Читать книгу The Goose-step: A Study of American Education онлайн

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We have seen President Lowell’s behavior when a group of Wall Street lawyers attempted to dictate to his university. We have next to investigate his attitude when it is his own intimates and financial supporters who are being attacked; when it is, not Wall Street, but State Street, which calls to him for help. Here again our Boston Brahmin has put himself on record, with exactly the same self-will and decisiveness—but, unfortunately, on the other side! We were promised some more evidence on the subject of Harvard in relation to Lee-Higginson and Edison Electric. Now we are to have it.

I am indebted for the details of the incident to Mr. Morris Llewellyn Cooke, an engineer of Philadelphia who was Director of Public Works under a reform administration. For a series of five years Mr. Cooke had been a regular lecturer at the Graduate School of Business Administration of Harvard University. He prepared two lectures on the public utility problem in American cities, which he gave at a number of universities, and was invited to give at Harvard. Mr. Cooke took the precaution to inquire whether he would be free “to discuss conditions exactly as they exist in the public utility field.” The reply was, in the magnificent Harvard manner: “I am desirous that your lectures be both specific and frank. I am anxious for the students to see clearly the real relation of local public utilities to the municipalities, and vice versa, and am not considering whether your remarks may hurt any one’s feelings.”