THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



619 



The Popular Science Monthly 

 writes to the editor to the effect that 

 certain college teachers have professed to 

 be able to find a personal application in 

 the article in question. It has been 

 charged that the picture of "our col- 

 lege" represents a certain trans-Missis- 

 sipi institution, and that, concealed in 

 the article, are various allusions to par- j 

 ticular persons connected therewith. In 

 order to correct this very serious mis- 

 conception, the writer desires to make ! 

 the following statement: 



The institution referred to as " our j 

 college ' ' is purely imaginary, or ^0 j 

 speak more correctly, it is a composite 

 picture intended to represent the typ- 

 ical American small college. It is 

 doubtless true that the adherents of any j 

 particular college can find in the de- j 

 scription details which fit their institu- 

 tion. Were this not the case the article 

 would fail of its purpose as a composite 

 portrait of all the colleges; but it will 

 be found impossible to fit the entire de- 

 scription to any particular college, and 

 it certainly was no particular college 

 that the writer had in mind. 



In his description of the size of the 

 college, its faculty, the town in which 

 it is located, its buildings, etc., the 

 writer spoke entirely at random, and 

 tried to picture what may fairly be re- 

 garded as average conditions. Since 

 the resulting criticism has been brought 

 to his attention, he has tried to fit the 

 description to a particular college, but 

 without success. He finds, however, 

 that there are some three or four middle- 

 west colleges which, if dismembered and 

 patched together again in the proper 

 pattern might make an institution which 

 would fit pretty well for ' ' our college. ' ' 

 The description of the conditions in 

 "our college" are, he believes, typical 

 of the American small college, taking 

 the best with the worst and averaging 

 them, and he has arrived at this conclu- 

 sion after wide reading in which the 

 valuable reports of the Carnegie Foun- 

 dation have not been neglected. The 

 reference to the innocuous professor 

 whose beautiful character compensated 

 for the absence of scholarship was in- 

 tended to represent a not unfamiliar 

 type (at least in some of the older col- 

 leges) though the writer will plead 

 guilty to being strongly reminded, while 

 writing it, of the former incumbent of 

 the chair of Latin in a certain eastern 

 college. The incident of the professor 

 who was criticized by one of the trus- 

 tees for "inefficiency" because he staid 



at home and attended to his business, 

 was related to the writer about ten 

 years ago, and concerns a college which, 

 so far as he is concerned, shall remain 

 nameless. Suffice it to say that, so far 

 as he has yet learned, nobody has sus- 

 pected that the article refers in any 

 way to that particular college. The 

 writer does not even know the names of 

 the principals in the case. These few 

 instances will indicate the imaginary 

 and composite character of "our col- 

 lege. ' ' It was represented as being on 

 the Carnegie Foundation lest the foun- 

 dation colleges, reading the article, 

 point their finger at the outside institu- 

 tions and say: "This is intended for 

 you!" The evils incident to what the 

 writer regards as a defective system of 

 college organization affect the founda- 

 tion colleges equally with the others, 

 though the standard of the foundation 

 colleges of course averages much higher. 

 In fact these evils are not unknown in 

 the universities, but there the problem 

 is much complicated by other factors, 

 and should for that reason be sepa- 

 rately considered. 



Least of all was it the intention to 

 utter any criticism either on the presi- 

 dent or trustees of the small college. 

 The description of the president of 

 "our college" is not a portrait, and the 

 same is true of the trustees. Trustees, 

 president and faculty, are alike victims 

 of what the writer believes to be a de- 

 fective system, and of the three the pres- 

 ident is perhaps most to be pitied. Too 

 i often does he find himself in the posi- 

 | tion of being ground between the 

 upper and the nether millstone. The 

 trustees, as the writer knows them in 

 more than one college, are high-minded, 

 disinterested men, serving without re- 

 compense and often with a high degree 

 of self-sacrifice. If anything was made 

 clear in the article in question it was 

 this: that any criticism either .of presi- 

 dent or trustees was directed not at in- 

 dividuals but at a system which de- 

 mands impossible tasks of both. 



SCIENTIFIC ITEMS 



We regret to record the deaths of Dr. 

 George William Hill, distinguished for 

 his contributions to mathematical as- 

 tronomy; of Dr. Charles Santiago Sand- 

 ers Peirce, known for his work in logic 

 and mathematics; of Professor Newton 

 Horace Winchell, formerly state geolo- 

 i gist of Minnesota, and of Professor 

 i Eduard Suess. the eminent Austrian 

 geologist. 



