Scott of Northwestern

Chapter 8 - He accepts the presidency of his alma mater

A new type of activity arose for Walter in 1919, an activity he had not sought. It was the Scott Company, a firm organized by his associates in the army personnel classification work. They were ambitious young men, these associates, quick to see an opportunity to capitalize on their experiences in the Bureau of Salesmanship Research and in selecting officers and personnel for the armed forces. They had set themselves up as a firm of business and industrial consultants, with Scott as their chief, while Walter was in France. When he returned to America, he found the Scott Company an established fact.

These young men did not think of riches as an ultimate end in itself. As a matter of fact, three of them later became college presidents, and a fourth, Beardsley Ruml, became widely known for his original and daring ideas in economics and sociology. They were not, however, averse to making money, and they felt they could do so by applying to business and industry the ideas and procedures evolved and successfully put into practice under Scott.

Their anticipations were borne out. Almost immediately they received assignments from outstanding firms throughout the country. They established offices in three cities-Chicago, Philadelphia, and Dayton, The value of their service was quickly recognized, and before the end of the year they were collecting fees of up to $10,000 from single companies.

People became imbued with a new optimism in the period after World War 1. They looked forward to a long period of uninterrupted expansion and progress. Business was heading for a boom, and its leaders, despite a recession in 1921, welcomed outside assistance that would enable them to make the most of their opportunities.

At the same time the academic and scientific world had become reconciled to the view that it was desirable to apply psychological knowledge outside the classroom and the laboratory.

In a sense, Walter found a kind of fulfifiment in his work as the head of the Scott Company. He had pioneered in utilizing psychological knowledge off the campus, and it was fitting that he reap the financial rewards, recognition and opportunities for further pioneering.

But was this new venture leading him away from what he had felt to be his main mission in life? Scott wondered. As head of the Scott firm he certainly was not functioning as an educator. Nevertheless, heading a firm of business consultants was challenging and stimulating. Besides he could now reasonably look forward to giving his family every comfort, to the satisfaction of acquiring a modest fortune, and to writing books on his new findings in applied psychology and personnel management.

That was the outlook for Scott's future in 1919, when he was suddenly confronted with the necessity of making another,decision, probably the most important in his whole career. He was offered the presidency of Northwestern University. He tumed the offer down, but rejecting it didn't come easy. He knew Northwestem was in financial straits and needed help badly. Despite this he felt compelled to reject the offer, and Lynn Harold Hough, "a young clergyman of high attainment and winning personality," was appointed to the office.

Some months later, when Hough resigned, Scott was once again asked to become head administrator. Again he declined, this time after even more soul-searching.

For many years James A. Patten had been not only president of the Board of Trustees of Northwestem University but also its only important financial supporter. Scott knew that as long as Patten remained the head of its board of trustees the university would at least survive financially.

In the spring of 1920 the members of the board authorized the purchase of a costly site for a large, new Chicago campus. Patten, who was strongly opposed to this move, resigned. At the same time he severed all connections with the university, thus leaving its very existence in jeopardy.

Oliver T. Wilson, who had been elected to succeed Patten, came to Walter with the third request that he become president, This time Walter, sharply aware of the critical situation the university faced, did not say no, Instead he asked his old friend, Oliver, for a few days in which to talk the matter over with his wife and associates in the Scott Company.
"I feel you want to accept the presidency," said his wife. "If you feel that way, you should accept it. The money doesn't matter."
"When your Alma Mater calls for your help," Beardsley Ruml told Scott, "it is your duty to go to her aid."

That's what Walter wanted to hear. He had been considering the fate of two neighboring universities that had once seemed impregnable: Chicago University and Lind University. Now both were only memories and even the memory was fading. A relatively new institution of higher learning, the University of Chicago, was forging ahead steadily, while Northwestern appeared to be losing ground. Either it would find the means of expanding in accordance with the needs of a new era, or it might have to fold.

