8o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



from whom the majority of us are sprung. If we seek an aim, and 

 are not blinded by academic pride, here is one right at hand. You will 

 not be surprised to hear that the policy of the modern department of 

 pedagogy is to help, not to exploit, the high school. The social point 

 of view is capable, perhaps to a greater degree than one might at first 

 expect, of modifying our procedure in dealing with the lower schools. 

 The chief function of a college department of pedagogy is to turn out 

 well-prepared teachers, enthusiastic, and with the right attitude toward 

 their work. It should not, in my judgment, lend itself to cheap adver- 

 tising, or drumming up students, or making a hit with the high schools 

 and academies. Those imbued with the social spirit will find the hun- 

 dred problems of adjustment of the college to the secondary schools too 

 vital to be dealt with in a narrow or commercial spirit. 



The relation of the college to the rich is no less important than the 

 question just discussed, if the college is to preserve the right tone 

 towards the social needs and aspirations of the whole people. The 

 history of European universities shows that these institutions have 

 been used to further the political views of their founders. In Prance 

 and Germany, for example, universities have been used almost like fort- 

 resses to hold territory gained in war, as can be shown by reference to 

 Breslau, Strasburg, Bonn, Bordeaux, Caen and Poitiers. The numerous 

 universities organized by Napoleon were designed to carry out his policy 

 of government. In view of this background afforded by history one can 

 not be indifferent to the influence of founders and patrons upon their 

 universities. Just how the millionaire founder or the millionaire 

 trustee affects the social relations of the college calls for more extended 

 statement than space here permits. In a few glaring instances in this 

 country there have been serious infringements by the wealthy sup- 

 porters of a university upon the spirt of academic freedom. But the 

 predominance of the rich in the councils of the college has acted more 

 insidiously in the social ideals that they perhaps unconsciously put upon 

 the institution. One might mention briefly the expenditure of money 

 from the business standpoint of the advertiser rather than from the 

 educational standpoint of the professor ; the treatment of the instructors 

 as employees rather than as a body of self-respecting gentlemen working 

 in a great social cause ; and finally, the character of the officers likely to 

 be chosen by trustees filled with a commercial rather than an academic 

 spirit. A glance at the constitutions and administration of the uni- 

 versities in monarchical Europe as compared with these features of 

 American universities causes no small wonder that in this country insti- 

 tutions of higher learning are comparatively aristocratic, not to say 

 autocratic. The University of Oxford, for example, is governed by 

 three bodies, council, congregation and convocation. The first, council, 

 is made up of six heads of colleges, six leading professors, and six 



