The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1911-07-27
NOW CONTROL SCHOOL SYSTEM
Former Governor Charges that Effort
is Being Made to Manipulate the
University as Director of Politics
in the State.

w. D. Hoard, former governor of
this state and who recently resigned
his position on the board of regents
Of the Wisconsin University, scores
the university in an article published
in the Jefferson County Union, a paper
controlled by the former governor.
Mr.. Hoard f1ays President Van Hise
and declares that the university will
soon be but political football to be
kicked one way or another by Senator
LaFollette and his faction. The ar
ticle is as follows:
Out of the University of Wisconsin
has arisen class Of men with Presi-
dent Van Hise at their head whose
secret ambition is to govern the state,
to shape and control it's educational
policies, the making Of it's laws, to de-
clare and establish It's policies in be-
half of one faction of the republican
party and control it's taxation. In
short, to dominate the whole state at
all points. The excuse for all this
assumption Of 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
a democracy. In their opinion there
lis no wisdom in the common people;
the common people 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
establish a university oligarchy oil
aristocracy. TO a certain extent this
has been done in determining the kind
of an education that shall be impart
ed by our high schools. The univer
sity controls here absolutely.
The people of Fort Atkinson, for in
stance, cannot say what the curricu.
lum of their high school shall be. The
university declares that. It is all fol
the purpose of helping 5 per cent. OF
our scholars to get university edu
cation, while 95 per cent. are denied
what they should have. There is
neither sense nor reason, nor the justi
fication of history in this assumption
The university is not fitted to govern
this state, for it's professors, from Van
Hise down lack the highest of all gov.
erning attributes--common sense-that
sense which can best govern a 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
A 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 by experience.
That's the doctrine exactly. Leader
ship should be accorded by the people
in the control Of their affairs, by the
amount of wisdom and good judgment
the would be leader has. It is no sign
whatever that he has such wisdom
because he is university man. Mr.
Eastman further. says:
And it should be the pride of this
republic to acknowledge, not only thai
those great minds which were peculiar
ly her own, Lincoln, Walt Whitman
and Mark Twain were without forma
schooling, but that much of the sinev
of her collective good sense lies in the
homeiy 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 fol
the university. This stealing of pow
er from the many by the few has
been very artfuilya contrived. It il
overwhelming the state with taxation
| it is preventing the university from al
education institution to governing
body; it is making of it a poIitica
football TO be kicked one way or an
other by LaFollette and his faction
1t simply means grasping for powe,
and the prostitution Of great edu
cational institution to low and se1fsl
ends All this, as we have said, hai
been very artfully contrived.
4 part of its purpose is the building
up of a powerful university oiigarchy
Do the common people of Wisconsin
want this?
The will of the late Mrs. Maria Boyl,