Could he, Walter Dill Scott, steer Northwestem out of the shoals into which it had drifted? Could he, with the help of others, obtain for it the means to expand in accordance with the demands of the future? Well, he could try. He went to Wilson and told him he was ready to accept. Next he went to William A. Dyche, the business manager, and in six words settled the matter: "Will," he said, "I will accept the presidency."

Wilson's friendship with Scott dated back to the time Walter was an undergraduate and tutored in the Wilson home. Walter was in those days a frequent dinner guest of the Wilsons, and he and Oliver often played tennis together.

Later Oliver became interested in Walter's personnel classification projects, and he showed his high estimate of the results by engaging the Scott Company to conduct a survey for his own firm. This survey, m tum, further enhanced his regard for Scott's personality, character, and ability.

However, not everyone connected with Northwestern shared Wilson's and Dyche's enthusiasm for Scott. On the contrary, many members of the faculty opposed the
idea of placing a business psychologist in the presidency. Nor did they hesitate to show their opposition. Not knowing that Wilson was an old friend of Walter's they went to him to register a vehement protest. Walter's brother, John, did not join the opposition, but he was not enthusiastic over the appointment. Walter, John still felt, had departed too far from the theory that the Greek and Latin classics remain the cornerstone of higher education.

In fairness to the faculty it should be noted that most of them took their "defeat" gracefully and realized quickly that Scott would not lower the academic standards nor deprive them of the opportunity to teach "pure" learning.

One of the professors visited Scott shortly after he took over the presidency and admitted how bitterly he had opposed him. He wept as he made this confession and conceded that he had been wrong. As for John, he continued to serve on the Northwestem faculty as a professor of Greek until his retirement in 1937, and his intimate friendship with Walter was terminated only by his death at the age of 80 in 1947.

Walter's acceptance of the presidency was a great victory for Northwestern, but it was also a great victory for Walter. Had he chosen instead to remain in the field of business counseling he probably would have amassed a sizeable fortune, but would he have attained the same sense of fulfillment the later years brought him? The answer lies in the lines of his very first speech as president, his address of acceptance delivered on September 30, 1920, in Patten Gymnasium.
"I believe," he said with feeling, "in Northwestern and the ideals for which it stands. It has been established, supported and administered by men of unselfish devotion. The present assets of the university in money are twice as great as all the funds given to it by all its benefactors. The university was founded by a small group of Christian gentlemen in order that they might have a more effective instrument for service in this great Northwest Territory. That ideal has not been discarded, but has been cherished and expanded. The university today offers to its friends a. much desired opportunity for the highest possible form of service to mankind.
"The period leading up to the World War, the years during the World War, and the period of reconstruction have all made more and more apparent the need of this type of service that such institutions as Northwestern are capable of rendering. The German civilization did not fail because of the lack of universities and lack of science. These, in fact, made her the great power she became. In spite of her universities, and in spite of her science, Germany failed because the idea of service was discarded in favor of the idea of domination.
"In the two years I spent in Germany, I had an opportunity to see the development of an efficient nation, but at the same time the corruption of the ideals of a nation. In all Germany there was not an institution of higher learning at liberty to teach the fallacy of military domination and to espouse the true philosophy of service. Because industry, commerce, and warfare are today based on science, and because the spread of false propaganda is so rapid and so destructive to national life, no service is more fundamental in advancing civilization than the type of service that may be rendered by such institutions of higher learning as Northwestern University."

It was a great day for Northwestern and for Walter. Northwestern was then 69 years old, Walter 51. He had come home in a physical sense but even more so in a spiritual sense. He had returned not merely to Northwestern and Evanston but to education which, back on his father's farm, he had chosen as the dwelling place of his mind and spirit.

A few days later, on October 4, 1920, the new president was . given a stirring ovation at the chapel in Fisk Hall, which was filled to capacity with students and faculty members of the College of Liberal Arts. As he entered the hall the entire audience arose and cheered.

The cheering continued until the "new prexy" reached the platform. Scott was visibly moved by the spontaneity of the reception.
"When I was asked last Wednesday night," he said, "where I wanted to make my first appearance as president of Northwestern University, I answered, 'I want to make it before the student body of the College of Liberal Arts of Northwestem."'

