With this issue, we re-introduce the “From the Archives” section of The ACAD Leader. We are fortunate to have access to the published Proceedings from the Annual Meetings from the 1950s and 1960s. “Anti-intellectualism and the American College” was published in 1955 by Ivan M. Stone, Dean and Professor of Government at Beloit College. An obituary in the journal PS: Political Science & Politics (1972), details Dr. Stone’s academic bona fides. After serving in the State Department during WWII, he spent his career at Beloit and rose through the ranks as department chair, dean, and ultimately as director for an endowed center devoted to World Affairs before his retirement in 1970. Beloit still hosts an annual lecture in his honor.
Published in 1955, the style and some of the content of Stone’s essay make clear it was composed in the era of Mad Men. The current ACAD Leader editors debated whether to excerpt out the more obtrusively sexist elements. These infelicities, however, might be seen as a reminder of the progress our profession has made, even as we struggle with some of the same external challenges nearly 70 years later. We did, however, take the liberty of silently correcting a few minor typographical errors.
The year 1955 was, of course, the beginning of the end of the McCarthy era, which saw nearly 100 academics fired for political causes. Historian Ellen Schrecker, author of No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities (1986) has recently written about the similarities of the attacks on radical “communist” faculty members in the 1940s and 50s, with current efforts by national and state governments to exert control over many aspects of higher education. In 2025, a great deal more of our budgets, particularly at R1 institutions, come from government sources, making universities more vulnerable than they were in the 1950s to the threats of economic penalties for failure to align with particular political agendas.
Stone’s essay, perhaps judiciously, does not “name names” or offer a direct critique of Senator McCarthy. The threats to academic freedom he describes are, unfortunately, evergreen and reach beyond a single individual. Our institutions of higher education have evolved since 1955, but Stone’s recommendations for combatting anti-intellectualism remain relevant, especially if, as Stone asserts, we “believe in a liberalizing education as education in freedom and for freedom.”
If coals were ever carried to Newcastle, I am carrying them now. When one undertakes to discuss the subject of anti-intellectual forces and the American College, he undertakes a task that, in one fashion of another, has engaged probably every person in this room. And since many of you, my colleagues, have examined the subject much more extensively and more intimately than I, too much originality cannot be claimed for the points of view expressed. I need scarcely assure you that I did not volunteer for this assignment. I was drafted by “General” Alderman!
The story is old of the man who in mid-winter was following with more than passing interest a shapely female form ahead, when suddenly she slipped on a bit of ice and went sprawling on the pavement. Hovering over her at length but with gentlemanly hesitation, he finally blurted out, “If I knew where to take hold of you, I’d help you up!” A corresponding predicament confronts me when I try to determine where and how to take hold of this subject. I can only hope that the facets selected will provide at least a few minor targets for the firing in the afternoon discussion groups.
We live in a time of suspicion and distrust, — of charge and counter-charge. Self-anointed vigilantes and other defenders of the American way, (undefined, incidentally) determine subversion according to their taste, condemn by association, dub those who dare to differ as egg head, long-hair, leftist, dangerous radical, or even liberal! These zealous, probably sincere but sometimes smugly arrogant critics would figuratively if not actually burn our books, screen our speakers, probe our methods, question our loyalty.
The attackers of intellectual freedom, I am convinced, frequently do not understand its essential character. And those who would attack for personal or political advantage can scarcely believe in the guarantees of the Bill of Rights or place much reliance on the democratic process. Hesitation, discouragement, intimidation, sometimes stark, unvarnished, paralyzing fear follow in their wake. Imagination and creativity suffer. Conformity and orthodoxy assume abnormal proportions. Colleges refuse to permit their debating teams to discuss the recognition of Communist China. Even Robin Hood and the Girl Scouts Handbook become suspect! This unpleasant phenomenon is not new – far from it. But probably at no time since the Civil War has our country witnessed the intensity of recent attacks on the scholar and on intellectualism.
The forces which would threaten intellectual freedom come, as President Arthur G. Coons has reminded us, “From two main sources; revolution and reaction.… revolution on the extreme left or reaction on the extreme right.” (Bulletin of the Association of American Colleges, October 1952, p. 385.) This non-intellectual authoritarianism, often heavily charged with emotion, frequently appears not to understand or to appreciate the central purpose of the American academic system. We believe in a liberalizing education as education in freedom and for freedom. We believe in freedom of inquiry rather than in indoctrination. We insist that in this country of such magnificent resources, the greatest of them all is “man’s unconquerable mind.” (The title of Gilbert Highet’s book, Columbia, 1954) We resist being poured into anyone’s mold or being “kept” propagandists for the doctrines of any pressure groups, be they right or left, economic or political. The trained and responsible scholar must, without compromise or hesitation, sift and winnow in his pursuit of truth. And the scholarly pursuit of truth, as President Pusey has so well said, is not a privilege and is “not primarily a question of ‘freedom’.… A scholar or scientist has an obligation to investigate and report new ideas in his field, even when his conclusions may be unpopular among the general public or among his own colleagues.” (A.A.U.P. Bulletin, October 1954, pp. 336-37.)
