Gideonse's Departure

Like Biblical Gideon, who required three signs from the Lord before he went forth to smite the Midianites, University of Chicago's Professor Harry David Gideonse*is a skeptic and a warrior. Gideonse battles, however, not for the Lord but for the Scientific Method. This made him a natural opponent of his chief, Chicago's President Robert Maynard Hutchins, who believes that there is a hierarchy of truths which transcends laboratory evidence.

For over a year these two have been carrying on the most violent war in U. S. higher education. It started with President Hutchins' book, The Higher Learning in America. Mr. Hutchins proposed that U. S. universities try to restore order to a confused world by teaching people the truths uttered by the great philosophers of the past. Gideonse replied with The Higher Learning in a Democracy. What Mr. Hutchins proposed, said he, was "intellectual dictatorship." Lest anyone be misled by the Hutchins theories, Gideonse reported that in practice University of Chicago was being guided not by its president but by its faculty, was stressing "the understanding and enrichment of twentieth-century human life in all its phases."

Most remarkable fact abput this war was that Harry Gideonse went on teaching at the university, unmolested by his boss. Tall, lanky, Dutch-born Harry Gideonse is 37 (two years younger than President Hutchins) and well liked by his faculty colleagues. He strides about the campus with his big German shepherd dog, Bob, at his heels, sometimes takes the dog to class. While his controversy with President Hutchins brought him his chief fame, in eight years at Chicago he acquired a reputation as a crack economist, became the most popular speaker on the university's radio Round Table. He is chairman of the social studies courses.

But Harry Gideonse's rank still remained that of associate professor, his salary $5,500. Three times his colleagues recommended that he be appointed to a full professorship; three times President Hutchins ignored the recommendation. Last week Harry Gideonse quit the University of Chicago, accepted a,full professorship at Columbia. Said he: "There has been no personal quarrel between President Hutchins and me. . . . Dr. Hutchins and I have simply not seen eye to eye on educational policy. ... I expect to find a more congenial atmosphere at Columbia." The shocked Chicago faculty promptly adopted a resolution of "deep regret." President Hutchins, who never has mentioned his chief opponent in public, permitted himself no word of regret, no gloat.

*Pronounced like the plural of Gideon.

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