CHAPTER XII THE ACADEMIC DEPARTMENT STORE
I have several times mentioned in this narrative Professor Cattell and his opinions of Columbia. My story would not be complete without an account of his adventures, for he was the one man who gave the interlocking directors a real fight.
James McKeen Cattell was a teacher at Columbia for twenty-six years. He was the first professor of psychology in any university in the world; he is the editor of four leading scientific journals. Cattell objected to some of Butler’s methods, such as the appointment of an unfit professor in his division, because this man brought with him a gift of a hundred thousand dollars. Cattell was left to learn of this appointment from the newspapers, and when he protested, Butler wrote him insolent letters, trying to force him to resign, as he had done with MacDowell and Woodberry. But Cattell stuck, whereupon Butler took from him the use of six rooms, a laboratory of psychological research which had been built with funds obtained by Cattell. The income of a trust fund of one hundred thousand dollars, which Cattell had got “to increase the facilities of his department,” was taken to pay Cattell’s own salary.
Cattell then withdrew as head of his department, and took no more part in Columbia’s politics. But he published articles criticizing the Carnegie pension scheme, in which Butler was a leading spirit. He showed how it was used to control the university professor, as seniority rights and pensions are used to keep employes in order. So in 1910 a resolution proposing to dismiss Cattell was before the trustees. In 1913 he published a book on “University Control,” in which he demonstrated that 85 per cent of the members of college and university faculties are dissatisfied with the present system of the management of scholars by business men. In punishment for this the trustees voted to retire him on a pension—taking the step without the knowledge of the faculty. There was unanimous protest, and the trustees yielded. In 1917 Professor Cattell wrote a letter to members of the Faculty Club, referring to “our much-climbing and many-talented president.” This, of course, was lese majesté, and for the third time a resolution proposing to dismiss Professor Cattell was presented to the trustees; but action was postponed, on the recommendation of a committee of deans and professors.