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:
Anxieties Among the Educators
(Continued from Preceding Page)
2) The civil rights of all citizens,
including social scientists, were
threatened by McCarthyism (as by
any movement that makes loose
accusations of treason). The ca-
reers of some social scientists were
seriously injured by McCarthyism.
Some college administrators could
have been more effective than they
were in protecting- their faculties
from these injuries.
3) Many social scientists were
worried about the relation of their
political views to their careers. We
do not know how important they
found these fears or how justified
they were holding them. We do
not know the extent to which these
fears were products of McCarthy-
ism.
4) Over 20 per cent of the social
scientists were cautious. We do not
know if cautiousness was stimu-
lated by the national political
situation, by McCarthyism in par-
ticular, or by local political condi-
ttons. We also do not know how
justified these teachers were in
their cautiousness.
5) The practices of college ad-
ministrators can lower the likeli-
hood of cautiousness, if not of
worry.
6) We do not know how many
social scientists were disloyal to
the United States in thought or
deed.
HOWEVER we interpret their
findingsLazarsfeld and Thie-
lens do document the presence of
anxieties of serious proportions.
We cannot ignore the fact that
almost a fifth of the social sci-
entists in Arferica's colleges
thought their college's administra-
tion had a "political file or dossier
on every faculty member." Over a
fourth wondered if some political
opinion they had expressed would
harm their academic careers. Over
a third had considered the possi-
bility that someone at an institu-
tion to which they were thinking
of moving had made inquiries con-
cerning the professor's political,
views-.
TO EVALUATE Lazarfeld's find- a faculty, the legislator and Judge
ings about worry and caution, of what knowledge is most vali-
we need perspective on the task of able. There are inescapable po-
colleges in societies such as our flitical implications in such choices.
own.
The colleges are expected to con-
serve, present, and extend that
knowledge which leads to the most
valid understanding of the world
and the self. From the importance
of that task _the colleges derive
their support. From their perform-
ance of that task they.also reap
'distrust.
It is true, but too simple, to say
that the colleges are distrusted
just because they are entrusted
with impressionable young minds.
We have seen, first, that there,
is some public distrust of all spe-
cialists. Second, the faculty of a
college does work which is in-
herently subversive of custom.
Since a faculty cannot teach every-
-thing, it must select that which is
worthy of preservation; discard or
put into dead storage that which
is of lesser significance. Since all
that is known cannot be the sub-
ject of a faculty's limited resources
for resea'rch, it must decide what
is worthy of continued investiga-
tion.
Choices of this order make of
WHEN the college undertakes
the functions of a university,
these political implications in-
crease.,
The functions of a university do
not inhere simply in the granting
of graduate or professional de-
grees. A-university is an institu-
tion in which the knowledge most
significant for human affairs.,is, in
Whitehead's words, "lighted up
with imagination."'
A university promotes, as he
says, "the imaginative considera-
tion of the various general prin-
ciples" underlying knowing in
general and the bringing of order
into particular bodies of knowl-
edge.-"Its students thus pass into
their period of . . apprenticeship
with their imaginations . prac-
tised in connecting details with
general principles. The routine
then receives- its meaning, and
also illuminates the principles
which give it that meaning."
Imaginative learning is, by defi-
nition, concerned with novelty. It
views what is already known in
fresh perspectives. It uncovers un-
suspected possibilities. One -can-
not foresee when it will undermine
even the most sacred of existing
conceptions. It is this freedom
from the historically immediate
that imaginative rationality pro-
vides.
Like other ideals, it is an ever-
lasting critic and solvent of the
presently actual in which it is im-
perfectly represented. In this set-
ting we can appreciate the im-
portance for -the society as well
as the scholar of loose accusa-
tions of disloyalty. (And let us
be clear 'that while, as we shall
see, social scientists are likely to
be liberals, it is highly improbable
that more than an infinitesimal
fraction are traitors or sympathe-
tic to totalitarianism, whether
Russian or otherwise.)
Relaxation is a method of breaking up
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