"BEST TEACHING REQUIRES FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION"-CHAFEE

That complete freedom of speech for the Faculty is a necessity for the healthy continuation and growth of a university is the belief of Professor Z. Chafee, Jr., LL. B. '13, who finds himself strictly in accord with the doctrine of President Lowell which gives to every man the right to express himself as he will, no matter what his profession.

"The teacher," said Professor Chafee, "must have the privileges of the doctor, the lawyer, and the rest of the professions. If the universities are to draw the best men into their teaching staffs, they cannot limit the right of every man to investigate and teach in his own field, or to give expression outside the classroom to his views, on whatever subject he chooses.

"Act and Speak as Scholar."

"The only limitation on the freedom of discussion of the university teacher should be that he act and speak as a scholar. The moment the thinking man is restricted in his thought half the value of his work is destroyed. You cannot say to Galileo, 'Use your telescope, but don't discover that the earth revolves about the sun.'

"Suppression of any sort is a consequent loss of originality. Even though the obnoxious idea in question is momentarily crushed, and the man who advanced it is discharged, there is a doubly evil effect--the question is brought into greater prominence than before, and others professors find themselves afraid to step at all beyond the limits of complete conventionality. For fear of suppression they dare not carry on their work nor their investigations.

"Thirty or forty years ago there was the same discussion of academic freedom as today, but then the conflict waged about Darwin. Many earnest persons argued that no college professor should be allowed to support the Darwinian theory lest the young college man lose his religion. The investigation of evolution continued, however; the Darwinians won, and no one now contends that the results have been fatal to religion or morality.

"The college man can be trusted to sift the wheat from the chaff, for, if I know him at all, he does not believe everything he is told by any means. If he is not allowed to hear any radical ideas in the university, he will meet them in the world later, when he has not the same time to stop and discover which are true and which false.

Radicals Awaken Thought

"Education is not merely a matter of pouring in accepted doctrines, but rather of making the student's brain work. As we do not attempt to limit the reading of the radical book in the university, so we should not restrict the radical thinker of great ability, who at least provokes discussion and thought.

"In a time of national stress, such as the present, the more subjects of importance that are kept before the public eye the more likely we are to reach an ultimately correct and satisfactory conclusion. How do those who want to exclude a given theory from university teaching know that it is false? They cannot be sure of that until it is thoroughly investigated, and there can be no more fitting place for such investigation than the universities.

"And, after all, the university gains the greatest support if it has in its faculty the greatest, the most fearless men--men who are not afraid to give voice to their beliefs. Personally, I think that the Endowment Fund has profited much by the universal realization that here at Harvard there is no attempt to standarize the individual."