Academic Subsidies

Chancellor Emeritus James R. Day of Syracuse University is dead. And with his death, endowed education (what The New York Call describes as "The Hire Learning"), is advanced to the center of the stage again. John D. Archbold, vice-president of the Standard Oil Company, was a generous benefactor of Syracuse. Chancellor Day of Syracuse was a vigorous and outspoken champion of the established " interests." It needed only a little mathematics to prove that Chancellor Day had been bought by "The Trusts"--so said the progressives.

But the demonstration is a little too simple. Chancellor Day was not only an antagonist of Roosevelt during Roosevelt's trust-busting days, he was also anti-Wilson, anti-League, anti-experiment of every kind. He ruled Syracuse with a Roman discipline. He believed implicitly in the Constitution of the Fathers. He believed in the established order. Briefly, he was a reactionary; and a reactionary born and not made. It may be demonstrable that Mr. Archbold supported Syracuse because he sympathized with the opinions of Chancellor Day. But it would take temerity even now to maintain that Chancellor Day held those opinions for Mr. Archbold's sake. The Call itself describes him as courageous.

It is generally believed by those who see with two eyes that Syracuse or any other institution of learning is subsidized to teach falsely. But it is true that human beings are often grateful and more often needy, and that the relation of the giver to his gift is not terminated by the giving. There is, therefore, and there will always be, a temptation on the part of academic recipients of charity to cherish the source of their supply. And for that reason if for no other we should be better off without personal endowments, in theory. The difficulty in practice is that we can't get along without them. And in this best of all impossible worlds we must get along as we can.

Some comfort is gained by imagining an academic world with no endowments. Since the student body cannot be called upon to meet even the running expenses of the university we are remitted to the tax payers. Tax payers are not interested in remote sciences or obscure arts. In the state of Washington they are not even interested in necessary buildings. The result would be freedom of teaching but no one to teach. And freedom itself might be limited.