New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-12-22
An Enemy of Professordom


Revolution is Mr.. Max Eastman's hobby,
but at bottom he is still the downright
schoolmaster. This is sufficiently clear in
those occasional dscourses on what he calls
science. but it is most obvious when he
strives to break away from his early
habits, when he is at his naughtiest, when
he is most irreverent, most studlously
heterodox. Then he is like grave person
at a picnic-never quite at home, but still
resolved to enter into the spirit of the occa-
sion and not to be outdone by the gayest
and most frivolous.
To see him at his happiest he should be
removed from all competition with the bad
boys of THE Masses and put back in his
old surroundings, where, with never a
thought of provoking leers and giggles
among the bohemian youth Of Greenwich
Village, he can lord it over the professors
and parsons and by shocking the respect
able show himself off for the advanced
and liberal thinker he loves to be-
Yet even in these favorable circumstances
the schoolmasterly habit will crop forth.
We can trace it clearly in his latest long
drawn-out discourse in "The New Re-
public" where, despite earnest endeavors
to demolish the professors, there is really
nothing essentially at variance with AGA
demic thought, but great deal entirely in
accordance with the pedagogue's way Of
thinking. 1t deals with the battered theme
Of slang as a popular form Of poetry, and
as far as the main drift of thought goes
it might really have been done by let us
say. Professor Brander Matthews.
Why he should display so much animos-
ity toward the professors it is impossible
TO see, for in effect he energies a champion
of the ready-made and commonplace, how
ever scornfully he may speak of mere book
stuff. In short, he is in the same case as
those fashionable folk Of the eighteenth
century who adorned all their writings
with the facetious jargon Of the time, in
order. az Swift conceived. "to avoid the
dreadful imputation of pedantry."
One of the professors he attacks par
ticularly spoke Of slang in general as a
substitute Of the indolent for thought. If
he went too far, Mr.. Max Eastman goes
out of his way 70 Justify the rebuke in his
own exposition of what he understands by
slang. If he had been content to question
the authority of the dictionary as the only
legitimate source Of words it would be well
enough. but that would he mere platitude
and acceptable to most professors. But
he goes much further, gives us score of
current phrases and exclamations-suc as
go chase YOURSELF" "You poor boob
"Ive got your NUMBER" ado you get me,
lkid?"-and invites US TO consider how re-
markedly they resemble Shakespeare in
spirit.
IL cannot see" he says. solemnly, chow
any long -lecturing professor, once hearing
these expressions elected through the lips
of child, can have the audacity to call
them indolent They spring straight up
from the fountain-source Of all poetry,
etc. What Mr.. Eastman cannot see, and
perhaps never will see. is the distinction
between realities and symptoms. Express
sions of this order once heard are tolera-
ble the best of them surprising and even
delightful. But il is when they come to be
repeated automatically. when they are
elected psrrotwise through the lips of the
milionth child, that they grow insuffer-
able; il is after the poetry has been
| thrashed out of them that they are recog-