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and industrial interests will seek to control the character of the new education in various communities. This must be strenuously resisted. Wherever the matter of vocational education is brought up the workers should see to it that whatever boards or committees may be established for advisory purposes should be joint boards, containing representatives of the organized workers as well as of the organized employers and of the general public or the educational authorities. The labor unions must be on their guard against the tendency to utilize the new education for the manufacture of cheap hands to replace older and more expensive workers.

COMMUNITY CENTERS IN THE UNITED STATES. BY JOHN COLLIER.

Community centers differ from evening lectures, night schools, supervised recreation centers, and other public activities in school buildings and park houses, in this vital particular; they are, or are in process of becoming, locally self-governed, and in some measure locally self-supporting. This distinction is, of course, a critical one from the standpoint of labor and of the radical movement.

There are not less than several thousand community centers in America. These community centers are not buildings, nor yet are they activities, although buildings and activities are implied. They are organizations of the people -community organizations having a more or less general purpose of co-operation, public service, civic self-education, and fraternity.

The activities which loom large in these community organizations include the following: maintenance of free forums; civic committees which co-operate with public officials and criticize them; dramatics, public dancing, and other social, recreation and art-activities; summer camps; bureaus for industrial placement. A single community center may include a hundred small groups which pursue their own activities but co-operate toward some object larger than their own.

Such a movement as the above will, as it expands, bring the whole people nearer both to administrative government and to the underlying policies of government, and will bring the governmental specialists back to the people. It will facilitate an interchange of views between groups and classes, through breaking down the innumerable isolations which mark off the intellectual, emotional and social life of one group of people from other groups, the community center

will accelerate the contagion of ideas. These facts must be significant to the radical movement.

In this brief statement, certain questions must be answered.

1. Are the community centers actually free? They will be free in proportion as the people take a responsible part. They are not operated, and cannot be, by public authority, but they make use of the facilities of public buildings, and must therefore work under charters or licenses issued by Boards of Education, City Commissions, etc. The policy of government toward community centers is gradually coming to be not a policy of regulation but a policy of encouragement and promotion in over a third of the country today. The community center movement is essentially free to go ahead in its own way, and the great present need is initiative, workers, members and real interests.

2. If labor organizations enter the community center movement, will they jeopardize their own individualities? The community center is not an organization of individuals, but rather an aggregation of groups. It encourages the life of special groups rather than otherwise. It enables these groups to co-operate with each other at points where their common interests drive forward in the same direction. Labor does not need to hold its own through sequestrating its members. The center is the inevitable organizing point for the life of the majority of all the people, and need only become a conscious motive in order to gain power.

The best model for community center development is the Consumer's Co-operative Movement of Europe, which began with co-operation in the realm of material commodities and has evolved (as in Belgium) to a full co-operation in the things of the mind, the spirit, public affairs, etc. This model is consciously in the minds of many of the leaders of the American Community Center movement.

There is now a National Conference of Community Centers, representing 68 cities, which has held one national convention and will publish proceedings. Its headquarters are at 70 Fifth Avenue, New York. A training school exclusively devoted to training organizers for community centers is maintained here.

The necessity of industrial organization knows no law except that of human progress.

The manhood of the striker must take precedence of the comfort of the public.

ACADEMIC FREEDOM.

By HARRY W. LAIDLER.

On June 17, 1915, Scott Nearing, assistant professor of economics of the Wharton School of Finance, University of Pennsylvania, was refused reappointment to the faculty by the Board of Trustees of that University. This discharge has brought the discussion of Academic Freedom in American Colleges to the very forefront. It also marks a new stage in the fight for free speech in our Universities.

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, many professors, especially in denominational colleges, were discharged for expressing their belief in evolution. During the nineties, "heretical" views on the silver, monopoly and tariff questions caused many resignations. Among the well known professors who lost their positions at that time were:

President E. Benjamin Andrews of Brown University; Edward A. Ross and George E. Howard of Leland Stanford; John R. Commons of Syracuse and the University of Indiana; President Henry Wade Rogers of Northwestern; President Thomas E. Will and E. W. Bemis and Frank Parsons of the Kansas State Agricultural College, President George M. Steele of Laurence University and President H. E. Stockbridge of No. Dakota Agricultural College.

The present fight involves a contest for the privilege of expressing one's convictions regarding the very foundation of the present economic system, not only in the class room but in public. The facts in the Nearing case are briefly as follows:

Dr. Nearing was appointed instructor in economics at the University in the fall of 1906. He proved to be an unusually popular lecturer and rapidly forged ahead as a writer on questions of wages, social reform etc. He also frequently occupied the public rostrum and was vigorously opposed by the Board of Trustees and other conservative elements in Pennsylvania as a result of his keen criticisms of present conditions.

