That Men May Understand
A Challenging Defense Against Witch-Hunting Critics By the Author of Widely Used School Textbooks
I AM DEEPLY GRATEFUL tO the ALUMNIMAGAZINE for this opportunity to give Dartmouth men the facts and circumstances involved in the current nation-wide attack on education by a group of self-appointed censors. A score of professors and their books and magazines are being blacklisted, my own social science materials bearing the brunt of the attack. The charges against us are utterly false, yet they are believed by millions of Americans. Reputations are being destroyed. Hysteria is being whipped up in hundreds of communities. Fear is being created in thousands of teachers and administrators.
I am convinced that education is being invaded, in the name of "Americanism," by methods which may even destroy the very foundations of The American Way.
It is said that my colleagues and I are Communists, fifth-column agents of Moscow (once or twice it was fifth-column Nazis!), that we are un-American, that we "poison the minds of the young". .. ."have a conspiracy to spread Communism".... "jplan to substitute a new social order for our American government". .. .would "regiment private enterprise".... "cause pupils to rebel against all authority." I could go on with many more, but this sample of quotations is sufficient to indicate the range and general nature of all the charges.
Flatly, categorically, I deny every one. I am not a Communist. I have never been a Communist. I have never been affiliated with the Communist Party, directly or indirectly, in any way whatsoever. I am not a Socialist. I have never been a Socialist, never a member of the Socialist Party; never have I taken part in the work of that party.
I am convinced that the Russian Communist dictatorship of Josef Stalin and his associates, the German Nazi regime of Hitler, the Italian Fascist regime of Mussolini, and all other totalitarian governments of the world are completely antidemocratic and are enemies of all that we in America hold most dear. They are tyrannical, imperialistic, and ruthlessly barbaric, utterly lacking in respect for human life, personality and character, for the integrity of human relations and the freedom and equality of the peoples of the earth.
II The present attack on liberalism in education is not the first of its kind. It is true that this one is nation-wide, more virulent, and promises to last longer and to set back the work of the schools more than any previous one. But it has happened before. Five times since the World War a wave of censorship has rolled up on the schools.
As I write there stands behind me a fourfoot shelf of conflict about "un-Americanism" in the schools. It is a twenty-year docu mentary record—newspaper clippings.... articles and cartoons from national magazines. . . .scrap-books and folders. . . . pam phlets, bulletins, and official reports.... chapters clipped from b00k5.... transcriptions of records of hearings and court actions. .. .stenographic records of Hearst newspaper interviews, what-not.
Altogether there are thousands of items covering five recurring waves of censorship in the schools. If these were plotted on a time-line they would coincide fairly closely with the ups and downs of the curves of general social hysteria and conflict. This shelf represents a meagre sample of the whole national literature of conflict; but it is a representative sample and it contains the key items.
Does it indicate nation-wide popular protest? It does not. Although six to eight million Americans have buzzed with questions about Rugg and his books since 1939, the entire phenomenon is a record of controversies initiated and kept alive by a few hitherto unknown persons standing in strategic places and with access to powerful national means of communication and community action.
The attack today is an almost exact replica of the earlier waves of witch-hunting. Consider as a single example the patrioteers' denunciation of ten historians and their textbooks—D. S. Muzzey, W. M. West, A. B. Hart, at al—which came after the Red Scare of 1919-1921 and lasted several years.l Then as now, lt was initiated by professional publicity men and patrioteers. The charges were "un-Americanism," "subversiveness." Hearst newspapers, national popular magazines, and the "Americanism" chiefs of national patriotic organizations broadcast the attack. —Special propaganda organizations were formed. —New "Patriot Leagues" inspired and sponsored bills censoring the schools in the legislatures of various states. —Local political factions used the fight to aid them in ousting local school officials. —Associations of teachers and other lib- eral groups appointed committees and passed resolutions counter-attacking the ac- cusers and supporting the historians. —The Teachers Union of New York City and local committees of teachers in other places rose to the defense of freedom of teaching.
My own books were not attacked in the witch-hunt of 1921-1926. But in 1927 and again in 1934 they were. In the latter epANOTHER isode publicity spread all over New England. President Hopkins read several of the books at that time, congratulated me on the work, and included this comment in the citation of the honorary doctorate which he and the College Trustees conferred upon me at the following Comm encement: "in the forthrightness of your utterances, you have aroused the disapprobation of intolerant minds and you have encouraged the hostility of advocates of special privilege "
III What's the fuss all about? What are the Rugg books? No doubt the sons and daughters of many of my fellow Dartmouth alumni have studied them, for they have been in use in more than 5000 schools during the past ten years—in use, I might add, with approval by parents as well as teachers and students. For those who may not know about them, I shall indicate briefly what they are and how they came to be made.
