94 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



civic, social. In no sense should the executive feel a personal owner- 

 ship in the university; but he should have a sense of personal responsi- 

 bility, that the university must be administered in such ways that the 

 present democratic aspirations of the state for a larger life may be met 

 and the future democratic life of the commonwealth may be provided. 



For these reasons one of the executive's chief characteristics should 

 be his ability to appreciate men and his willingness to judge of the 

 worth of men for membership in the university, either as teachers or as 

 students, by the promise that they show of ability to contribute some- 

 thing constructive to the progress of democracy. At the present time, 

 in many schools, the efficiency of strong men is lessened by the petty 

 tyrannies of executive control and by undemocratic forms of domineer- 

 ing authority which serve no purpose save the satisfaction of the petty 

 tyrant involved. The president should see to it that the strong men and 

 women of the university faculty are given broad freedom to work, both 

 within and without the university, at those constructive programs which 

 they are prepared to offer. The president's real service to the university 

 and the state is not in his own exaltation ; but only in his securing to the 

 university a field for broadly social educational work, and in his secur- 

 ing teachers of the right sort to occupy this field. There are men in 

 every university who have these broadest ideals of social scholarship, 

 " learning at work in the service of the state," who need to have larger 

 freedom for their work. 



Such a president will, however, scarcely ever be chosen by a board 

 of control acting independently. As a matter of fact a democratic 

 organization of the university would demand that the people of the 

 state, represented by the board of control, the faculty, represented by a 

 committee elected by themselves, and the student body, represented by a 

 committee chosen in the same way, should all have a share in the selec- 

 tion of the president. He is to be the representative of the people. He 

 is to work with the faculty. He is to be a leader and an inspirer of the 

 student body. How can he be all of these unless all of these interests 

 have some share in his choice? The state might well pay any sum 

 needed to secure such a man. 



If we turn for a moment to a more definite discussion of the faculty, 

 it should be said that a faculty for such an institution should be made 

 up, mostly, of real teachers ; that is, of men and women who are inter- 

 ested in teaching young men and women rather than in research work, 

 and who have just enough of the research ideal to give them zest for 

 their work and to keep them, intellectually, active and young. 



There should be, undoubtedly, in each department a real research 

 man, whose main function should be to stimulate the constant growth of 

 the department along intellectual lines. But the faculty as a whole 

 should be interested primarily in the social outcome of education rather 