By way of dramatizing his conception of the greater Northwestern that he had begun to envision he spoke at length about the experiences and exploits of one of the heroes of the thne, Sgt. Alvin C. York. Scott told how York, the young Southern mountaineer, after having killed many men in a feud arising from the murder of his father, experienced a profound revulsion against killing and became an unqualified adherent of the Mosaic commandment, "Thou shalt not kill."

He went on to tell about what happened when, some years later, the United States entered World War I, and York was drafted. Though untrained otherwise, he said, York's preliminary preparation in marksmanship was probably superior to that of any of the other 4,000,000 soldiers in our army." But this might not have been put to use in the war had it not been for the knowledge and persuasive power of a certain Maj. Buxton. For York declared himself a conscientious objector and refused to bear arms. He changed his attitude only after Maj. Buxton made him realize that our entry into the war was in ultimate terms an attempt to advance the Kingdom of God."

Scott told in vivid detail how, in the midst of the fierce fighting in France, York was sent into the Argonne Forest with a patrol of 14 men to locate and wipe out a machine gun nest. He not only located and silenced the murderous machine guns but also returned with 182 German prisoners of war.
"It is inspiring," said Scott, "to contemplate the possibilities of a great educational institution. It may be thought of in terms of more adequate buildings and endowment, of the discovery of truth, of the development of ideals, of the advancement of culture, of the development of the powers of the individual student, of the service rendered by the professionally trained graduate and of the general service rendered the city, the state and the nation.
"All of these conceptions and many others must be considered in planning for the future of a great university. It is my purpose, however, at this time to consider the future not in any comprehensive way, but only from a single point of view, and to do so by comparing and contrasting the university with the career of an actual and a well-known personality.
"York had the preliminary training which equipped him for a particular function in life. He then had the advanced military training and developed the ideal which inspired him to make that training valuable.

Marksmanship inspired by an unworthy ideal of revenge produced a feud fighter destructive to the community. Marksmanship followed by intensive training in modern warfare and inspired by the ideals of advancing the Kingdom of God produced a typical American hero.
"A function of a great educational institution is to provide the advanced training and to inspire the ideals essential for a useful career. A function of Northwestem is to take men and women with substantial and preliminary training, to supplement that training, and to inspire these highly trained men and women with the noblest and highest ideals. A function of the greater Northwestern is to train and inspire Sgt. Yorks, whether they be men or women, whether their service be in the home or the camp, commerce or industry, science or art, the classroom or the athletic field, in politics or religion.
"Today in the student body of Northwestern are to be found Sgt. Yorks in training for the heroic struggles that must be won in advancing the cause for which Northwestern was founded. My ambition is that the greater Northwestern may do her part in training you and in inspiring you for the deeds of service to which you will all be called."

Later the same month, at a dinner in honor of Dr. Marion Leroy Burton, president of the University of Michigan, Scott stressed the need for universities to concentrate on a more specific activity: "The study of man and his adjustment with his fellows." By this he had in mind not merely sociological and psychological theory but primarily the effectiveness, happiness, and mutually beneficial association of men and women in business and industry and all other vocations and professions.

The two key ideas were again brought together in another statement made by Scott during this period:
"Just as my purpose in business has been to co-operate with large firms in making conditions such that every employer could have the best possible chance to make the most of himself, in the educational field my method will be to give every student his best chance to make the most of himself. It means a departure in education, but its value already is proved. A great institution of learning has a certain definite relation to the problems of poverty, of industry, of general welfare."

The professors who had opposed Scott were reassured once again by a talk he gave at a meeting of the university trustees on October 29, 1920. In it Scott made clear that he had no intention of eliminating the traditional fundamentals of Christian culture from Northwestern's educational program. His objective, he declared, was to harmonize these fundamentals with a shift in the "point of emphasis." This, he felt, was needed due to social and economic changes and also to profound changes in thought that had come about since the middle of the 19th century when Northwestem was founded.