They are now a series of twenty social science textbooks under the general tide Man and His Changing Society? used in all grades from the third to the senior high school.
They are the outcome of twenty-one years of work in the experimental development of new reading and study materials for young Americans. The first nine years of this work was done in the Lincoln School of Teachers College, Columbia, the other twelve while I served as Professor of Education in the College. I went to Lincoln on January 1, 1920, after having spent some ten years in changing over slowly from the field of civil engineering to engineering education and then to general education and teacher training. The total output of my work can be summed up in outline: First (1920-1922), a thousand pages of mimeographed materials for young people, dealing with immigration, town and city life, industries and trade, geographic factors in American life, conservation of natural resources, and the like.
Second (1922-1923), the first printed edition of The Social Science Pamphlets... .ten booklets, ranging from 118 to 289 pages each, des igned, published, and used experimentally in about a hundred places. From 1922-1929 these Pamphlets were financed through the splendid cooperativeness of hundreds of public school administrators and teachers who subscribed for copies to be used in "experimental classes."
Third (1923-1927), the second printed edition of The Social Science Pamphlets, twelve 300-page books, used in 375 cooperating schools.
Fourth (1927-1931), the twelve Social SciencePamphlets were made over into the first commercial edition of six junior high school volumes issued by Ginn and Company from 1929 to 1932.
Fifth (1933-1937), Louise Krueger (Rugg), Director o£ The Walt Whitman School, New York City, and I designed and wrote eight books for Grades 111 to VI inclusive.3
Sixth (1936-1941), the junior high school series was systematically reconstructed.4 The old books were revised and brought up to date; two new ones were prepared.
This is the bare statistical record of twenty-one years of work: 25,000 pages of printed materials read and studied by several million young Americans.
IV The title of this article and of my forthcoming book sounds the basic theme running through the whole enterprise—thatmen may understand. That a generation of young Americans may grow up and come to understand American life and moderncivilization and to make Democracy really work.
Throughout the years I have tried to see education this way: In the center of the picture I have visualized young Americans working at the task of understanding America and its problems. I have seen them scrutinizing and appraising the giant capacity of the continental vineyard, the vintage now obtained from it, the ways and means of making the harvest com- mensurate with the capacity. I have seenthem courageously confronting life as it isactually lived in America. But above all else, I have seen them building a great enthusiasm for the potential economic and spiritual abundance which lies across the threshold of the new epoch of modern history now being ushered in.
I am convinced that the only hope of making the American Way work lies in the education of a large body of citizens whounderstand the forces at play in our own land and abroad and who are concerned to do something about them. I feel sure that they can solve America's problems and build a magnificent civilization on our continent if they choose to do it with vigor and dispatch. And the new education is turning out the kind of youth, with understanding and intelligence, who can help greatly to do the job.
V In the Pamphlets and in Man and HisChanging Society we have tried to build that understanding by giving the young people of America an honest and dramatic account of advancing civilization. The emphasis is on America—more than half the content of the books—but other countries and peoples, past and present, are pre- sented also. We tried to prepare a total word portrait of contemporary society. In our early work in the Pamphlets we em- phasized modern industrial peoples in ac- tion: Man-making-and-doing, producing food, shelter and clothing, transporting and communicating, buying and selling, moving about and governing. We scarcely touched the esthetic and "cultural" sides of life. But we soon learned that this was too limited a view of civilization. A total portrait would require study of all phases of man's life—his social institutions, his family and community life, government, language, his use of science and art; the psychology of the people, what they have in their heads, their attitudes and ideas, the climates of opinion in which they live. And all had to be seen in historical perspective, and in the never-ending process of change. Every bit of history given had to have some clearly established functional justification.
VI Where did this huge body of materials come from? Those who attack us and our books intimate that we made them up, more or less without documentation, to "sell a new social order" to the youth of America. Actually they are the product of years of study of the works of profound scholars of the social scene. It is impossible to do more than hint here at the twenty years of hard study and painstaking research that went into the making of my own educational materials.
There were three difficult jobs to be done: first, building personal insight concerning the foundations of modern civilization; second, the technical job of locating and documenting a vast mass of episodes, narratives, descriptions, problems, statistical facts, generalizations, what-not; third, the writing of thousands of pages of study materials for young people.
