3i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



required money. But the obstacles which they may, for the most part 

 unwittingly, throw in the way of the efficient work of the faculties of 

 the university are chiefly due to their ignorance of the principles and 

 right methods of education, or to their indifference toward the supreme 

 ends of education, or to their reluctance to criticize — much more oppose 

 — ^the will of the president or the majority of their own body. Indeed, 

 their position and their action quite too often corresponds to that of the 

 trustees of some bank or other large corporation, who altogether too late 

 wake up to find themselves convicted of conniving at some imprudent or 

 illegal transaction on the part of the official whom they have trusted 

 incontinently. 



The vice of extravagance in administration is being distinctly fos- 

 tered by the system at present prevailing in our larger and wealthier 

 universities. Money is much too largely given to bricks rather than 

 brains, to mortar rather than men. In other words, too large a propor- 

 tion of gifts and of income is being spent on needlessly expensive build- 

 ings; too small a proportion on teachers and explorers of first-rate 

 ability in the several faculties. It is only a partial, but by no means a 

 sufficient, excuse for this vice ( ?) of extravagance to say that we are 

 now in the brick (stone) and mortar stage of our educational develop- 

 ment, and that, when we have provided a splendid and complete equip- 

 ment of the material sort, then we shall be ready to turn our full atten- 

 tion to raising the intellectual and spiritual equipment. For the drift 

 of our experience and the point of the argument for a change lies in the 

 fact that the present system is working toward the degradation of the 

 professorial office and the depreciation of the functions and the personnel 

 of the faculties. The fallacy for the other chief argument for this sort 

 of extravagance is less obvious. It is said — and truly — that it is easier 

 to get large sums of money for fine buildings than for great teachers 

 or for stimulating scientific research. In reply, it is not necessary to 

 credit the cynical saying of Europe — although there is much evidence in 

 its favor — that the real scientific work done in the scientific laboratories 

 of the United States is in inverse proportion to their magnificence. Nor 

 could any real friend of the American universities feel otherwise than 

 pleased and grateful to see them equipping themselves with buildings 

 sufficiently commodious for calculable future needs, of good academic 

 architecture, but above all, of the highest serviceableness. But such a 

 friend can not in the same way approve the building of luxurious dormi- 

 tories, where only the wealthy can really afford to live with any show of 

 an honest independence. The simplicity and severity of the student 

 life, in this and other similar regards, in the public schools and the 

 colleges of the great universities of England are in refreshing and sug- 

 gestive contrast to the extravagances and class distinctions of republican 

 America. And when, contrary to the good judgment of the teaching 

 force, scores and hundreds of thousands of dollars are unnecessarily 



