Review of Veblen’s 'The Higher Learning in America', by Charles A. Beard.
Article: ‘THE HIRE LEARNING IN AMERICA’.

The Dial. A Fortnightly (New York) Vol. LXV (June 20 to December 28, 1918)

The Dial, Vol. LXV, (Dec., 14, 1918), pp. 553-555
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[553]
The Hire Learning in America

ALTHOUGH no mortal of common clay and ordinary wit could do justice to Mr. 
Thorstein Veblen's The Higher Learning in America: A Memorandum on the Conduct 
of Universities by Business Men (Huebsch; $1.60) within the compass of a brief 
book review, it is a comparatively simple matter to state the thesis which it 
sustains: there is in every society a body of esoteric knowledge, guarded by 
specialists in the subject - medicine men, shamans, priests, savants, scholars, 
scientists; "the higher learning" is such a body of knowledge and universities 
are the appointed keepers; the direction of the universities in American society 
has fallen into the hands of business men of large material possessions, who by 
the stress of their intensive preoccupations are driven to measure all things by 
quantitative rather than qualitative standards - size, number, extent, weight, 
vendibility, and so on; as the parasite takes on, all unconsciously or perhaps 
protestingly, the color of the host, so the heads - presidents, deans, provosts, 
supervisors, registrars, secretaries, official bellmen, and "successful" 
professors - take on the modes of thought and the standards of judgment as to 
worthiness and worth which are cherished by the directing body from which the 
main source of economic sustentation is derived; finally, the higher learning is 
of the spirit - unseen, immeasurable, imponderable, and invendible; hence the 
antithesis and the problem.

From the preface it appears that this work was written, in the main at least, 
many years ago at a favorable point of vantage, the University of Chicago under 
President Harper, but remained unpublished for fear that the public might read 
into a purely detached and scientific study a personal strain, and thus vitiate 
the sedative and informing effect of a [554] contribution to educational 
analysis. The author was wise in his restraint, for in the intervening years 
what appeared to be an isolated pecuniary phenomenon in the world of learning 
has become universal - except in some of the side pools along the main current 
where theological bias or pique has encompassed learning with a protective 
shelter against the purely pecunious. Everywhere

"that power of aspiration that once surged full and hot in, the cults of faith, 
fashion, sentiment, exploit, and honor now at its best comes to such a head as 
it may in the concerted adulation of matter-of-fact."

So things stood, at least, on the eve of America's entrance into the war, and 
those who looked with distress upon the uniformity of American interest in 
measurable vendibility may take hope in the thought that concern with the 
glories, honors, and sacrifices of war may act as a salutary check upon the 
drift toward the "mechanistically effectually matter-of-fact." The recent 
allocation of colleges to a very useful position in the scheme of military 
things may result in a somewhat rude treatment of the purely pecunious by 
gentlemen of military traditions and honor. To be plain, military standards may 
supplant those of the business college. It will be recalled by the well-versed 
student of American government that the construction work supervised by 
engineers detailed from the United States army stands in marked contrast (owing 
to the absence of corruption) to similar construction enterprises, such as the 
first subways in New York managed by bankers and financiers. Our immediate 
choice appears to be between the measurements of dollars and cents and those of 
military honor.

To return. It must not be thought that Mr. Veblen is making a plea for an 
entirely cultural and non-utilitarian learning. He does not object to 
measurements by standards of serviceability for human use in the long and larger 
sense, but to the business man's conquest over the eternal interest of high 
minds in widening the domain of knowledge by free and independent inquiry, 
unbought and fearless. He sees the paraphernalia of the business college 
submerging the spirit of learning. He sees men who might have contributed to 
enlargement of life drawn away from the essence of things by the allurements of 
pomp, circumstance, advertising, and high salaries which business men are 
accustomed to award to efficiency engineers, heads, managers, presidents, deans, 
and stimulators of production in general, to say nothing of accomplished shoo-
flies. He finds that the records and filing systems of well conducted business 
concerns tend to become the central concerns of college management, and that the 
term, course, time-clock, and unit system, necessary enough in high schools and 
colleges, occupy also the citadel of the university - the guardian of the higher 
learning. Well-meaning educators struggle against it in vain as drowning men 
fight the foaming currents that overwhelm them at last. When men are caught in 
the perplexing net of expediency, the instant need of the things drives out all 
slowly maturing, far looking, and deeply spiritual considerations. No one is to 
be blamed for being conquered by his environment. He always has the alternative 
however of changing his environment by migration.

There are any number of side eddies in Mr. Veblen's main stream. He has found by 
experience that some universities are in fact managed by a mere fraction of the 
board of trustees, who take an active interest in the enterprise, and that in 
the allocation of available funds they frequently apply those canons of 
pecuniary honor which are to be found in many historic business undertakings, 
such, for example, as the Crédit Mobilier. Perhaps some Henry VIII who has the 
historic mission of dissolving established corporations of learning may care to 
have the financial records of institutions enjoying exemption from taxation made 
the subject of expert inquiry by accountants of the new order. It will be a 
matter of no little edification to the loyal alumni who make financial 
sacrifices for their alma mater to learn that the cost of maintaining the 
"establishment" of their president (to say nothing of the retinue of deans and 
statistical shamans) has been quite as much as the unit cost of instructing the 
freshman and sophomore classes. Mr. Veblen's comments on academic buildings and 
material equipment will be read with surprise by those who do not know that 
college structures are not infrequently erected by architects and engineers 
wholly ignorant of any of the purposes and intents of the higher learning, and 
quite prepared to sacrifice light, comfort, and the ease of the inhabitants to 
the considerations of fenestration and ostentatious industrial arts. Mr. Veblen 
is also pertinent when he notes the willingness of the once devotionally 
religious institutions of learning to wink at the theological unconventionality 
of instructors, providing their political economy is of the immediate matter-of-
fact. The subject of dismissal from seats of "learning" is touched by our author 
with much precision. Unfortunate newspaper notoriety, deserved or undeserved, 
unconventional religious or political views, unsound economic doctrines, an 
unprosperous marriage, or domestic infelicity is usually found in every case of 
discharge from academic trust; but Mr. Veblen is generously correct toward 
college authorities when he states that [555]

