Excerpt from A Question of Academic Freedom: Being the Official Correspondence Between Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University, and J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature, and Chairman of the Division of Modern Language and Literature, in Columbia University, During The On March 6, 1911, without explanation of any kind, Professor J. E. Spingarn was relieved from further academic service at Columbia University. During the controversy which followed, both in academic circles and in the public press through out the country, constant reference was made to the official records in the case, which appeared in the newspapers in imperfect fragments only. It has been felt by many that the time has now come when the ends of higher education would best be served by the publication of these records in full. Certainly, it is important that whatever publicity is attracted to the worst defects of our univer sities should not only be based on trustworthy data, but be adequate and complete. In this pam phlet all the official correspondence that passed between Professor Spingarn and President Nich olas Murray Butler during the academic year 1910-1911, with a few other documents germane to the case, is now presented to the consideration of the alumni of Columbia, not because of any interest which these letters or documents possess in themselves, but in the hope that, by the very fact of publicity, and by the light which they shed on the administration of the University, they may serve to arouse attention to the cause of academic freedom. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.