Progressivism: The purpose of colleges is to indoctrinate and manipulate

The following words are attributed to Woodrow Wilson in 1909: (14th quote down)

The purpose of a university should be to make a son as unlike his father as possible. By the time a man has grown old enough to have a son in college he has specialized. The university should generalize the treatment of its undergraduates, should struggle to put them in touch with every force of life.

This is important, for several reasons. He's making clear the progressive point of view about universities - they're not really there to educate people with meaningful and substantive information(although, some of what will come out of a college education will inevitably be useful) what they're really there for is to indoctrinate! To turn students into good little progressives. The progressive view is that colleges are a manufacturing plant. And I'm not being hyperbolic about this, it's no wonder that after the Days of Rage, Ayers and Dohrn decided to become professors. But note how the line is thrown in there about specialization vs generalization. I'll explain this further in a minute.

Now, I can verify that this is a true Woodrow Wilson quote by referencing the following volume from Arthur Link's "Papers of Woodrow Wilson", in this case, Volume 19. But by repeatedly massaging the various search terms, I was able to get a large portion of what was actually written here, and it is much worse than the small snippet above leads you to believe. I was able to extract about a page and a half, pages 99/100. This will begin badly because it's the beginning of the page, I can't seem to get at what's at the end of page 98. What you're about to read is a portion of a newspaper article, The Philadelphia Public Ledger, March 13, 1909: (Or, that's what Link attributes, anyways)

of accomplishing their work through the subterranean channels of their committees. The public might then be permitted to assist at the "general assize" of a subject. The country would then be able to weigh the men who come out into the open. It would reject those who remained in the background.

"A senator complained rather peevishly to me some time ago," said Doctor Wilson, "Of the injustice which had been done Congress when the President had been given the right to address it with messages. I replied that I thought it was fortunate that it had been so. The President's messages are given to the newspapers and through them he speaks to the people.

Few members of Congress speak in such a manner that their words are read so widely. "It is [not] an ideal situation in which Speaker Speaker [Joseph Gurney] Cannon suspects everything the President does and the President rejects everything Mr. Cannon does, while the Supreme Court stands between them. I think it desirable to have a President who can express himself forcibly. The President understands the foreign relations of the country as few others do. He is in a position to He is in a position to possess such knowledge of its domestic condition as few may possess." Doctor Wilson believed that we had emerged from the era of "regulation." We had been making experiments and the men who know most had not been advising us. Lawyers had been "standing pat" with the corporations by which they had been employed, saying that they would take advantage of every opportunity the law afforded to withstand the tendency. It had become the duty of every corporation lawyer to advise the corporation by which he was employed to correct the abuses which had caused the criticism of them.

Time was when public life had been easy. It had ceased to be easy. America had become a world power. It must cease to be provincial if it would grow, keep abreast of the times.

"The purpose of a university should be to make a son as unlike his father as possible," He said. "By the time a man has grown old enough to have a son in college he has specialized. The university should generalize the treatment of its undergraduates, should struggle to put them in touch with every force of life. Every man of established success is dangerous to society. His tendency is to keep society as it is. His success has been founded upon it. You will not find many reformers among the successful men. A man told me once that he left college interested in humanity. At 40 he was interested only in an industry to which he had applied himself. At 60 he was interested only in his bank account. Any social change affects that bank account. Society cannot progress without change." The relation of the university to life was the relation of the conception to the act, he said; the relation of the vision to that slow, toiling process by which an end was accomplished. University extension societies should extend the influence of the university to the general public.

Now, having a fuller view of Wilson's whole though we can proceed to examine just how dirty progressivism really is:

Time was when public life had been easy. It had ceased to be easy. America had become a world power. It must cease to be provincial if it would grow, keep abreast of the times.

This is common amongst progressives. They want one single nation,(or even better, global) because it's easier to centrally plan than 50 "provinces" are. In Wilson's day, there were only 48 provinces - still too many. Wilson continues:

"The purpose of a university should be to make a son as unlike his father as possible," He said. "By the time a man has grown old enough to have a son in college he has specialized. The university should generalize the treatment of its undergraduates, should struggle to put them in touch with every force of life. Every man of established success is dangerous to society. His tendency is to keep society as it is. His success has been founded upon it. You will not find many reformers among the successful men.

Toward the beginning of the posting I made a comment about generalization vs specialization. Now Wilson's thought comes into much clearer view. Those who have gone through the paces, become established in life, have specialized in some way; those who may have opened their own business, or done well climbing the ladder at whatever company they work for - these people don't want to throw it all away! Wilson recognizes this. So therefore, the successful man is a threat. A threat to social change. A threat to progressives. A threat to the schemes of the do-gooder. Seeing this quote in a much fuller context, you are seeing just how similar that Barack Obama is to Woodrow Wilson.(or vice versa) In short, this is a complaint. Woodrow Wilson wanted to centrally plan society, and he wanted to fundamentally change everything he possibly could. But so many of you d@#m successful people are out there in society and are wishing to remain successful, you stood in Woodrow Wilson's way. But that's ok. Woodrow had a plan. He'll indoctrinate your kids and make them the exact opposite of you - make them into revolutionaries. He continues:

You will not find many reformers among the successful men. A man told me once that he left college interested in humanity. At 40 he was interested only in an industry to which he had applied himself. At 60 he was interested only in his bank account. Any social change affects that bank account. Society cannot progress without change." The relation of the university to life was the relation of the conception to the act, he said; the relation of the vision to that slow, toiling process by which an end was accomplished. University extension societies should extend the influence of the university to the general public.

Reading this makes my blood boil. So again, Wilson makes clear what he said at the top. He wants to change society, and you successful people are the ones standing in the way of the schemes of the planner. Especially those of you with big bank accounts. It isn't just marxists who hate the rich, Wilson wasn't a marxist.

The quote at the beginning of the posting is nearly out of context, because it leaves one with the impression that Wilson is merely making some statement about making sure students are educated, and more prepared to enter life as productive citizens. That's not who Wilson was, he could've cared less about any of that. This statement's real intent, in context, is an open statement of intent to remake America into something it was never meant to be. And at the end, Wilson also inadvertently admits to what it is that progressives really mean by 'progress'. Wilson absolutely hated the principles of the Founding Fathers, and this is more of his words that go into establishing that concept. What once was, is old. It's dusty. It's outdated. It's provincial. And the universities are our best vehicle for permanently changing it into something else. A "fundamental transformation", according to our current dear leader Obama.

And Wilson was not the only one who looked at colleges this way. John Dewey, widely regarded as the Father of Modern Education, held a very similar, perhaps identical view. As did Horace Mann, who considered your children to be hostages to their cause. Nice group of people, eh?

I really can't stand how progressives look at American society. What the founders gave us is totally unique, and they want to destroy it because they know better than we do. Progressivism is totally unacceptable to me.

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