The Higher Learning in America. Thorstein Veblen
the German contingent and the rest of the civilized nations, for some time to come. But the others are in a frame of mind that should lend itself generously to a larger measure of co-operation in this respect now than ever before.
So it may not seem out of place to offer a suggestion, tentatively and under correction, looking to this end. A beginning may well be made by a joint enterprise among American scholars and universities for the installation of a freely endowed central establishment where teachers and students of all nationalities, including Americans with the rest, may pursue their chosen work as guests of the American academic community at large, or as guests of the American people in the character of a democracy of culture. There should also be nothing to hinder the installation of more than one of these academic houses of refuge and entertainment; nor should there be anything to hinder the enterprise being conducted on such terms of amity, impartiality and community interest as will make recourse to it an easy matter of course for any scholars whom its opportunities may attract. The same central would at the same time, and for the time being, take care of those channels of communication throughout the academic world that have been falling into enforced neglect under the strain of the war. So also should provision be made, perhaps best under the same auspices, for the (transient) taking-over of the many essential lines of publicity and publication on which the men engaged in scholarly and scientific inquiry have learned to depend, and which have also been falling into something of a decline during the war.
Measures looking to this end might well be made, at the same time, to serve no less useful a purpose within the American Academic community. As is well known, there prevails today an extensive and wasteful competitive duplication of plant, organization and personnel among the American universities, as regards both publications and courses of instruction. Particularly is this true in respect of that advanced work of the universities that has to do with the higher learning. At the same time, these universities are now pinched for funds, due to the current inflation of prices. So that any proposal of this nature, which might be taken advantage of as an occasion for the pooling of common issues among the universities, might hopefully be expected to be welcomed as a measure of present relief from some part of the pecuniary strain under which they are now working.
But competition is well ingrained in the habitual outlook of the American schools. To take the issue to neutral ground, therefore, where this competitive animus may hopefully be counted on to find some salutary abatement, it may be suggested that a practicable nucleus for this proposed joint enterprise can well be found in one or another -- perhaps in one and another -- of those extra-academic foundations for research of which there already are several in existence, -- as, e.g., the Carnegie Institution. With somewhat enlarged powers, or perhaps rather with some abatement of restrictions, and with such additional funds as may be required, the necessary work and organization should readily be taken care of by such an institution. Further growth and ramification would be left to future counsel and advisement.
The contemplated enterprise would necessarily require a certain planning and organization of work and something in the way of an administrative and clerical staff,a setting up of something in the way of "organization tables"; but there can be no question of offering detailed proposals on that head here. Yet the caution may well be entered here that few specifications are better than many, in these premises, and that the larger the latitude allowed from the outset, the fewer the seeds of eventual defeat, -- as is abundantly illustrated by contraries.
It is also evident that such an enterprise will involve provision for some expenditure of funds; presumably a somewhat generous expenditure; which comes near implying that recourse should be had to the public revenues, or to resources that may legitimately be taken over by the public authorities from private hands where they now serve no useful purpose. There are many items of material resources in the country that come legitimately under this head. At the same time it is well in this connection to call to mind that there is no prospect of the country's being in any degree impoverished in the course of the war; so that there need be no apprehension of a shortage of means for the carrying on of such an enterprise, if only the available sources are drawn on without prejudice. In the mind of any disinterested student of the American economic situation, there can be no serious apprehension that the American people, collectively, will be at all worse off in point of disposable means at the close of the war than they were at its beginning; quite the contrary in fact. To any one who will look to the facts it is evident that the experience of the war, and the measures taken and to be taken, are leading to a heightened industrial productiveness and a concomitant elimination of waste. The resulting net gain in productive efficiency has not gone at all far, and there need be no apprehension of its going to great lengths; but, for more or less, it is going so far as safely to promise a larger net annual production of useful goods in the immediate future than in the immediate past; and the disposable means of any people is always a matter of the net annual production, and it need be a question of nothing else. The manner in which this net product is, and is to be, shared among the classes and individuals of the community is another question, which does not belong here.
A question of graver weight and of greater perplexity touches the presumptive attitude of the several universities and their discretionary authorities in the face of any proposed measure of this kind; where the scope of the enterprise is so far beyond their habitual range of interest. When one calls to mind the habitual parochialism of the governing boards of these seminaries of the higher learning, and the meticulous manoeuvres of their executives seeking each to enhance his own prestige and the prestige of his own establishment, there is not much of an evident outlook for large and generous measures looking to the common good. And yet it is also to be called to mind that these governing boards and executives are, after all, drawn from the common stock of humanity, picked men as they may be; and that they are subject, after all, to somewhat the same impulses and infirmities as the common run, picked though they may be with a view to parochialism and blameless futility. Now, what is overtaking the temper of the common run under the strain of the war situation should be instructive as to what may be also looked for at the bands of these men in whose discretion rest the fortunes of the American universities. There should be at least a fighting chance that, with something larger, manlier, more substantial, to occupy their attention and to shape the day's work for them, these seminaries of learning may, under instant pressure, turn their best efforts to their ostensible purpose, "the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men," and to forego their habitual preoccupation with petty intrigue and bombastic publicity, until the return of idler days.
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