, by the university and for
the university. This Stealing ofpow-
er from the many By the few" has
been very artfully contrved. It is
overwhelming the state with taxation:
it is perverting the university from an
educational institution to governing
body; it is making of it n political
football to be kicked one way or another
10y La Toilette and his faction. 1t sim
ply means a grasping for power and
the prostitution Of "a great educational
institution to low and selfish ends. All
this, rs we have said, has been very
artiully contrivcd.
A part of its purpose is the building
mp Ola powerful university oligarchy.
Do the common people of Wisconsin
want ths?-EX Gov. Hoard in Jefferson
County Union.