4 Professors Answer Sociologist's Criticism

Responses from four Harvard faculty members contacted last night, to the blast levelled at college professors by a Columbian sociologist ranged from partially complimentary to damning. C. Wright Mills, in his new book entitled "White Collar," branded college professors as being narrow, plebeian, and unimaginative, and criticized the graduate schools' mechanical conferring of degrees.

In answer to these accusations Rafael Demos, Alfred Professor of Natural Religion, stated that Mills' opinion that the average professor's culture is typically narrow was "too general a statement; professors are of all kinds." He added that this was a "smart-aleck comment."

Mills stated that teachers are the "economic proletarians of the professions" and that "the position of the college professor is less distinctive than it was.

"Although its prestige," he continued, "is considerably higher than that of the public-school teacher, it does not usually attract sons of cultivated upper-class families."

Demos admitted that the colleges weren't getting professors from the wealthier schools, "but that this fact, if it proves anything, is a good thing." He added that he thought "a professor enjoys a good deal of prestige."

Mills said that the "type of man recruited for college training and shaped for this end by graduate school training is very likely to have a strong plebeian strain."

Gordon W. Allport '19, replied, saying "How are you going to qualify the term 'plebeian'. . . the first lesson in social science is to avoid overgeneralization. The main weakness of the book lies in its reliance on general statements and undefined terms." He said that he had met only very few pedagogues of the type Mills describes.

Charles R. Cherington '35, Associate professor of Government, feels that "plebeians" make better instructors than men who studied at the University before teaching here. Cherington went on to say that he thought that Mills discovered "a good many embarrassing truths about our profession." He explained the frequently over-commercial attitudes of professors as typical of modern life where all Americans in our society are concerned with the acquisition of money and power.

In response to Mills' statement that graduate schools' standards have slipped, C. Crane Brinton '19, Professor of History, commented that "if anything, they've gone up." He added that many of Mills' criticisms were partly right, but that he neglected statistics. "What does he want, a faculty full of geniuses" He sounds like H. L. Mencken. He's a bellyacher," Brinton said.

Both Demos and Cherington explained the situation that Mills pointed out in this statement: "Men of brilliance, energy and imagination are not often attracted to the teaching profession." Cherington lays the blame to the economic and social position of teaching. "Business and Medical schools get more than their fair share of talent," he said. Demos noted that law and business have more prestige, and therefore get the able men that might go into teaching.

Allport denied that Harvard has mechanically given out doctoral degrees, but says the University has avoided it by limiting the size of the G.S.A.S.