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Student Activism in the 1930s
My Life in a Nutshell Robert A. Lane
Born in West Philadelphia, bred in Washington, Paris, Philadelphia, I arrived at the age of 11 in Duponts territory, Wilmington Delaware. My life in this caste bound community was uneventful and relatively pleasant for the next four years. My closest friends were Duponts and Dupont henchmen but as we matured our friendship cooled and the differences of our backgrounds and philosophies were painfully apparent. Mother was principal of the lower school at Tower Hill School, run and operated by Dupont Gold, which I attended, thus placing her and me definitely among the lower classes. My consciousness of social issues was first stimulated in the campaign of Al Smith, one time progressive, and Herbert Hoover. I supported Al Smith partly because to fact that Charles Dupont was for Hoover and partly because of Filial loyalty. This put without the pale of all decent people which for a six grader was hard to bear. The next course in my social education occurred when a liberal social science teacher attempted to discuss the Nye munitions investigation. The trustees made short shrift of such unpatriotic demonstration. In spite of such baptismal immersion in the to Swamp of reaction I evolved a Socialist position which I adhered with real devotion but little understanding. The fact that my parents were liberal almost to the point of socialism was a determining factor. The previously mentioned social science teacher, also liberal, was occasionally able to assist the process of liberal indoctrination. The next step in my progressive movement occurred upon my transfer from Tower Hill School in Wilmington to the Lincoln School in New York. Lincoln is a hot-bed of radicalism and the leanings towards socialism which had developed under the tropismic attraction of my parents and teacher became founded upon better study and broader understanding. Lincoln, as distinct from Tower Hill not only professes to operate under a system of progressive education but puts its profession to actual practice. My association with progressive schools and with the philosophy of progressive education has served to accentuate my desire for freedom of movement and expression for every individual. From Lincoln I continued my educational career at Harvard. Somewhere I had picked up an impulsion to act upon belief. At Harvard this ran counter to the predominant and pervasive spirit of academicism. This personal propensity for progressive propulsion permeated into the blood stream of Harvard Life so that a thorough and irrefragible commingling of the two forces of study and action because part of an indistinguishable and inseparable unit. In the Student Union at Harvard there was almost a made to order opportunity to institute a program of action and study. Not only did it appeal to these needs but my sense of social duty and the urgency of my conviction were served by my activity in the HSU. In a vein of prognostication I am interested in two specific and immediate problems. The first is my own future, which will be judged and guided by the opportunities for service in the progressive movement. The opportunities which seems promising at the moment include housing, relief, labor organizing, and possibly the student movement. The second problem of the future which is of peculiar interest to me is the success of the student and youth movement. I am inspired by the promise of the movement in New York City and the potentialities in Boston. The above is an inadequate interpretation of the forces that have guided my life and the characteristics which I have evolved. A summary statement of the reasons I am progressive would include in order of their significance The first two I have learned to take for granted. To the last two I still feel considerable gratitude. Home | Historical Essay | Documents | Credits |
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