Thorstein Veblen:
"The War and Higher Learning", editorial

THE DIAL. A fortnightly Journal of Criticism and Discussion of Literature and Information (New York)
Vol. LXV (June 20 to December 28, 1918)

No. 770, July 18, 1918, pp. 45-49
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[45]
The War and Higher Learning

The modern state of the industrial arts has got its growth and holds its 
footing by force of an effectual disregard of national demarcations. Not 
only is it true that this body of industrial knowledge, which makes the 
material foundation of modern civilisation, is of an international 
character and that it has been brought into bearing, and continues to be 
held, as a common stock, common to all the civilised nations; but it is 
also to be kept in mind that this modern technology always and necessarily 
draws on the world's resources at large for the means and materials of its 
work, regardless of national frontiers - in so far as the politicians do 
not deliberately put obstacles in the way of a free movement of these means 
and materials. In the realm of industry it is obvious that national 
frontiers serve no better purpose than a more or less effectual hindrance 
to the efficient working of the industrial system. Yet in this industrial 
realm men still argue - that is to say, shortsighted statesmen and interested 
business men are able to argue - that the nation's industrial interest may 
best be served by hindering the nation's industry from taking advantage of 
that freedom of intercourse which the modern industrial system presupposes 
as an indispensable condition to its best work. So far are men still bound 
in the ancient web of international jealousy and patriotic animosity.

On the other hand, in the adjacent field of scientific knowledge it is 
recognised without reservation that political boundaries have no place and, 
indeed, no substantial meaning. It is taken as a matter of course that 
science and its pursuit must be free of all restraints of this character; 
that it is a matter of "the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men," 
not merely among the citizens or subjects within the nation. That such is 
the case, that no politician comes forward to advocate an embargo on 
knowledge at the national frontier, or a protective customs barrier to 
serve as a fence against an undue infiltration of enlightenment from abroad 
- that the national statesmen fail to maaake mischief at this point is 
apparently due to the fact that no vested business interest has seen its 
advantage in taking measures to that end. There is also the difficulty that 
the international diffusion of knowledge proceeds by such subtle and 
intangible ways as to make its confinement by statute a perplexing matter.

It is true, something may be done by indirection at least - and the 
nationally minded statesmen have perhaps done what was possible - to hinder 
the free passage of knowledge over the national frontiers. They have, for 
instance, taken thought to impose a restrictive tariff on books and other 
apparatus made use of in scientific and scholarly pursuits or in the art of 
teaching; and there are also, now and again, certain restrictive measures 
taken to hinder aliens from imparting knowledge of any kind to the youth of 
the land. In all these cases of petty obstruction it will be seen, if one 
looks into the matter, that there is some vested interest of a businesslike 
sort which seeks to be benefited by these measures of restraint. But when 
all is told, these and the like endeavors of retardation are, after all, 
trifling and nugatory in comparison with that voluminous and many-sided 
restraint of industrial intercourse that appears to be the chief material 
use of the national frontiers.

Happily, there is no need of argument among, civilised men to gain assent 
to the proposition that the pursuit and diffusion of knowledge is a matter 
of joint and undivided interest among all the civilised nations; that it 
runs on neutral ground, irrespective of national intrigue and ambition; and 
that no nation has anything to lose in [46] this respect through unguarded co-
operation with its neighbors. In respect to this joint interest all are 
gainers by the gain of any one. Happily, again, this joint interest in the 
pursuit and diffusion of knowledge is the one end of endeavor which all men 
and all nations are agreed in rating as the only end of human endeavor that 
is worth while for its own sake. It may seem a singular state of things, 
but it will scarcely be questioned on reflection, that this intangible body 
of knowledge which is in no man's possession and is held as a common stock 
by the peoples of civilised mankind is not only the most highly valued 
asset of the civilised world but is at the same time the one indispensable 
possession which alone can give any community a valid claim to be rated 
among the civilised peoples. Any substantial loss or defeat on this ground, 
the ground of what is called the higher )earning, would by common consent 
be accounted the most shameful setback which these nations could suffer; 
and it is a case where, by common consent, any one's loss is the loss of 
all.

But at the same time, unhappily, because this pursuit of knowledge is, 
always and necessarily, of the nature of a collective or joint interest, it 
results that there is no one class or group of interested persons, no 
vested interest, which is In a position effectually to parley with the 
politicians in behalf of this higher learning, in which the civilised 
world's chief spiritual asset is capitalised. The elements of a political 
bargain are wanting in the case; and that massive popular sentiment whose 
pressure can for a time divert the endeavors of the statesmen from the 
broad and sinuous path of political bargaining is also taken up with other 
things. And just now, under the strain of desperate work to be done, the 
material needs involved in the prosecution of the great war take precedence 
of all else, particularly of all things less tangible. Yet all the while it 
remains true - and on dispassionate reflection, if such can be had, it will 
be seen - that this joint pursuit of knowledge which centers and finds 
expression in the higher learning is the most consequential matter involved 
in the fortunes of war.