He was repeatedly recommended for promotion to assistant professorship by the economics faculty. For eight years he remained as an instructor and for six his salary continued the same. When this treatment failed to secure Dr. Nearing's resignation, an investigation into the teachings of the members of the economics faculty was conducted by Thomas S. Gates, Chairman of the Wharton School Committee and president of the Philadelphia Trust Company. The committee bemoaned the alleged efforts of some of the teaching force to preach class prejudice, and concluded:

"The committee takes this occasion to place itself on

record as squarely opposed to the use of the fair name of the University as a point of vantage for utterances foreign to the scheme of the teachings and ideals in education, and recommends that where members of the teaching staff are not willing to subscribe to its policies, their services should be dispensed with."

During the spring of 1915, Dr. Nearing was again recommended for reappointment, and it was assumed that the reappointment would be given. On June 17, when practically all college positions had been filled for the coming year, the board voted his discharge. The subsequent protest is too well known to require repetition. In the fall of 1915, Dr. Nearing was appointed dean of the University of Toledo, taking office January 1, 1916.

The rules of appointment and dismissal at the University of Pennsylvania have since been changed so as to prevent any recurrence of a discharge of that nature.

Others, whose discharges, forced resignations, a failure of reappointment during the last five years, have led to the accusation of infringement of academic freedom are:

Dartmouth College. G. B. L. Arner, instructor in Economics. Probable cause-Socialistic teachings. Other factors, including that of lecture form may have entered in.

Florida, University of. E. M. Banks, Professor of History. Cause-attitude on states rights.

Lafayette. John M. Mecklin, Professor of Philosophy. Cause-liberal views on philosophy; personal opposition of president.

No. Dakota, University of. Lewinsohn, Professor of Law. Cause-activity in Progressive politics.

Rochester University. Kendrick Shedd, Professor of German. Probable cause-public utterances regarding the flag and Socialism.

Marietta College. A. Ely Morse, Professor of Economics. Cause-advanced views on land and industrial problems, participation in Progressive politics.

Wesleyan, Middletown, Conn. Willard C. Fisher, Professor of Economics. Cause-advanced views on economic subjects, personal disagreement with president. Occasion for discharge suggestion that churches close temporarily to help people to distinguish difference between lip service and genuine Christianity.

1915 Cases.

Boston University. Benjamin W. Van Riper, Professor of philosophy. Cause-failure to "manifest sufficiently vital interest in religious life."

Colorado, University of. James H. Brewster, Professor

of Law. Cause-according to Prof. Brewster, appearance before the U. S. Commission on Industrial Relations, in behalf of Colorado miners. Cause-according to the President-desire of governing body to obtain the services of younger men with more physical vigor. Both considerations seem to have entered into this case.

Dartmouth. George Clarke Cox, Assistant Professor of Philosophy. Probable cause-advanced philosophical and social views. No public explanation given by the president. Maryville College, Tenn. Arthur W. Calhoun, Professor of Economics. Probable cause-economic radicalism. No public explanation given by President.

Ohio State. Dean Price, dean of the agricultural department. Probable cause-desire to obtain some professor as dean who as a member of the state board of agriculture, would be more amenable to certain interests.

Utah, University of. Prof. A. A. Knowlton. Causeaccording to the President-"worked against the administration" and "spoke very disrespectfully of the chairman of the board of regents."

Associate Prof. Geo. C. Wise. Cause-according to the president-"spoke in a depreciatory way about the university before his classes," and "in a very uncomplimentary way about the administration."

Charles W. Snow and Phil. C. Bing, Instructors in English. Cause-according to the president-"services are no longer necessary."

As a result of the dismissals and the demotion of others at the University of Utah and as a further result of the "policy of repression, opportunism and dictation" at the University, fostered by certain individuals in the Mormon church, eighteen members of the faculty, including two deans and five heads of departments, resigned.

At several other universities pressure has, during the last year, been brought against the universities by the state legislatures. This has been notably the case at the universities of Wisconsin and Washington. Appropriations for current expenses and the construction of new buildings have been fought, tuition has been raised and members of the faculties have been attacked. A prominent member of the lower house of the Washington legislature went so far in 1915 as to urge the abolition of the department of Political and Social Science because "it was a hot bed of Socialism."

Academic Freedom is often repressed by refusing appointments to those who are not considered "safe" and by urging professors directly and indirectly to keep quiet along certain lines, for the sake of the institution or for the sake of themselves and families. The refusal to promote a mem

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