severe; and the tendency of all moral weaklings within. it is to conform to what is expected from above."

"Educators and writers have a normal function of social service. Many of these, however, are retainers of a degraded type, whose greatest activity lies in serving as reflexes of trading-class sentiment and disseminators of trading-class views of life."

"Rightly, it may be said that it is to his [the minister, writer, or teacher's] economic interest to preach and teach the special ethics of the traders; that the good jobs go to those who are most eloquent, insistent, and thoroughgoing in expounding such ethics, while the poor jobs or no jobs at all go to those who are most backward or slow-witted in such exposition."

"It may even be said that the net result of many of their [i.e., trading-class] benefactions is nothing less than the prostitution of the recipients-in particular of writers, preachers, and educators." 1

1

By way of contrast with this thoroughgoing arraignment, the opinion of Mr. Paul Elmer More may be quoted:

"Of all the substitutes for the classical discipline there is none more popular and, when applied to immature minds, more pernicious than economics. To a very considerable degree the present peril of socialism and other eccentricities of political creed is due to the fact that so many young men are crammed with economical theory (whether orthodox or not) when their minds have not been weighted with the study of human nature in its larger aspects. From this lack of balance they fall an easy prey to the fallacy that history is wholly determined

166

"Mass and Class," pp. 14, 82, 83, 105, 243.

by economical conditions, or to the sophism of Rousseau that the evil in society is essentially the result of property. The very thoroughness of this training in economics is thus a danger."

The positions both of Mr. Ghent and of Mr. More are extreme. As for the special ethics of the trading class, of which the former makes so much, it is doubtful if anything exists more foreign to current academic ideals. So marked is this aversion that it is distinctly difficult for the ordinary professor to estimate correctly the real value to the community of the service of the business man. That equal difficulty exists on the other side is apparent from the openly expressed conviction of many business men that the college teacher is a thoroughly unpractical sort of person. The latter attitude, by the way, is a most remarkable one for a client to assume toward his social apologist,-taking Mr. Ghent's view of the situation. A prisoner at the bar who should rail at the abilities of his counsel is certainly not putting himself in the way of acquittal. As for "moral weaklings," no profession can honestly deny the existence of some examples of this pestiferous species in its ranks. If academic promotion depended upon moral weakness, however, the bankruptcy of the profession would have been announced long ago. As a matter of fact, the system of selection and advancement employed by colleges is admirably adapted to their requirements. 1 Bookman, p. 652, August, 1906.

1

In spite of the machinations of occasional cliques, chiefly of a personal or churchly character, it usually succeeds in placing the best prepared and most capable men in desirable and influential positions. Certainly college administration as a whole deserves the reputation of success which it enjoys, a reputation, by the way, much superior to that of most of our governmental machinery. If, for example, an equally effective system could be employed in the selection of the administrative heads of American city governments it is safe to say that many of our municipal problems would find a speedy solution.

As between Mr. Ghent and Mr. More, the latter is much nearer the truth in his main contention. It is hardly the case, however, as Mr. More would seem to imply, that thorough training in economics is more likely to produce half-baked agitators than is a mere smattering of the subject. Here as elsewhere "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing," and the students who afterwards run amuck in radicalism are drawn to a very slight extent from the ranks of those who acquire a really thorough knowledge of economics or the other social sciences. Without recourse to the old classical discipline, as proposed by Mr. More, the study of history and of the theory of evolution should furnish an excellent corrective to the excessively a priori processes employed in some fields of economics. Apart from these exceptions Mr.

More is clearly right in maintaining that the net result of college instruction in this subject is radical rather than reactionary. However, the impress finally given to the overwhelming majority of college students is not that of radicalism but rather that of willingness to work patiently, constructively, and progressively for social betterment. In either event the sweeping assertion that college teachers are the hirelings of capitalistic conspirators finds little ground for support.

One who attempts a survey of the whole field of corruption is apt to be impressed at first with its hopeless complexity and heterogeneity. There are many petty forms of evil, the shady moral character of which is as yet hardly perceived. The spirit thus revealed is, however, identical with that which expresses itself in the major forms of corruption which are so obvious and threatening that they have become subject to public criticism. It cannot be denied that some abuses of a grave character make their appearance in the learned professions, journalism, and higher education. In all such cases, however, vigorous reform work is in progress. A very gratifying feature of the situation is that the most effective and sincere efforts for improvement are being made from the inside. Our " men of light and leading are sound at heart. It is not necessary to prove to them, as unfortunately it sometimes is to those in other walks

of life, that corruption does not pay. Rehabilitated by some of its more recent forms journalism exercises an alert and resourceful influence upon the opinion of the day. More hopeful still is the fact that our institutions of higher learning are moulding both the men and the measures of tomorrow into nobler forms.