New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-06-27

~ youngest and at Lhe same IlIhe OHe
e. Of the most widely known figures in
our university world, had the gift for teach
ing so that the man in the street would stop
70 catch his message and the car conductors
wife in her home would listen and under
stand. because whatever he had to say was
Copy" TO newspaper reporters, who constant
" attended him. Nearing has suddenly be-
come the storm centre of the biggest fight for
academic freedom yet launched in an Amer
lean university.
The storm at this time is sweeping over
the campus Of the University of Penn
sylvania.
On one side is Nearing, a brilliant young
author, publicist and popular lecturer as
well as a teacher, and supporting group OF
PENNSYLVANIA faculty members, alumni and
students. All of these are rated as Of liberal
tendencies" in their views. And Nearing,
their leader, has, through magnetic person
ality. captured the imagination Of large
groups of students and Of people in and out
of college in all parts of America. In one
of his classes alone over 500 pupils attended
his daily lectures-a record unapproached IN
any other University of Pennsylvania class
room.
On the other side-opposing Nearing and
his alHes-are the university trustees. The
trustees are twenty-four in number. Their
average age is sixty years, and they elected
themselves to their positions by a self-per-
petuating process commonly in vogue in all
privately endowed universities in America.
The trustees were drawn from the heart of
Philadelphia's conservative and business life.
That is the whole Of the matter as the
trustees see it. They voted, as they had the
full power and right to do, to cancel Meanings
connection with the faculty. Individual trus-
tees have said that they propose as body to
maintain in the future discreet and complete
silence. permitting the action against Nearing
10 rest forever as a thing accomplished and
an issue fully closed. And it is exactly against
this "wall Of silence" Of the trustees that the
forces Of those who believe an issue of
academic freedom has been precipitated pro-
pose to hur their opposition again and again
through the coming summer.
Explain our conduct" suggests a leading
trustee. should the Governor call his secre-
tarv in if he wants to dismiss him and give
him an elaborate and detailed explanation?
Well. hardly He dismisses him and makes
an end to the matter. That's what we did
with Scott Nearing"
Explain" echo the faculty members and
their friends. why shouldn't the trustees
explain? Are they to fire and hire professors
as if college professors were mere clerks! II
they are. then we suffer an irreparable loss in
public esteem. for we will stand to the public
not as free teachers, but as the funkeys and
hired men of board of trustees. An issue
is here that we have got to fight QUITO fight
out on behalf of every person who is taught,
of every person who becomes teacher in
the United States"
And this is how it comes about that the
trustees of the University of Pennsylvania
are leaving on summer vacations, announcing
that bit of a zephyr is blowing about the
campus that will all be blown over before the
fall, and that they propose to do nothing about
the matter-absolutely nothing. They do not
propose even to hold meeting until the sec
ond Monday in October.
But those on the other side Of the struggle
look at it otherwise. Instead of leaving for
vacations they are reassembling on the uni
yersity campus for an all summer siege. They
are organizing. They are asking the public
to organize They are asking faculty men,
bers everywhere to organize They are reach
ing out for cooperation and support in every
direction.
Their hope is that the present proportions
Of the storm are a mere baby blizzard, presag-
ing the much vaster proportions into which
the storm may grow. They hope to see it
worked up to something like a national crisis
when the faculty and regents meet again face
to face upon the university campus, in
October.