The situation confronting a would-be writer of school text-books in the United States is as follows: If he writes on astronomy, engineering, or Spanish grammar, he may write the truth; but if he writes on history, economics, or literature, he either writes dishonest books, or he writes no books.
Says Professor James Harvey Robinson, author of “The Mind in the Making”: “No publisher of text-books for the schools would venture to permit a writer to give children the best and most authoritative knowledge that we have today.” Says Mr. Aaron Sapiro, attorney for the Farmers’ Co-operative Societies: “The text-books we now use are censored by political and social factions.” Says Mr. William McAndrew, member of the board of education in New York: “The text-books which are supposed to discuss our civic problems do not know enough to keep a women’s whist club from financial and moral bankruptcy.”
I have a letter from Mr. S. M. Dinkins, principal of a private school at Selma, Alabama, who tells me about his experience with a text-book, “Problems of American Democracy,” by Professor R. O. Hughes. Mr. Dinkins found this book so unsatisfactory in its attitude toward modern questions that he wrote to the professor, and received in reply the statement: “I know my publishers would be pleased to learn that my readers cannot tell from my book what my own opinions about many questions really are.” Mr. Dinkins was so much troubled by this that he wrote to the publishers, Allyn and Bacon of Boston, to ask them if that could possibly be true; it took Mr. Dinkins two months of continuous letter-writing before he finally got from the publishers a reply to the effect that school authorities would not adopt any other kind of book, and publishers had to meet the demand; they did not care to publish a book that would not sell.
That many college professors have taken up the role of “Mr. Facing Both-Ways,” adjusting their opinions to the demands of the school bosses and school-book publishers, is amusingly shown in the pamphlet published by Commissioner Hirshfield. He takes some American history text-books and gives us in parallel columns the statements which were made before and after the patriots got to work. For example, here is Dr. W. B. Guitteau, director of schools of Toledo, Ohio, who published a text-book in 1919, with a preface urging the international point of view:
Throughout this book, therefore, special emphasis has been placed upon the relations of the United States to other countries, in order that the young citizens who study it may realize more fully the importance of our world relations and our world responsibilities.
But then the hundred percenters got after Dr. Guitteau, and he brought out a new edition of his book in 1923, and started his preface with this statement:
Recent events have demonstrated that our teaching of history should emphasize more than ever before the peculiar and characteristic genius of American institutions, and the permanent and outstanding assets of American democracy.
Or take Professor Everett Barnes, who published an American history book in 1920, in which he described the battle of Bunker Hill as follows:
The courage shown on both sides was wonderful. To march, as those British soldiers did up to the works, so near that each one felt that the man who was aiming at him could not miss, required a nerve as steady as was ever shown on battlefield since men began to kill each other.
But then the super-patriots landed on Professor Barnes, and there was a new edition of his book in 1922, in which the incident is told as follows:
The courage shown on both sides was wonderful. “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes,” said the American commander, who knew that their supply of ammunition was small, and that his men did not have enough bayonets to be used successfully in meeting the charge of the British.
I could take up a great deal more space with this kind of fun; but instead I will go on to mention that there are in America a few educators who have not been willing to play the part of Professor Facing Both-Ways. One of these men is Scott Nearing. He had three text-books on economics, all written in collaboration with some other person. These text-books enjoyed the greatest popularity; for example, the “Elements of Economics” had seventy-five per cent of the field; also “Community Civics” had a big sale. But after Nearing was kicked out of the University of Pennsylvania for his loyalty to the truth, the sale on these text-books stopped. When I talked with him in 1922 he told me that his publishers had not made a contract on them in two years, and they were about to bring out new editions without Scott Nearing’s name!
As it happens, I am able to tell Nearing exactly how he lost some of this business. I have mentioned Mr. W. H. Powell, editor of the “Courier” of Ottumwa, Iowa, who haled a college professor before the state legislature for the crime of referring to the “English Industrial Revolution,” and for listing the I. W. W. as a labor organization. Mr. Powell is naively proud of his achievements, and has written to a friend of mine, telling about them. So let us hear one of these Bolshevik hunters speaking for himself:
I discovered, along in 1918—late in the year—that our high school was using and had been using for about eight years, Burch and Nearing’s “Principles of Economics.” Nearing had made himself notorious during the war and I thought a book by him, on whatever subject, would not be a good thing to have in our schools. I suggested that much through a reporter, to the superintendent of schools, but he replied that the board was under contract to use the book, or had bought a certain number on a contract, and it could not be eliminated. I may say that we supply text-books here at public expense.