The first and third jobs I had to do largely myself, but on the second I needed help—and lots of it. I borrowed thousands of dollars and brought sixteen competent research assistants into my group during the four years 1923-1927. Most of them stayed several years, working at the same time toward doctor's degrees in Teachers College, and then moved on to university posts of distinction. They were actually financed from the sale of the Pamphlets, 750,000 copies of which were distributed in the seven years; the total amount spent in these seven years on research was $8O,OOO.
The spirit of the enterprise has been one of experimentation with children and youth to find the best educational organization to build understanding. We did not flinch at the trial and retrial of reading and practice materials. Experimentation was part of our creed. Four times we scrapped several thousand pages of type and began again.
VII This, in briefest outline, is the enterprise which a few self-appointed censors are trying to destroy. Who are these persons? Do they voice the judgment of the American public? They do not. Here is the general staff of the group: 1. Merwin K. Hart, of Utica, New York, and New York City; executive of his personally organized New York State Economic Council.
2. Bertie C. Forbes, of Englewood, New Jersey, and New York City; for many years a columnist for the Hearst newspapers, and publisher of his own magazine "Forbes."
3. Major Augustin G. Rudd, of Garden City, Long Island, N. Y., former U. S. Army man, business executive and active in the American Legion.
4. Homer L. Chaillaux, of Indianapolis, Indiana; Director National Americanism Commission of the American Legion, who has attacked "progressive" practices in schools and colleges.
5. E. H. West, of Haworth, New Jersey, and New York City; business executive; active in the American Legion.
6. Major General Amos A. Fries, of Washington, D. C.; retired U. S. Army man; Editor of "Friends of the Public Schools," a periodic bulletin frequently attacking the work of certain public schools.
7. Elizabeth Dilling, of Kenilworth, Illinois; wealthy author and publisher of The RedNetwork-, lecturer on "Un-Americanism" and the danger of communistic tendencies in America.
These few persons make up the spearhead of the present attack on the schools. To them must be added at least two professional writers who have written and published articles against the schools in national mass-circulation magazines.
i. George E. Sokolsky, of New York City; wrote three articles in Liberty in 1940, reaching millions of readers and causing unrest and suspicion about the schools.
2. O. K. Armstrong, of Springfield, Missouri: active in the American Legion; writer of "Treason in the Textbooks," which appeared in the American Legion Magazine, in September, 1940.
Are these persons qualified to judge the work of those who have been trying to bring a true picture of American life in the schools? Do their judgments merit unquestioned support? Their objections are not based on scientific study. They are neither educators, nor scholars of the social scene.
VIII The influence of these persistent ene mies of liberalism, if working alone as individuals, would no doubt have been insufficient to stir up suspicion the country over. But their present success is due in large part to the fact that they have had access to the facilities of national agencies, the principal ones being: 1. The Hearst newspapers with their affiliated syndicated features, reaching many millions of readers, daily and weekly.
2. National patriotic organizations with memberships totaling several million.
3. Several of the largest and most powerful national business organizations with vast sums of money set aside to carry on such "reform" work.
4. The American Parents Committee on Education formed by Hart, at al, in the spring of 1940. Their office distributes reprints of articles and other materials dealing with liberalism in the schools.
IX Is their attack on the schools effective? It is indeed. A shocking example is at hand. In the first week of September, 1940, The American Legion Magazine carried O. K. Armstrong's article "Treason in the Textbooks" into a huge number of American homes. It is open before me on my desk, with its two cartoons stretching across two pages. In one a leering, bony teacher is grinning down at wonder-eyed American boys and girls. From scrawny hands slime drips down upon four books, labelled respectively "Constitution".... "Religion".... "U. S. Heroes". ...' U. S. History." In the other, the same devil-like teacher is fitting black glasses on the eyes of a young boy and girl who are reading a book called "The American Way of Life."
What reception did the article get? In many cases it probably was not read at all, in others no doubt it was received with indifference. A few Legionnaires5 who read it knew personally the educators and institutions it attacked and protested vigorously to Legion headquarters. Many non-Legionnaires, among them eminent educational leaders all over the country, denounced it. Soon certain Legion officers were writing letters giving half-hearted retractions of the charges against Scholastic magazine and certain of the other blacklisted publications. There was no retraction at all, however, of the attack on my books. There was no apology for the cartoons, for smearing the teachers of our whole country.
