President Meiklejohn

No " Booster" He Is Opposed By Amherst's Babbittry

The only difference between the affair at Amherst and the affair at Clark is that they have nothing in common. President Alexander Meiklejohn of Amherst is a great educator. President Wallace W. Atwood of Clark is what is known as an " authority on geography." President Meiklejohn is a liberal. President Atwood is a reactionary. President Meiklejohn is opposed by his trustees arid supported by his student body. President Atwood is opposed by his student body and supported by his trustees. President Meiklejohn seems sure to lose his job. President Atwood seems sure to keep his.

But there is a more important difference. The affair at Clark is a conflict of personalities. The affair at Amherst is a conflict of educational theories. President Meiklejohn was brought to Amherst eleven years ago to shake up and revitalize a rapidly decaying College. He was installed as a reformer. And he set about to reform. He had a definite theory of education which he proceeded to put into action. That theory was the theory of education as a stimulus to inquiry and speculation rather than a mere communication of dogma. As it was once expressed by Professor W. H. Hamilton (professor of economics under Dr. Meiklejohn), who has just left Amherst: "Education by ritual gives slavery to those who cry for freedom. The man who has been habituated to doing what another says cannot choose worthwhile things for himself to do. The man who has fallen into the habit of accepting opinions upon authority cannot form opinions for himself-- and the greatest tragedy of all is that those who are enslaved by ritual-- since they have never known freedom --do not perceive the nature of their own bondage."

President Meiklejohn believed that his theory could best be realized by keeping Amherst a small College. He was, furthermore, inevitably opposed to mediocre teaching. And he was against the use of professional coaches in college athletics. .The result was to array against himself those older alumni who disapproved of his educational ideas and resented a system which trained young men to ask questions, the teachers whom he had been compelled to remove, the graduates who thought of their College as a booster thinks of his home town and whose ambition was a "bigger, better Amherst," and the alumni of the cheering section variety who would rather beat Williams than graduate intelligent Bachelors of Art. And these elements were powerful and their voice was loud.

At the centennial in 1921, they succeeded in crowding the President out of the program of celebration except for one speech. But that one speech was such a personal triumph for the President that his enemies retired.

When a rumor went abroad that the trustees were to ask President Meiklejohn for his resignation at the commencement this year, there was a student blowup. The Seniors voted not to accept diplomas from an institution which would dismiss a man like Meiklejohn and they sent a committee to New York to find out what the trustees intended. The junior class prepared to leave College in the event of the President's resignation, and the lower classes were apparently ready to take similar action. But the Committee returned and undergraduate excitement died down. It had been refused an interview in New York but promised one at Amherst. In the meantime the opponents of the President had allowed it to become known that the trustees were to base their action upon grounds of administrative incapacity and lack of tact.

A few facts appear clearly out of the muddle. Most important and the foremost: that President Meiklejohn is so successful as an educational engineer that no possible criticism can be leveled against him upon the ground of incompetence in that direction. The second is that there exists a split in the faculty of the College which is due in part at least to the methods used by the President. The third, that the real basis of opposition to the President is hostility to his theories of education and his liberalism in general. No one who has watched the amazing advance in prestige of the College since President Meiklejohn took charge of it, no one who contrasts what it is now with what it was ten years ago, will be satisfied that President Meiklejohn is incompetent as an administrator, or believe that his lack of tact is the reason for his removal.