Inquiry developed that there were only perhaps a hundred of these books in use and as each was worth less than one dollar, the expense didn’t seem to me to be prohibitive. I got a copy of the book and found in it some matter decidedly socialistic and radical. Then I canvassed the school board members and found none of them had ever read the book. The superintendent admitted he never had read it and the teacher who had charge of the class in which it was being studied told me he hadn’t read the text ahead of the day to day lessons. The principal of the high school hadn’t read it, either. In fact, I seemed to be about the only one in town who knew what was in the book.
But the members of the board backed the superintendent, who didn’t want to stir up a quarrel with book publishers. Finally, however, he changed front and our first mention of the affair, publicly, was an announcement in the news columns that he had ordered the book out of the course of study. Thus we gave him credit for the move.
In the meantime, however, I had discovered that two other objectionable texts were being used at the high school—David Saville Muzzey’s American History, and “Outlines of European History—Part II,” by Robinson and Beard. Muzzey’s book is socialistic, or pro-socialistic, and it is rankly unfair in its treatment of several subjects, in my opinion. The Robinson and Beard book had been thrown out of the Seattle schools in the summer of 1918 because of its pro-German taint. It was re-written twice during that summer by Professor James Harvey Robinson, according to the information given me by a representative of the publishers—Ginn and Company. Robinson is a more or less radical professor and Beard had been the subject of considerable adverse comment during the war.
We took the position that regardless of its text, a book by those men was not a fit volume to have in the hands of boys and girls. We held that Muzzey’s book condemned itself, as did Nearing’s.
And then Mr. Powell goes on to tell how the superintendent of schools sold these Nearing books second-hand, for use in schools in Indiana, price ten cents per copy. Mr. Powell was not complaining about this sacrifice price—quite the contrary, he thought the books should have been burned, and he says that “this sale turned public sentiment against the superintendent.” He does not tell us, but we are permitted to guess, that the Ottumwa “Courier” may have had something to do with the turning of public sentiment in the matter!
Another educator who is entitled to honorable mention is Professor Willis N. West, historian. I have told in “The Goose-step” how Professor West was kicked out by the Black Hand of the University of Minnesota. His admirable text-book on American history has been kicked out of schools in various parts of the country, because it tells the truth about the buying of state and national governments by the corporations. Mr. Ray McKaig tells me how the gang went after this history in Boise, Idaho. The Nonpartisan League being so strong, they did not dare attack the book on political grounds; but they discovered that Professor West described General Grant as a simple-minded soldier, and General Lee as a noble figure. They brought this to the attention of the G. A. R., and the old veterans attended to the matter!
I have before me a letter from Gilson Gardner, Washington correspondent of the Scripps newspapers, and a well-known liberal. Mr. Gardner tells his own experience as a writer of text-books:
Largely for my own amusement, but with a view to making a little more pleasant the task of high school students in approaching political economy, I wrote a little book called “The New Robinson Crusoe.” It was put out by that thoroughly staid and respectable firm, Harcourt & Brace. The book did nothing but illustrate in a microcosm the commercial and economic system of our world as it is. There was no attempt at suggesting a remedy such as Socialism or Communism, nor any effort at propaganda. So at least it seemed to my mind in writing it, and so it seemed to the mind of Mr. Harcourt. He thought it would be an excellent book for side reading in high school economics courses, and took it as a commercial prospect. In addition to the regular edition, he printed 250 copies in pamphlet form, which were sent to high school teachers with letters asking them to look it over and give their opinion. Harcourt showed me letters received from teachers, which run about as follows:
“I am a teacher in such and such a high school and teach political economy. I have read ‘The New Robinson Crusoe,’ and find it very interesting. I should like to recommend it to my pupils, but you know as well as I do that the day I make such a recommendation I would lose my job. Our supervisors will not stand for that amount of truth in regard to our political and economic system. How did you come to print the book?”
I was told of many cases of text-book publishers who are literally facing both ways—running two editions of books, adjusted to the prejudices of their customers. The American Book Company has one version of Civil War history for the North, and another for the South. In text-books on biology, you may believe in evolution in your editions for New England; but if you want to sell to the far South, you must have an edition in which “Darwinism” is repudiated. I have before me an editorial from the Newton, Mississippi, “Record,” a daily newspaper whose pious editor is not much shocked to learn that the book companies have been “robbing the state and the poor students,” but is horrified by the news that they have been furnishing books “contrary to the teaching of the Bible.” We may assure this pious editor that the book companies will accept a compromise with him, whereby they may continue to “rob the state and the poor students,” in consideration of their leaving out the achievements of modern science!