Protests and retractions notwithstandi ng, many "Americanism" officers, scattered in local communities throughout the country, brought the matter before local school boards and school superintendents and demanded that the Rugg books, Scholastic Magazine, and other publicationsblacklisted by Armstrong be investigated.In some cases—we have clear proof of this—they demanded and secured the exclusion of the attacked materials from theschools.
I have never seen such an effective example of organized pressure on the schools in all my experience. Within two weeks from the time the article reached the public, Scholastic magazine (of which I am merely a contributing editor) received 16,000 cancellations. In communities around New York City, in Westchester County, on Long Island, and in New Jersey, pressure by Legionnaires compelled school boards to call special meetings to discuss "the Rugg books." In places where this happened my books had been used for from six to ten years with wholehearted approval by students, teachers, administrators, and parents.
So the power of a million-circulation magazine—provided it is the official organ of a national patriotic society with local representatives who feel obligated to get direct community action—is demonstrated.
X From 1921 to 1926 and at times in the years since, other patriotic organizations have engaged in the same kind of hunt. Officers make repeated pronouncements in the press urging the removal of my books from the schools of local communities. Speeches are made before local, regional, and national meetings. The most powerful weapon used, however, is the personal face-to-face work of the local and district representatives. Letters are sent from national headquarters directing these people to find out "if the Rugg books are used in the local schools," and, if they are, to exert influence to have them removed.
In April, 1940, I personally met two of these district representatives, one in New Mexico, the other in Montana, at threeday regional meetings of the Progressive Education Association. In each case the representative told me she had received a letter from "headquarters" urging the removal of the Rugg books from the schools of her region. In each case the representative had listened to my lectures with approval, found no basis for attacking my work, indeed decided to do all possible to keep me in the schools. But these were only two. How many "letters from headquarters" have had more successful results?
One important caution! My references to the use of the machinery of national organizations do not apply to the members generally: Most of them are unaware of the activities of their officers—especially the "Americanism" officers. Indeed many of the Americanism officers in the Legion took no part in the attack caused by the Armstrong article.
XI Once more then, and more explicitly than before, what are the charges against us? Armstrong himself sums them up systematically, so I quote him: We are working, he said: "1. To present a new interpretation of history in order to 'debunk' our heroes and cast doubt upon their motives, their patriotism, and their service to mankind.
"2. To cast aspersions upon our Constitution and our form of government, and shape opinions favorable to replacing them with socialistic control.
"3. To condemn the American system of private ownership and enterprise, and form opinions favorable to collectivism.
"4. To mould opinions against traditional religious faiths and ideas of morality, as being parts of an outgrown system.""
XII I hereby deny categorically that there is the slightest vestige of truth in these and other similar "charges."
It is to be regretted that a situation can be built up in our country in which it becomes necessary to deny attacks of this kind. I do so only after years of silence and at the urgent request of teachers, supervisors, colleagues, and friends. Those who know me and those who have read and understood the books—and these include tens of thousands of students and teachers and parents who have used them for almost twenty years—know that the stateAmerican ments made above do not describe my philosophy or my work.
A careful analysis of the materials in my four-foot shelf reveals no fewer than seven ways in which these and other opponents of liberal work misinterpret such work in the schools: 1. They lie outright. 2. They lift out of context....omit vital parts of text. 3. They use innuendo and name-calling. 4. They grossly exaggerate. 5. They twist the author's meanings. б. They connect things the author never intended to be connected. 7. They drag in utterly irrelevant matters.
There may be still other ways, but these are sufficient to illustrate their methods of work. I regret that lack of space prevents a full discussion of each of these. I can refer only to a few of the most flagrant examples.
I am accused of saying that "The American Way" is wrong, or that it is a failure. I have never said this. I do not believe it. On the contrary, my books have been written to show that the American standard of living is the highest on the earth today and higher than that of any major country at any earlier stage of history. .. .that the United States is the greatest haven of liberty in the w0r1d.... that the American people have the most favorable opportunity of any people in history to build a civilization of physical and spiritual abundance, of true democracy, and of real integrity of expression.
I am accused of advocating the overthrow of the capitalist system. I have never done so. Indeed I have never believed, and do not believe today, that the process of social change in America should or will abolish that system in our time.
Moreover, I have never believed in or preached social reconstruction by any means except through education. I do not believe and have never believed that the American people will ever resort to the use of violence or any other non-democratic method to bring about social change.
