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

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No study of the University of Pennsylvania would be complete which failed to mention that it was founded by Benjamin Franklin, and gave an honorary degree to Thomas Paine. Franklin’s doctrines, political and religious, could not be taught in any university in America today, while as for Paine, he could not keep out of jail in any state of the Union. Theodore Roosevelt described Paine as “a filthy little atheist,” which makes one think of Agassiz’s student, who defined a lobster as “a red fish that swims backwards.” There were only three things wrong with the definition, said Agassiz; a lobster is not red, it is not a fish, and it does not swim backwards. Thomas Paine was not filthy, he was not little, and he wrote: “I believe in one God and no more.” Paine first proposed the Declaration of Independence, he saved the American Revolution by his eloquence, and he will come into his own when Americans are free men. Meantime, the great university which honored him would not dare to mention his name, and his place in the academic sunshine is taken by the Rev. William A. Sunday, D.D.