"There are no more educators in Massachusetts; they are all now propagandists for the State and Federal Constitutions!" thundered Kirtley F. Mather, professor of Geology, last night in denouncing the Teachers' Oath Bill, to climax the anti-Oath drive which ends today when the second Repeal Bill will be discussed at the State House.
After addressing the audience, in which representation of the fair sex was weak, as "Lady and Gentlemen," Professor Mather said that the Bill is a direct insult to the Corporation of Harvard, since it considers them incapable of selecting their own faculty without legal aid. He held that oaths do not affect loyalty, but "Loyalties change with external conditions," a theory first expounded by Karl Marx.
Not so much opposed to the spirit of the Bill as to the "invidious distinction" which requires only teachers to take the Oath, Arthur N. Holcombe '06, professor of Government, declared that even garbage men should be made to swear the Oath. "I think it's a good thing to have a good deal more swearing than we have now," he maintained satirically, quoting from the Massachusetts Constitution the section requiring that all public officers adhere to the principles of "piety, moderation, temperance, industry, and frugality."
"If legislators would swear to this section," Professor Holcombe continued, "I'd take the Oath twice a day--on getting up and on going to bed."
Edward F. Prichard 2L showed student opposition as well as faculty to be acute, declaring that now a teacher can be dismissed for any slight variation from the "beaten path of mumbo-jumbo that is too often the bane of our educational system.
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First Meetings of Courses