XIII So much for what I do not believe. What do I believe? Obviously I cannot write in a few paragraphs an adequate statement of my total philosophy in its economic, social, political, and educational ramifications. I should like, however, to give a succinct summary of a few features of it.
First: I subscribe with great enthusiasm and loyalty to the historic American version of the democratic process.
Second: I believe that The American Way of progress is the way of free discussion of free men, of the totally unrestricted play of intelligence upon the problems and difficulties of our people. It is basically, therefore, the way of education.... the way of study. . . .study by grown-ups. .. . study by youth. .. .study by children. But the study must be focussed directly upon problems, whether or not they are controversial. To keep issues out of the school is to keep life out of it.
Third: I believe that general policy-making for America shall be left to the majority vote of all American citizens after full and free discussion.
Fourth: I believe that the social-economic changes and reforms necessary in this country can be accomplished, and should be accomplished, under the American Constitution and the present framework our government.
Fifth: I believe that these necessary socialeconomic changes can be brought about only through thorough and long-time study by competent experts in economic, political, and social affairs.
Sixth: I believe in private enterprise. I am convinced, and have repeatedly published my conviction, that the magnificent achievement of our people in clearing the North American continent and in building upon it the structure of the world's greatest production-plant could have been brought about under no other system than that of private enterprise.
But I believe equally in social enterprise. The history of America has proved that the most effective plan for an efficient and just society is to carry on some activities by private enterprise and others by public or social enterprise. The one true test to distinguish which shall be private and which public is the public good, the general social welfare, not the aggrandizement of individuals. I believe, and teach, that we should leave the play of inton. dividual imagination and initiative as free as is consonant with the larger social welfare. And we should do this in as many areas of life as human ingenuity can contrive.
I also teach that the one critical test with which to decide at what point an individual's freedom conflicts with the public good is the result of actual experience with private enterprise. I teach that in a century and a half our people have learned that because of proved danger to the public good in our complex, interdependent society, some community activities have had to be taken out of the realm of private enterprise and managed solely by the people-as-a-whole, that is, by government. For example: the defense of the nation as a whole; the provision of community water supply; the protection of life, health, and property in states and communities; the education of children and adults; the provision of highways, bridges, roads, and the like. A century and a half ago these and other enterprises were left to private initiative; today they are chiefly managed by government. Economists estimate that from 30 to 40 per cent of our group life is now socially managed —most of it without objection from ind ividual citizens on the ground that it encroaches on their freedom; indeed most of them see that such social control in the long run really gives them greater freedom.
How far will this combination of private and social enterprise be extended? I do not know; nor does anybody else. Will it extend into housing? farming? banking and credit? manufacturing? transport? communication? power? merchandising? We do not know.
But I also teach that there are ways to find out which next steps will probably be most effective: make a careful study of the basic trends, movements, and factors in American life and the present conditions and problems which have been precipitated by them. From all those data the task is to design the best plan for the future that our ablest leaders can contrive, to try that plan out, to revise it in the light of experience, even make a totally different plan and try that out, etc. This is our surest recourse. It is The American Way of progress. That is what I teach.
If there is to be a lesson for America in the story of the present attacks on the new education it is that eternal vigilance is still the price of liberty. The censors of the schools are active and persistent men; the radius of their influence extends far and wide; and they work in close collaboration with others of like minds. If their attacks upon the schools are to be beaten off the citizens in the communities of America must be vigilant and insist on public study and decision of all such controversial issues.
1 The whole story of this attack and others is traced in my forthcoming book That MenMay Understand (Doubleday, Doran and Company, New York—March, 1941).
2 Published since 1929 by Ginn and Company, Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Columbus, Dallas, and Atlanta.
3 The First Book of the Earth NaturePeoples Communities of Men Peoplesand Countries The Building of America.. . . .Man at Work: His Industries Man atWork: His Arts and Crafts MankindThroughout the Ages. 4 Volumes in the Junior high school course: An Introduction to American Civilization Changing Civilizations in the Modern World.... .A History of American Civilization AHistory of American Government and Culture.....An Introduction to Problems ofAmerican Culture Changing Governmentand Changing Cultures. New and Revised Volumes in the Junior high school course: Our Country and Our People ChangingCountries and Changing Peoples TheConquest of America America's MarchToward Democracy.
5 Notably Lt. Col. David A. Smith of Ohio, and Dr. Clark Frazier, Past Commander for the State of Washington, who denounced it and demanded retractions of the charges.
6 Legion Magazine, September, 1940; pp. 51,70.
