Academic Freedom (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from Academic FreedomIf there be any justification for this view it cannot but do harm to University life. For while the politician has to have his ear to the ground and to have an intuition for the cross currents in public life, it is the business of the Univer sity teacher to stimulate thought and set forth. As a pioneer, the new point of view. In the days of my boyhood, I remem ber very well the docks in Glasgow crowded with great sailing ships, moored in tiers, with their figureheads breasting the bol lards of the wharf and their long jib-booms thrusting out far over the freight sheds. The scents of the cargo are with me still, as coffee, and spices. And rare woods from the East Indies, were discharged. For these great vessels with their tower ing spars, preparing to go forth on a fresh voyage, were, each of them. A fresh kindling of fancy as one thought of the many backwaters of the world's commerce in which they might be about to seek a fresh cargo. I should like to think of the staff of the University with some such awakening of the imagination. The men are in their present posts because they have done something, because out of many an intellectual continent, only dimly understood by me, they have brought their cargo. And I should like to think of them as never satisfied with what they have already done but as having in mind yet further and more arduous and more hazardous voyages. If the right temper is in a University the sympathy of the administration will be with the thinker and the intellectual adventurer. Far better the crank with brains than the unexeeptionable nobody. But the administration that has to guide the machine finds it hard to tolerate eccentricity.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.