any attempt to hide a weak spot. His method of teaching called for an exercise of his pupils' critical capacity.
He had a striking way of putting things which made them stick. I remember once there was under discussion the subject of socialism. In dismissing the class Sumner said: "If any of you are ever in a community where a committee runs the whole thing, take my advice and get on the committee." Nearly twenty-five years afterward I was sitting in Cooper Union, New York, enjoying the interesting experience of hearing a prospective candidate for President of the United States questioned by an audience politically, although not personally, hostile to him. He was asked some question about socialism, and he replied that he did not know very much about it; that he had read a book on it and had come to the conclusion that it involved having everything rum by a committee, and that he preferred not to live in a community where a committee ran the whole thing — unless he were on the committee. I then realized that Professor Sumner had repeated himself at least once, and that the result of his teaching had not been entirely lost, even though it had not made a democrat of this distinguished Yale graduate.
I hear it said that many economists question some of Sumner's conclusions. I do not care very much how you professional economists now look upon his views of the wage-fund theory or of any other particular economic problem. I do not mean to imply, by that, that it is not important that such questions should be thought out right. But I am sure that the most important thing we got from Professor Sumner did not lie wholly within the limits of the particular subject
