Evening star., 1927-09-18

<THE most dangerous radical
In America today is the
half-baked social scientist

IN America TO-DAY Is the
half-baked social scientist
Il in the classrooms of our
college.
This was the beginning of very
extraordinary interview / had with
John Hays Hammond about radical
ism in our colleges. Mr.. Hammond
save me the first explanation of why
SO many boys returning from college
astound and alarm parents who have
made successes in the world by voic
ing social ideas that seem the verieSt
nonsense to men who have been face
to face with the world "as is and
who are veterans of practical battles
of life
Mr.. Hammond expressed himself as
very much alarmed by the spread of
f'adicalism in our colleges, and espe-
cially in women's colleges. ! asked
him IL he could put his finger on the
cause Of this radical teaching. Were
our college professors in the pay of
Moscow, or were they just foolish
sentimentalists who conceived their
life task to be that of social mission
aries who were to lift oppressive
shackleS Of a wrong economic system
off the richest people in the world
and do away with the capitalistic eX-
ploitation that has made the Ameri-
can wage Garner the envy of the
world?
Ignorant OF Life.
"No," said Mr.. Hammond. "The
trouble with our radical professors is
their lack of contact with real life
and human nature as the man i'll the
world finds it. There are two kinds
Of scientists in our colleges. One is
the man of exact science. He works
with test tube, a telescope. a micro
scope, or with mathematical formulas.
He has to demonstrate to the human
eye his conclusions. He works with
standards of certainty. But there is
another type Of scientist-the social
scientist-our economists, sociologists,
political experts. Social scientists
work in fields where human nature
is large factor. And the only way
that one can estimate human nature
is by practical experience with it.
And yet this type of scientist only
knows about human nature from a
very limited horizon in the classroom
or occasional chats with people in the
world outside.
Business pays tremendous salaries
to men who can estimate the human
equation in the world of business or
who can make a good Judgment in a
situation that involves factors which
cannot be standardized like the fac.
tors in a laboratory experiment. Now
our social scientists write about prob
lens in which the correct solution in
wolves a very practical knowledge of
human nature. In our classrooms it
Is easy for radical teachers to mis-
represent the stubborn facts of prac.
teal life to a lot of inexperienced
youth. 1t Is easy in a classroom to
construct any kind of fallacious social
order and escape comparatively un-
challenged. because college students
are as ignorant of the practical world
OF business as their radical profes-
sors.''
Speaks from Experience.
And Mr.. Hammond was speaking
as one Of those men of large affairs
who made their success in life by
being able to estimate the human
equation" and a lot of elusive factors
in practical situations by judgment
developed from actual contact with
life.
1t is interesting how some men get
the inspiration for their life's work.
There was Goodyear. He had just
gone through bankruptcy and stood
with his hands in penniless pockets
gazing at specimen of crude rubber
in a window and recalling that the
rubber industry faced a crisis because
no one had invented way to preserve
rubber. Out of that moments ambi.
ton came famous industrial process.
Mr.. Hammond visioned his future
career when as a small boy of 10 he
panned for gold ON a Chinaman's
ranch in California and developed an
ambition to hunt for gold which even
tually took him to South Africa.
BIames the Teachers.
att is the teacher of inexact science
those sciences which deal with prac-
tical human nature-that is spreading
radicalism," continued Mr.. Hammond.
"He sees only hypothetical man.
kind. He uses blocks of abstract logic
to build unsound and unreal social
orders. He remakes human nature at
will to fit his ideas of what is a just
social system, instead of realizing that
social orders must square with human
nature as it exists and as it has
existed for thousands of years. 1t is
our social scientist who is writing SO
many radical books. He has become
q veritable pest in his prolific discus
sion of business, politics and social
problems. He is dangerous because
he molds young, inexperienced minds
into wrong ideas-ideas that can't
work-and it takes about two or three