At my alma mater, the University of Nebraska, there occurred a flare-up some months ago over some widely circulated remarks of a member of the faculty on a topic of considerable economic and political interest. The Board of Regents, having interested themselves in the controversy, adopted a resolution taking the following constructive and commendable stand:
“In the realm of higher education, the right to question, to explore, to express, to examine, and re-examine is of necessity exercised continually. Were it not so, our diverse intellectual resources would become stagnant.
The men and women selected by this university, as a part of the structure of higher education, are chosen for their proficiency, for their expertness, in various fields. By virtue of their training and scholarly endowments they must be assured of and are expected to understand both the rights and responsibilities of their positions, including these:
- The full right to speak as a citizen.
- The responsibilities of citizenship.
- The right, as a professional person, to freedom in research and to publication of the results thereof, limited only by the precepts of scholarship and the faithful performance of other duties.
- The right as a professional person to free and thorough expression in the classroom.
The rights to uphold, to discuss and to dissent are the moral fiber of America’s greatness. They are likewise the strength of a great university.” (Quoted in Saturday Evening Post, February 27, 1954, p. 12)
I should like to hope that all boards of trustees would man the bulwarks as adequately under similar circumstances.
Intellectualism cannot be standardized. When and if our faculties fear to be themselves; when and if they take refuge in negativism rather than assert positivism; when and if teachers shrink from the controversial and seek on security, — then the basic freedom of inquiry will have been compromised and the American college will have sacrificed perhaps its most cherished possession.
And although we professionals, or neo-professionals, of the colleges and universities are perhaps most directly interested, society at large has a heavy stake in this challenge. Why? Because is it not true that the basic freedom of the mind is the foundation upon which other freedoms stand? Lyman Bryson proposes that the educator’s freedom “is a special kind of freedom. If those who are charged with education are not free no man can be because teachers make freedom for others.” (The Drive Toward Reason, pg. 40) The converse would also appear true – that the misguided teacher is in a peculiarly strategic position to warp the concepts of freedom. In any event a responsible, democratic public which blinks repression on free trade in ideas in the market-place will not indefinitely be either responsible or democratic.
To those who would keep things as they are, who recoil in dismay from a critical examination of the status quo, we would contend that to re-think, to re-examine, to criticize is not to be subversive. A backward look through the centuries provides convincing evidence that they progress of mankind has most often resulted from constructive discontent. When this country spends an estimated three billion dollars annually on research, can any reasonable person carp about the sanctity of the status quo? Re-examination, change, and movement are essential to our educational system. If there were no change, there would be no colleges!
This is not to imply for a moment that change is desirable solely for the sake of change or that all heretics are heroes. The independent thinker, the heretic, the non-conformist are entitled to protection but this is a far cry from condoning error or encouraging the wrong. What is maintained is that the free inquiry and eternal and unrelenting search are the best means yet devised by man for arriving at truth. Columbia’s Henry Steel Commager urges us to be aware of “the practical consequences of the attack upon independence of thought, non-conformity, dissent, which (in his view) is now gathering momentum everywhere in the land….” He envisages the following results: 1. “….that we shall arrive, sooner or later, at an official standard of orthodoxy or – to use the current term – loyalty …”; 2. “…first-rate men and women will not and cannot work under conditions fixed by those who are afraid of ideas…”; 3. and growing out of the other two, “the development in this country of the kind of society in which freedom of inquiry does not flourish, in which criticism does not flourish, in which originality does not flourish.” And, he believes, “This is no alarmist bugaboo; it is a development already underway.” (Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent, pp. 13-17)
We believe in intellectual freedom not only because the law and the Constitution provide a framework within which the scholar may roam with independence, but also because it is right. In this land which produced Thomas Jefferson, libertarian par excellence, it is an assumption of the democratic method that men will disagree and that they will be encouraged to express that disagreement in a responsible fashion. All are familiar, no doubt, with the oft-quoted wisdom of Judge Learned Hand, “We must not yield a foot upon demanding a fair field and an honest race to all ideas.” But note particularly the qualifications “fair” field and “honest” race. No reasonable person contends that intellectual freedom is absolute or that license should not be distinguished from liberty. Fortunately it is not my responsibility today to attempt to draw this line of demarcation. But all here would contend, I feel certain, that honest heretics should be distinguished from subversives, that the public and individual interest should be protected from gross irresponsibility, and that the law-breaker should receive his penalty. The restraints of honesty, moral consciences, social obligation, complete integrity, and the reasoned judgement of his academic peers are likewise assumed.
