[March 23, 1920]
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Inaugural Address of President Barrows
Ladies and Gentlemen: I am deeply sensible of the solemnity of this moment, in which I have received from the President of the Board of Regents the symbol of office. For better or for worse, for an uncertain period, a part of the government of this great University is intrusted to me. I am conscious of your great interest and solicitude, and I cannot free myself from a sense of responsibility and concern. But your presence here, your splendid kindness in greeting me, the participation of the Governor of the State, of commanders of our Army and Navy, the heads and representatives of friendly institutions, and this great concourse, bid me accept this responsibility sensibly and without diffidence.
I have taken for the subject of my remarks Academic Freedom. I have chosen this topic in the hope that it may have a measure of interest for each and every one of us here. This is a place where I like to believe there has been cultivated a very noble form of that freedom which becometh a university. The original professorships were filled by men of character and great independence. For nearly twenty years this great body of students has been self-governing. There are no detailed regulations for the control of conduct on this campus, but our life finds its guidance and harmony in a daily emphasis on "the good of the University." This is a fit place in which to observe and define academic freedom.
Also we are met in the presence of friends, delegates, and students from other centers of learning, which from distances far and near have sent us spokesmen of their
American university organization, like American institutions generally, has departed boldly from the old European type from which it is remotely derived. The universitas of Europe's period of revived learning was a legal corporation of scholars, self-governing, self-perpetuating. Such corporations established themselves at Bologna, Paris, or Oxford, and received from the princes or ruling powers of that day special charters of privilege exempting them from secular jurisdiction--that is, they were given a freedom and autonomy which have survived as a great and noble tradition even to this day and to this remote shore. But with us the state university is an institution created by the commonwealth to serve its higher needs, responsible to the people. The corporation is a body of state servants (in our case of twenty-four) chosen in several ways, but so constituted as to be above the control of any personality or faction; regularly but slowly renewed, and able for this reason to initiate and realize
And here I am led to enquire, what is an academic community in the American republic, and particularly in this great western section of our republic where the state itself has been so solicitous to erect and sustain university institutions? Our academic company is a fellowship, not removed or cloistered from the common thought and busy activities of men, but a part of the community's stirring life and intimately associated in its leadership, and yet none the less distinguished from other callings by the fact that its men and women have chosen this work and this place because one and all, at one time or another, they have been deeply moved by a common experience. And the common experience is this--that all have apprehended that above all other joys of life is the joy of
This, I claim, is the experience which all men must have who would be worthy members of a university, and the first care of a university should be to so order itself as to make this experience a powerful and if possible a common recurrence to those who dwell here.
I realize that this may be a somewhat unattainable ideal; that for some the quest ends in weakness and discouragement; that in every academic community there are likely to be those upon whom this adventure has palled; that at all times
"Many have loved truth | |
And lavished life's best oil | |
Amid the dust of books to find her, | |
Content at last for guerdon of their toil | |
With the cast mantle she has left behind her;" |
and I realize also that perhaps most of us are destined to be inspired more by others' success than by our own, but none the less I believe that the force which assembles
"Love truth best who to themselves are true, | |
And what they dare to dream of dare to do; | |
They follow her and find her | |
Where all may hope to find, | |
Not in the ashes of a burnt-out mind, | |
But beautiful with danger's sweetness 'round her." |
It is, then, this searching, questing, unslaked spirit that makes such a company as ours a true university--a spirit that will not stop dismayed or fearful, but which writes at the head of each enterprise such a title as that which Professor Goldwin Smith gave to his last volume of his searching if insufficient essays, "No Refuge but in Truth."
Fit men who enter university life should enter it wisely disillusioned as to certain things. They should all cheerfully and discerningly appreciate at the start that there are no great material rewards, that they must, so far as regards any prospects which the university offers, live and die poor men--poor, that is, in the sense in which a very rich and generously spending nation uses that term. But there are further great privileges in the life which I think we may properly emphasize, for they should be ever present in our minds and they should be particularly held before that chosen element of our
One of the best of these privileges is the social advantage which the university professorship affords. I use this word social advantage in no common sense. I refer to the obvious fact that a man or woman holding a professorship in a university distinguished for its greatness of spirit and the soundness of its scholarship needs no other line of recommendation to admit him, world over, into the company of the most interesting persons and communities. He may expect to receive the courteous and attentive interest of governments and academies, literary and artistic groups, wherever he may wander and desire to make himself known. He can associate with the world's best men and women at all times and places upon the plane of perfect equality that neither requires nor admits any sacrifice of self-respect or any recognition of patronage from the great and powerful.
A great institution like our own naturally and easily wins as its guests the truly great and distinguished men and women who pass our way in their circuits of the earth. We, their modest entertainers, are able to converse with them on a ground of simple and respectful understanding. Surely this companionship with the truly noble is one of the finest privileges of life and one which a university affords in a manner that no other institution or circle can rival.
And intimately associated with this is the fellowship of ourselves, something so rare and so inspiring, so enriching in its experience and inspiration, that one who has dwelt for any length of time in an academic community feels life elsewhere somewhat barren and forlorn. It recalls what James Russell Lowell said in his Harvard anniversary address thirty-five years ago: "Nothing is
But perhaps the greatest attraction of university life, and the one which most distinguishes it is that embraced in my title, namely its freedom. I approach here a much discussed topic and one certainly preëminent among the interests of a university. What is meant by academic or university freedom? How is our life free above other men's lives? What are the true and proper limitations to our freedom and what are the hindrances to that freedom which university life in America has not succeeded in preventing?
I realize it is somewhat audacious for me to approach this subject so early in my experience because it is often charged that the American university president is the great trespasser upon university freedom, and he is frequently mentioned (I do not know with what propriety) as the tyrant of academic men's destinies. But I find myself prepared to admit this--that without freedom there can be no university.