All of which should clear the vision and determine a course of concerted 
action for those men who still have the interests of science and 
scholarship at heart, and whose endeavors are not all engrossed with the 
conduct of the war or with the give and take of political intrigue. The 
charge which circumstances impose on these keepers of the higher learning 
is simply the keeping of the ways and means of this pursuit of knowledge 
well in hand against the time when sober counsels shall again prevail.
Among these keepers of the sacred flame it happens that the hazards of war 
have thrown the Americans into a position of peculiar responsibility. 
Through no peculiar merit of their own they have been elected by the 
singular play of circumstance to take the initiative and largely to shape 
the prospective fortunes of the republic of learning. Their European 
copartners have fallen into a state of disorganisation and depletion, both 
in their personnel and in their equipment, so serious as to leave them, 
prospectively, very much in arrears. It is perhaps an over-statement to 
speak of the European world of learning as bankrupt, but it is also to be 
kept in mind that the misfortunes which make for its undoing are not yet at 
an end, and will by no means end abruptly with the formal conclusion of the 
Great War. For one thing, the European community of science and scholarship 
has been divided into halves between which the war has fixed a great gulf, 
a gulf so deep and implacable that even for some time after the war it will 
not be bridged. And within that half in which, by the fortunes of war, the 
Americans belong - the half which will now have to go into action as a 
decimated whole - within this half of the pre-war complement the channels 
of communication have been falling into neglect, the coordination of parts 
has failed, the local units have been depleted, the working capital is 
exhausted, and the equipment is falling into decay. In short, there is at 
the best a large depreciation charge to be written off. And all the while 
there is an indefinite promise of more of the same, and worse.

To put the case in concrete terms, the German men of learning have been and 
are going through a very trying experience, to [47] choose no harsher 
expression, and are in such a resulting state of moral dilapidation as 
should in all likelihood leave them largely incapacitated for sound work in 
science and scholarship for the term of the passing generation. The visible 
displacement of judgment and aspirations among them has engendered a 
profound distrust of their working powers among their colleagues of other 
nationalities - at least all the distrust which they merit. They are at the 
same time not being at all fully replaced by a new generation of scholars 
and scientists, since the war is draining off nearly all the men available 
for such work as will serve the war, which is also permanently diverting 
the energies of nearly all the residue to uses that are alien to the higher 
learning. By force of decimation, diversion, and debauch of scholarly 
morale - coupled with a stubborn distrust of them by the scholars in other 
lands - the learned men and the seminaries of the higher learning in the 
German-speaking world are presumably, in the main, to be counted among the 
dead, wounded, and missing in so far as concerns the reconstruction now to 
be entered on in the affairs of the higher learning. Something is plainly 
to be allowed in abatement of any appraisal of so sweeping a nature; but it 
is also plain that in the reconstruction now to be undertaken there is no 
German scholarship to be counted on as a present help, and what is to be 
counted on in the near future is an indefinite and doubtful quantity. In 
this respect the German-speaking community is plainly the heaviest loser 
among all the peoples who are losing by the war, and the loss suffered by 
the German scholarly community is net loss to the republic of learning at 
large.

In their degree, though in a less sinister measure than the Germans, the 
other Europeans are subject to much the same depletion of forces, decay of 
the spirit, and impoverishment in their material means. The Americans, 
however, have been less exposed to the disorganising experience of the war, 
and especially they still command the material means indispensable to the 
organisation and pursuit of scholarly and scientific inquiry under modern 
conditions. So that by the play of circumstances the Americans are placed 
in a position of trust to turn the means at hand to the best use for the 
conservation and reconstruction of the world's joint enterprise in science 
and scholarship.

As it is perforce a joint international interest that so calls for 
initiative and wise conduct at the hands of the American men of learning, 
so it is only by a disinterested joint action on an impartially 
international plan that the Americans can hope to take care of the work so 
entrusted to them. They have the means, or they can find them, and it is 
for them at this critical tide in the affairs of learning to turn these 
means to account unreservedly in that spirit of co-partnership and self-
effacement which alone can hopefully be counted on for anything that shall 
be worth while in a joint enterprise of such a scope and character.