We are all indebted to Sidney Hook for pointing up so effectively the distinction between conspiracy and heresy. (In his book, Heresy, Yes – Conspiracy, No.) Of course we are opposed to Communist infiltration or to that of any other non-freeism. Of course we would root out the subversive, the disloyal, and all others who are committed to a conformist authoritarianism. But in pursuing the enemies of free intellectualism, we should be on guard lest we descend to approaches and procedures employed by the authoritarians themselves. The maxim, “The end justifies the means,” constitutes a questionable reed on which to lean in dealing with those to whom we are opposed. The wisdom as well as the integrity of our teaching should remove us from the slightest suspicion of advocating Communism as a philosophy or of harboring Communists as individuals. But for the college, as an educational process, to present the nature and the methodology of Communism is strikingly different from advocating Communism as a way of life. I am reminded of the letter form an irate father to his son away at college. “I understand,” wrote the distressed parent, “that your professors are teaching you about Communism.” “Yes, that is true,” replied the son. “They are teaching us about syphilis, too, but the college doesn’t recommend either!”
In the knowledge that certain segments of the American public resist and distrust the creative, imaginative scholar, we might well devote greater attention to a general understanding and appreciation of the nature of our task. Although I increasingly suspect the word “integration,” would we not in the long pull be more effective if we attempted more diligently to integrate ourselves with our communities? We need ever to strive for acceptance of cultural values as an essential part of the American way; to counter by our honesty and by our wisdom the notion that the intellectual is queer or separate and apart of lacking in virility. I recall the explosion of a midwestern leader of industry when a bothersome regulation of the so-called Roosevelt “Brain Trust” was promulgated, — “This unauthorized use of brains must stop!” Without resorting to intellectual exhibitionism or to a crass parading of our academic virtues, I believe that we could improve the general understanding of our central purpose and responsibility. When did each of us last address a non-professional audience on such subjects as “The Nature of the Liberal Arts” or the “Responsibility of the College in American Life”? I doubt if there is much danger that in marching around the walls of Jericho, we will over-do the blowing of our own horns!
With reference to our undergraduates, the intellectual cause will be strengthened if we can somehow de-emphasize the almighty degree. Too often the student (and in this instance I employ the word loosely!) stumbles his way through college to a degree without absorbing the central purpose of the educative process. Like the Maine farmhand who went to town for a load of provisions only to get the load but forget the provisions, this person gets the degree but forgets the education. Can we not urge students to re-examine their materialistic drives, their penchant for security, rigid conformity, and “playing it safe”; their resistance to the hard, laborious, but immensely satisfying, work of thinking? Should we not try harder to educate away from narrower provincialisms to wider perspectives? Can we not stress better digestion of the knowledge gathered in and a more meaningful relationship of masses of seemingly unrelated subject matter? If we can, then Commencements will be far more joyous days than they are.
One of the truly significant movements of our times is the emergence of tens of millions of under-privileged peoples – particularly in southeast Asia – into new national feeling, new self-respect, new places in the sun. With a large part of the world literally in revolution, we may be certain that the eyes of others are upon us. We must insist that the revolutionary doctrines of the Founding Fathers continue to burn as a beacon for all who would follow. Although in its very nature the current cold war constitutes a major diversion to intellectual pursuits, it is crucial how we are regarded by others. In the war of ideas between the totalitarian and the democratic camps, we have committed, our resources to the cause of human liberties. It is apparent that as men’s freedoms are preserved and extended throughout the outer world, we are increasingly safe; as they are circumscribed and beaten down, we are increasingly endangered. The intensity with which we defend out birthright does matter – not only to ourselves but to others.
Now comes the task of raising the lid and having a brief look at ourselves. What of the colleges and anti-intellectualism? Where is our strength? Are we vulnerable and, if so, where and to what degree? College faculties and administrations, by and large, are honestly and thoroughly devoted to intellectual freedom and the pursuit of truth. On balance, the American educational effort has achieved, and well deserves, a salutary respect both at home and beyond our geographical frontiers. We have staked out our goals, developed our philosophies, and accumulated a strong balance on the ledger’s credit side.
All evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, however, we are not Gods but men! We suffer occasionally from self-inflicted wounds. We receive some black eyes that are, unfortunately, deserved. And, to paraphrase Commodore Perry’s famous dispatch following the Battle of Lake Erie, “We must meet the enemy. He may not only be ours; he may be us!”
A college is not necessarily liberal or liberating simply because it is so named. It must be liberating in fact. The college experience should set free, should release, should result in liberal and decent attitudes towards the individual and the world about him. The proof of the pudding is in the product.
Complacency, false pride, dogmatism, self-righteousness, negativism, cynicism – if and when these exist, our efforts are weakened. When intellectualism retreats too far into the ivory tower; when it quarantines itself from the warmth of human environment and character; when it tolerates rather than appreciates the so-called “common man” as though men were created unequal; where it is non-social if not actually anti-social – in all such instances, not numerous, I trust, the critic scores a touch. The college is after all a social enterprise, and the intellectual who is all brains but not a warm, sensitive human being damages his cause – and ours – immeasurably.
Nor do faculty members best serve the cause of intellectualism when they are strangers one to another. Someone has said that too often our faculties suffer from that lingering disease dubbed “hardening of the categories.” When the teacher is arrogant or smug or unduly defensive about his own discipline, when he is disinterested in the contributions of his colleagues, when he cannot or will not meet them for a frank and full exchange of ideas and opinions, he evidences an isolationism and lack of respect which is unworthy of his profession. Faculties, like students, have a responsibility to attempt to bring together the parts into a cosmic whole.
Reference has already been made to the requirements of courage, honesty, and responsibility. We must likewise insist on genuine ability and capacity in those who would teach and lead. The seriousness of the task demands the best. And intellectual achievement stands to receive a body blow if in the next decade or two the widely predicted shortage of trained teachers materializes.
The intellectual cause is not well served by those who with light-hearted certainty give the easy answers, those who always define in simple terms and paint in whites and blacks. Nor is it well served by the administrator who gives the impression, at least, of evaluating his institution primarily in terms of brick and mortar and bathroom plumbing and stadium and student union, rather than in terms of faculty and library and laboratories.
The colleges welcome honest, constructive criticism. When we have fallen short, when we have not measured up to the full challenge of our obligation, the public is entitled to know that we are eager to strengthen our weak spots and shore up our academic walls whenever they need attention. But we would appreciate being judged on our entire effort and not solely on the occasional, the atypical, the deviator. For example, the occasionally heard rumor that college faculties are hot-beds of radicals and nests of dangerous revolutionaries is about as wide of the mark as any generalization could be. Colleges share with other institutions the custodianship of the historical heritage. Certain scholarship in its very nature exalts the past. All sound scholarship takes account of what has gone before. By and large scholarship makes us safer rather than endangers us. Some deans might even express hope that their faculties were not so conservative as they are!
This is no time for self-pity, or need we be apologetic about the nature of our over-all accomplishment. Honest candor compels us to admit, however, that we have not reached the promised land. But, with wisdom and honesty, let us stay on the rails and not be diverted from our goal. In the face of the attack, our obligation is all the more clear to give shelter and support to the constructive independent mind and to help intellectualism in its most abundant fruition to prosper. When we would be intimidated, may we not assume that courage is as infectious as fear? When it is dark enough, one can see the stars. As for myself, I suspect that we have turned a corner and that for the present, at least, the worst is over. I am proud of the defense of the intellectual role made by various leaders in our profession. I think of late I detect a rising swell of popular interest in the nature of intellectual freedom and the stake we all have in its nurture and development. Can any of you recall when so much was being written on freedom and, apparently, being widely read? I need only refer to such recent titles as Elmer Davis’ best seller, But We Were Born Free, Erwin D. Canham’s New Frontiers for Freedom, Professor Commager’s Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent, Bishop Oxham’s I Protest, Norman Thomas’ The Test of Freedom, and President Harold Taylor’s On Education and Freedom.
While accepting constructive and valid criticism on intellectuals and intellectualism, we shall, I trust continue to resist attacks made with ulterior motives and for personal or partisan advantage. With faith in our cause, with clarity of purpose, with the courage of honest conviction, and with a continuing dedication to the deep and satisfying task of stretching and freeing human minds, may we not calmly and confidently take the offensive? Intellectualism can be and should be practical. But the ultimate test is the extent to which the educated man is content within himself, has developed deep inner resources on which to draw, has contemplated the mysticism of life and the universe, and has, with humble sensitivity, attempted to relate himself to the unknown and the unknowable.
We are obligated and, I believe, entitled to hold our heads high as we look to the future.
