National Attitudes

TONGUES OF CONTROVERSY were loosed by President Butler in his address to the Columbia faculty last month. He served warning that those teachers who do not find themselves in agreement with the University in "the war between beasts and human beings" should delete themselves from the local scene. Without intimate knowledge of Columbia it is difficult to judge the fairness of or need for the statement. If other academic communities are a sample it would seem unnecessary for the president of a university to attempt to clear the air in so drastic a fashion when the air is not clouded in respect to loyalty to the defense program of the nation and sincere cooperation in its objectives.

The experience of the American Defense Dartmouth Group is a case in point. All members of the staffs of instruction and administration were asked by this defense committee in the College to indicate in which of several ways they would be willing to give their services and abilities to the task of organizing the Dartmouth community in relation to national defense.

The response was immediate and emphatic. Replies offered time and services generously. Many excellent suggestions were received of new activities for the Dartmouth Group to undertake. In the subsequent process of forming sub-committees, reported in the News of the College section of this issue, dozens of men and women on the official staff have already accepted roles in the defense organization of the College in willing and cooperative spirit, and others will be called upon as other activities get under way. Undergraduates are to be included for there is evidence of their interest and desire to volunteer for certain phases of the work.

As DESCRIBED ABOVE there has been and is the finest sort of cooperation in the academic community in assisting with the work of Professor Tobin's defense committee. Threatening faculty and staff with extreme measures upon any indication of lack of sympathy with the course to which the country is now committed would be a bombshell. Unless the spirit is entirely different at Columbia it is hard to understand what prompted President Butler's blast, although this was subsequently softened by his specific denial later of any intention to permit the "abandonment or qualification" of academic freedom.

PRESIDENT HOPKINS has discussed academic and student attitudes on three occasions this fall. His opening address in September on "Spurious Liberalism" called for constructive thought and united positive effort in place of the cynicism and skepticism of the recent past. The talk was published in this magazine last month.

A letter from Mr. Hopkins to Chairman Tobin on Dartmouth Defense is published in an adjoining column. The entire Dartmouth community, in which the alumni body is as always included, will be interested in this excellent and clarifying statement touching on questions of academic freedom. Readers will find President Hopkin's letter quite different in its liberalism compared with Dr. Butler's speech mentioned above.

In respect to student freedom the President's admonitory letter to the undergraduates is also quoted in full in this issue.