If the legislature may not secure expert service save that paid for by private interests, it will never reach the scientific basis of these great questions now before us which must be solved by the aid of the expert's technical knowledge. The university should not be blamed for having men upon whom the legislature may call for advice. They are paid from public funds; why should the public not avail itself of their services?[1] Certainly the teacher of political science or political economy who is worthy of consultation upon governmental matters can give the students a better idea of those great subjects than some mossback whose theoretical learning was acquired by carefully keeping away from the only laboratory which could be of any service to him. We would not have the diseases of cattle taught by a man who has never dissected a steer or observed the course of disease at first hand. Why then have a professor of political economy, political science, teach classes in governmental matters when he has never worked at the practical solution of any of the great economic or political questions of the day?
Indeed, it is a healthy sign—a sign that a department of economics or of political science is not sleeping when its men are constantly attacked by those who, session after session, have crowded the legislative halls in opposition to every constructive piece of legislation.
- ↑ See Appendix for list of men serving both state and university.