He pointed out that the five professorships listed in the university's first catalogue included one for moral philosophy, one for Greek language and literature, and one for Latin language and literature. This was admirable and praiseworthy, he felt, for this and other phases of the emphasis on Christian culture had helped disseminate the noblest ideas of the ages and had "given stability and purpose to the lives of students and to all those who had come under the influence of the university." Moreover, he stressed the importance of retaining the basic elements of this emphasis as a perpetual force in the functioning of Northwestern.

However, he went on to a consideration of the changes in attitude that had come about since the middle of the last century. First he touched upon the intense interest in the study of nature typified by the work of Charles Darwin. As a result, instead of emphasizing the ugly and the base in the physical and material aspects of life and the world, people gradually came to appreciate more and more the beauty and grandeur as well as the deeper meaning of all natural phenomena.

In line with this Northwestern, like other institutions of higher learning, had given greater and greater importance to the study of natural science. This study soon ceased to be regarded as in competition with the study and cultivation of Christian culture but rather as a harmonious supplement to it.

In due time, indeed, more emphasis came to be placed on natural science than on Christian culture. And the study of science came to be considered an end in itself; as implied in the phrase: "science for science's sake." This grew out of and was consistent with another attitude of aloofness, expressed in the phrase: "Culture for culture's sake."

In more recent decades, however, Scott pointed out, there has been a second shift of emphasis. This time the concentration of interest had moved on to the technogical, the practical, the handiwork of man—"the control of man over the laws of nature in the various phases of manufacturing; in the distribution of commodities; in increasing the fertility of the soil; in the preservation and transportation of food products; in the organization of manpower in military, political, commercial, industrial, or social units; in the practice of the healing arts; and the achievements of all types of engineering."

All this had given rise to a new point of view or emphasis in education, he noted. No longer was the emphasis on culture for culture's sake, nor on science for science's sake. It was rather on both culture and science in the interest and service of man, or, in other words, on practical usefulness.

Such a point of view had been looked upon as "destructive of the higher educational aims, as unworthy, and as exerting a baneful influence upon education." Scott, however, declared that just as there was no basic conflict between enlightened Christian culture and science, so there was no fundamental conflict between technology or applied science and either theoretical science or genuine Christian culture.

He then called attention to the fact that interest in and emphasis upon the technological was prominently in evidence at Northwestem in 1920. This was not confined to the professional schools, which, he said, of course are technological," but was manifest also in undergraduate courses. The largest recent increases in registration had been in technological subjects.

Did this spell the doom of Christian culture and pure science? Not at all, said Scott. On the contrary, he felt that no technology could be fully and truly successful unless it was founded on and permeated with the principles of pure science, sound culture, and genuine religion. The third shift of emphasis in higher education was, then, to the proper co-ordination of the spiritual, moral, esthetic, and theoretical with the practical.

Scott saw that a fourth shift of emphasis was in the offing and it was his ambition, as he put it, "that Northwestern University should be a leader in this emphasis." What he had in mind, as one might expect from a psychologist, was the individuality of the student and his needs and interests. He declared that the student should be regarded not merely as a candidate for a degree. Each student, stressed Scott, should be considered as an individual who must be developed to his fullest capacity and trained for a life of service.

This historic and revealing speech closed with an appeal for the devotion of more attention to the problem of people and human relations ... the realization that education should first of all be a matter of teaching students and only secondarily that of teaching subjects.

Scott cautioned against too abrupt a shift to an emphasis on the individuality of the student or the personnel point of view. But he was convinced that this was the next big turn in higher education, and he was confident that Northwestern could pioneer along that line.

This confidence was based on the university's possession of the basic requisites for such a departure —"profound faith in Christian culture, an appreciation of the laws of nature, and an understanding of the technological advances."

Northwestern was thus eminently ready for the next step, the shift of emphasis to the individuality of the student, undertaken with the realization that, as Alexander Pope put it, "the proper study of mankind is man."