The Value of Criticism

A faculty member, recently quizzed by the Michigan State News "Inquiring Reporter," said that this publication should criticize the faculty more; that anybody tended to become smug unless shown their faults once in awhile.

That this gentleman is probably not alone in this opinion may be granted, but that he should have the courage to speak his mind is a heartening tendency to college editors who regard faculty men's opinions as to their own omnipotence a serious obstacle to the freedom of the collegiate press.

The professor is right. But if he were pounding the editorial typewriter he would think long, long thoughts before attempting criticism that to many professors is sheer impertinence. College administrators, the nation over, seem to be awakening slowly to the need for free speech in the collegiate press, but college faculties, as such, lag lamentably in this liberalism.

The professor, who is irked by an editorial policy, has a grip over its proponents that the administrator lacks. The latter must be restrained from disciplinary measures by a regard for public opinion. No such limitation is placed on the professor. He may indulge in what might be called 'pedagogical hazing."

Only an editor who has entered the class of an instructor recently antagonized by one of the editor's "outbreaks" can appreciate the dangers of this so-called much needed criticism. To expect that the instructor will differentiate between the student in his official capacity and in his personal or private one seems to be expecting too much of the professorial code of ethics.

No one was over more in the right than the M. S. C. faculty man who said the faculty often needed criticism. For them, or for any one else, to question this is a demonstration of abysmal conceit.

Not until college faculties begin to follow the slowly awakening realization of educational leaders that the collegiate press must be free from official or personal "knifing for its liberalism and independence can American college editors reach the goal of actual influence in campus affairs.--J. G. --Michigan State News