As an initial move to this end it should reasonably seem obligatory on all 
those American schools which claim a rating as seminaries of learning to 
"keep open house" - freely, impartially, and as a matter of routine 
management to accord unrestricted privileges of sanctuary and 
entertainment, gratuitously and irrespective of nationality, to all comers 
who want an opportunity for work as teachers or students and who give 
evidence of fitness in any respect for this pursuit. It should be a safe 
rule, particularly under the conditions of bias and inducement now 
prevailing, to leave full scope for self-selection on this head, and to 
afford full opportunity for all whose inclination leads them to follow 
after the idols of the higher learning.

With this as a point of departure there follows a second step, necessitated 
by the first - an inclusive coordination of these American schools, 
together with a large measure of coalition among them. Such a move of co-
ordination and allotment of the work to be done is imperatively called for 
also on grounds of economy, even apart from the more exacting requirement 
of economy brought on by such an agreement to keep open house as has been 
spoken for above. As is well known, though it is more or less ingeniously 
denied from time to time, the American schools that are of college or 
university grade have hitherto been competitors for the trade in erudition, 
[48] somewhat after the fashion of rival merchandising concerns. Indeed, it is 
just as well to admit frankly that they have been rival concerns, doing a 
competitive business in student registrations and in the creation of 
alumni, as also in scholastic real estate and funded endowments. This 
academic competition has led to an extensive duplication of plant and 
personnel, and more particularly duplication in the courses of instruction 
offered by the rival schools, and in the extra-scholastic inducements held 
out by each to attract a clientele of unscholarly registrants. It is 
scarcely necessary to insist that this rivalry and duplication have been 
wasteful, at the same time that it has engendered an undue animus of 
salesmanship in the place of scholarship. All of which may charitably be 
held as well enough, or at any rate not to be remedied, in time of peace, 
prosperity, and universal price-rating. But just now, under pressure of the 
war demands and the war-time inflation of prices and costs, the 
wastefulness of this manner of conducting the schools is becoming 
flagrantly evident, at the same time that the schools are already beginning 
to fall into distress for want of funds to carry on as usual.

The present should accordingly be a propitious time for a move of co-
ordination and a degree of coalescence, such as is spoken for above, 
particularly as it will be practicable on this plan for the rival schools 
now to cover their retreat out of the underbrush of rivalry and intrigue 
with a decent - and unfeigned - avowal of devotion to the greater gain of 
that learning which they have always professed to cultivate with a single 
mind, and to which they doubtless have also quite amiably hoped to turn 
their best endeavors so soon as the more pressing exigencies of 
intercollegiate rivalry should leave them free to follow their natural 
bent. If recourse is had to some such measure of co-operation among the 
schools, they will easily be able to carry any prospective burden of 
providing for their prospective guests, foreign and domestic, as well as 
the effective volume of their day's work, which now seems an overload.

Such a pooling of scholastic issues would reasonably give rise to something 
in the way of a central office to serve as a common point of support and 
co-ordination, which would at the same time serve as a focus, exchange, and 
center of diffusion for scholarly pursuits and mutual understanding, as 
well as an unattached academic house of refuge and entertainment for any 
guests, strays, and wayfaring men of the republic of learning. This central 
would then stand as an impersonal, impartial, communal central for the 
republic of learning, an open house of resort and recuperation through the 
season of stress and infirmity which the community of scholars is facing. 
There would be no implied degree of unselfishness on the part of the 
Americans in so placing their resources and their good offices at the 
service of the world at large. They would only he serving their own ends as 
community partners in the pursuit of knowledge; for they can neither 
increase their own holdings in the domain of learning, nor hold fast that 
which they conceive themselves to be possessed of, except in co-partnership 
with these others, who now have fallen on evil days.

More specifically, and as affording a concrete point of departure for any 
enterprise of the kind, provision should be made under the auspices of one 
or more such centrals for the reorganisation of those channels Of 
communication that have been falling into disuse during the period of the 
war; for the maintenance and unbroken continuity of the work and the 
records of the many learned societies that have been falling into abeyance 
during the same period; and for the keeping of records and the collation 
and dissemination of materials and bibliographical information, on which 
the learned men of all countries are in the habit of depending.

The details of this work will be voluminous and diverse, even if it is 
taken over only as an emergency measure to tide over the period of 
reconstruction; and the adequate care of it all will call for no small 
degree of sobriety, insight, and goodwill, and also for no small 
expenditure of means. But it is hoped that the American scholars are 
possessed of the requisite large and sober insight (otherwise there is 
nothing [49] to be done about it) and it is known that, just now, the Americans 
have the goodwill of all thoughtful men throughout those countries that 
come into consideration here. It is also known that the Americans command 
the material means necessary to such an undertaking; and any degree of 
reflection will show that the American community runs no chance of material 
impoverishment in the further course of the war, quite the contrary in 
fact.
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