I shall begin my analysis of what our freedom of life embodies with one of its less disputable points, namely its freedom from fixed engagements. It is the lot of men, for the most part, to be bound inescapably to their tasks, to have their work measured and apportioned by others, their methods prescribed, their products standardized. In most of these respects the academic man is free and he has an ample release from set engagements. Long experience in the organization of teaching has seemed to indicate that to do it well it must be done sparingly, that the number of times a week in which a man can give his best to a class, without exhausting the batteries of his
Another sort of freedom permissible in a university is freedom from artificial conventions of our complex society. In the midst of life increasingly busy with trivial employments and diversions, increasingly weighted with superfluous possessions, the life of university men is permitted to continue relatively simple, homely, plain. University standards permit us to live, if we please, in relatively unpretentious and comfortable homes, with only such furnishings and accessories as we choose to have because they actually contribute to our comfort and sense of pleasure, and to give our entertainment and intercourse a classical simplicity. This point may seem trivial to some, but it means a great deal that in a state which is tempted to such present-day extravagances and display as is the American nation, we may here, if we so desire, cultivate plainness and simplicity without diffidence or concern.
Finally, we come to that special freedom to which the term "academic freedom" is sometimes confined--freedom of teaching and of thought and utterance associated with it. This is undoubtedly the crucial point of our inquiry. Is a professor in a university, and above all in a state university, to be permitted to express himself without restraint? I am not sure that I represent the unanimous academic view, but as a practical answer I would say yes, once a man is called to be a professor. The earlier grades of academic advancement are necessarily probationary, but once the professorial status is conferred the scholar cannot thereafter successfully be laid under restraint. The bounds upon his action must be those of his own defining--the consciousness that he is speaking as one in authority, as one appointed to act with such consideration and courtesy as become a gentleman
An appointment to a professorship here with us, and I believe the same obtains generally in the most distinguished of our American institutions, is for life. I do not say that disloyalty to country or grossly immoral conduct are not reasons for summary removal, but, these considerations apart, a professorial appointment is practically a permanent engagement and the university which does not stand for this principle, even in the face of irritation and criticism, will in time be punished by a failure to command the interest of distinguished scholars. Doubtless it is the responsibility of the president, as occupying a position in which he is especially open to the effects produced by academic indiscretions, to counsel and to advise frankly, but I think he may not threaten, I think he may not advocate punishment. These last actions are incompatible with the democracy and independence essential to university fellowship.
Our main safeguard is wisdom in selecting the university personnel, and advancing to professorial grade. The
I appreciate that there are times which are exceptional, when men neither in a university nor in civil society generally may use their privilege of speech and criticism. War is such a season. As one who has known the restraints of a soldier, I do not sympathize with the extreme liberal view that expression of view should not be limited even in war. War is a highly abnormal experience in which thousands and millions of men, at utmost danger to their lives, forego all freedom, surrender all liberty to the necessary requirements of military discipline. And this being the situation of the men who fight, some measure of restraint is justifiable over the entire nation, that the army may suffer no increased hazard. And there may also be other crises in a state so acute, so disturbing, so painful to large numbers, as to necessitate a temporary suppression of free utterance, but normally the rule of academic freedom holds.
Having said this, I wish to distinguish a university as a place where those who belong to it have free utterance from a place where every comer may have freedom of speech. The two ideas are not consistent. The university is not an open forum. Its platforms are not free to the uninstructed or to those without repute. It is not a place where any sort of doctrine may be expounded by any sort of person. There is a public attitude that sometimes questions the right, particularly of a state university, to exclude any from public utterance in university halls. But just as the permanent members of a
I now come to my final point. What is the place of the president in this academic community and what his responsibility to this freedom? The President of the University of California is a member of its Academic Senate, he is a colleague of the teaching force as well as of the Regents and according to the bylaws of the University he is the normal avenue of communications between the two bodies. It seems to be his responsibility to draw all the various institutions which make up the University into a helpful arrangement with one another and assure their common development, and he is obviously the center and chief of a large staff to whom the administrative tasks of the University are entrusted. It is his duty to inform the Regents as to the University's needs, recommend financial provision for those needs and bring to the Regent's attention those academic policies upon which our Senate has concluded its consideration. It is obvious that he cannot, in such a community as ours, do these things except in the closest association with the academic life itself. It would be presumptuous and futile for him to attempt in a secretive or solitary manner to formulate an academic policy or to nominate to our membership. The University is a place dependent upon being friendly, and university matters can only be settled, in Sir Arthur Help's fine phrase, "by friends in council."
The President has responsibility to see that needed action is taken; that decisions are reached, though the decision may not be exactly his. But he can afford to assume very little of autocratic authority in such matters. Rather would he seem to be a point about which may
It is in this spirit at least that I approach this office which has been so lately conferred. I am sensible of its distinguished character, of its great opportunities, of the fine traditions we associate with it, of the friendship and esteem that surround it; but I am sensible also of its cares and its chagrins, of the fact that that very freedom which I have so extolled as the embodiment of the academic life is, by the nature of the presidential office among us, largely denied to it. No one who views it as I have been privileged to view it here, as student, as alumnus, as teacher, could approach it without reverence, without humility, and without a sincere disposition to give all that he possesses in order that our common life may be kept in those free and honest paths along which it has so well proceeded and which are leading us seemingly to heights of usefulness and influence of which no man can see the summits.
Courtesy of University Archives, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info
http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb938nb5bt&brand=oac4
Title: [1920/03/23] Inaugural Address of President David P. Barrows, University of California
By: Barrows, David Prescott, 1873-, Author
Date: 1920
Contributing Institution: University Archives, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info
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