The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

1972 THE EDUCATIONAL DILEMMA 361ingofficials for the supporting bodyand to be accountable to it, havebeen faithless servants. Especiallyin the colleges and universitieswhich are supported by taxpayersthey have yielded to the politicalforce exerted by pressure groupsof race and social class and by militantstudent activists. Higher 'educationhas accordingly been allowedto become a thing of whimsand fads bending before the changingwinds of the moment.Taypayer RevoltIt is asking too much of humannature to expect that the principal,namely, the taxpayer, willindefinitely support an institutionwhich, while professing to contributeto his enlightenment, infact dedicates itself to the destructionof the society which the principalhimself has formed. As ahorde of militant.students werethronging across the campus ofone of the California universitiesand occupying the student center,a local businessman raised hisvoice in protest to the chancellorof the university. The chancellordefended his do-nothing policysaying: "We havebeen teachingthese students for fifteen years tothink for themselves, and now theyare doing it!". A lamentable misconception hasbeen allowed to develop in highereducation as to who is principaland who is agent, who calls thetune and who should dance to it,who pays the bills and who shouldfurnish the services paid for.Dr. Stephen J. Tonsor has statedthe obvious but forgotten truism:"The university does not belong tothe students; it does not belong tothe faculty ; it does' not belong toany special pressure group in thesociety that happens to feel thecall to revolution or a propheticmission. The university belongs tothe whole of the society or thecorporate reality which brought itinto existence and which sustainsit."lThe relationship of taxpayers toeducators in a publicly supportededucational structure is that ofemployer to employee. The samerelationship exists between boardsof trustees of private institutionsand the designated officials ofthose institutions.In the complex of relationshipsat various levels in the educationalstructure it is possible to identifya producer-consumer relationshipin the classroom betweenteacher and student. The studentcan either accept or reject theproduct, but, as the object ultimatelyacted upon by both thesupporting body and the executingbody, he is not entitled to de-1 "Authority, Power and the University,"New Guard, XI, No; 6, September1971, p. 5.