"where action has been taken by the directorate on provocation of such 
circumstances, it is commonly done with the (unofficial) admission that such 
action is not taken on the substantial merits of the case but on compulsion of 
circumstances and the exigencies of advertising."

If to this is added the effect of directoral jealousy, pique, and personal 
dislike, the point is fairly made. An illustration of Mr. Veblen's theory is 
found in the case of a very distinguished scholar who was dismissed from a large 
institution of "the higher learning" ostensibly on the ground of an unfortunate 
amorous excursion, but as a matter of fact such excursions were widely 
advertised among his colleagues and known to the directorate many years previous 
to his expulsion, and it was only when they became a subject of animadversion by 
the sensational press that the directoral "guardians of the morals of the youth 
committed to their care" forcibly severed connections with the culprit. This is 
an illustration of the insoluble paradox of life for which our fathers could 
find only the solution of original sin, while those of coldly detached and 
scientific disposition are forced to withhold scholarly judgment at this stage 
of mental development. Nevertheless when all is said and done Mr. Veblen has 
generous hopes, for he says:

"Whatever expedients of decorative real estate, spectacular pageantry, 
bureaucratic magnificence, elusive statistics, vocational training, genteel 
solemnities, and sweatshop instruction may be imposed by the exigencies of a 
competitive business policy, the university is after all a seat of learning 
devoted to the cult of the idle curiosity - otherwise called the scientific 
spirit."

By way of obiter dicta he holds that the academic trust may be dissolved, the 
captain of erudition usefully employed in other (truly gainful) occupations, 
boards of trustees abolished or reduced to a vacantly perfunctory status, self-
government granted to the real guardians of higher learning, the teachers, and a 
return made to the ancient and honorable communion between teacher and student 
"that once made the American college, with all its handicap of poverty, 
chauvinism, and denominational bias, one of the most effective agencies of 
scholarship in Christendom."

Unhappily the present reviewer cannot share the cool optimism of the author or 
accept even the desirability of such a plan of affairs if universally adopted. 
Economic sustentation is essential to the modern shaman of learning, and a 
decent regard for the amenities of life requires that the standard should be at 
least reasonably worthy. Such support must come from one of two sources, from 
persons possessed of worldly goods - business men, financiers, bankers, 
successful merchants and manufacturers - or from public taxation laid by 
legislatures. It is not to be presumed that either the capitalists who endow or 
the people who tax themselves will be willing to grant money freely and at the 
same time surrender control. That would be an act of faith contrary to normal 
expectations in a capitalistic or democratic world. If the Espionage Act does 
not forbid, it may be ventured that "the higher learning" is too fragile a plant 
to be entrusted to the tender mercies of the board of aldermen. There is really 
more to be gained from a busy and heavily preoccupied benevolent despot. 
Moreover if the shamans of learning should be freely granted a pecuniary 
underwriting without any obligation expressed or tacit, the experience of 
mankind with cults would seem to indicate that it would shortly become necessary 
to pry open the independent, self-governing bodies in charge of the esoteric 
word and let in a little common sense of the earth earthy, springing without 
effort and without guile from the living wells of human experience, so deep that 
the straining eye of science cannot fathom them nor the mind of man find the 
secret of the healing that comes out of them.

Nevertheless in the pluralistic economy of providence there may be many things, 
and one or more of them may be self-governing colleges devoted not to teaching 
but to learning, financed by a few willing to cast their bread upon the waters, 
and dedicated not to the dispensation of knowledge but the pursuit of wisdom. 
Why not? The modern theory of evolution has a place for the "sport" and ascribes 
to it immense potentiality.

But let us press the matter a bit further. Let us imagine that a few possessors 
of great wealth, of genial disposition, and unusual experimental interest should 
bestow upon the self-governing faculty a goodly block of Baltimore and Ohio Gold 
4's and step aside, renouncing all claim and all concern. Then suppose that a 
changing industrial democracy should be about to embark upon a policy that 
spelled confiscation or a scheme of taxation that would wipe out one-half, or 
more, of the income received by the autonomous body engaged in the pursuit of 
the higher learning, could that democracy expect a cold and passionless judgment 
from the professor of political economy? And if his judgment should be in favor 
of the policy which spelled a curtailment of funds, would he find joyful 
countenances greeting him on entering the council chamber of the many headed 
directorate?

Ultimate solution: all things are relative and matters of degree, and blessed 
are those who discover it early enough in life to prepare themselves for a sweet 
and dignified old age.

CHARLES A. BEARD.
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