32 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



services rendered in their behalf. But let him never mind. Perhaps, 

 if he is a true man he does really not much mind. But vi^hat he can 

 scarcely help minding is this : His whole career, and the reputation and 

 influence which he has won by a life of self-sacrificing labor, may at any 

 moment be in peril through the caprice, or cowardice, or ill-will of a 

 single man, or of a little group of men who have influence with that 

 single man. Then he will have the choice between a silent submission 

 or an ignoble contest with a probably inglorious — albeit triumphant — 

 ending. 



This last and worst of all the many influences tending toward the 

 degradation of the professorial office is definitely connected with the 

 present system of university administration. One can not wonder, and 

 one can scarcely blame, the younger generation if they neither have nor 

 profess the same unstinted devotion for an institution as that which 

 sustained their forebears during lives of self-denial, hard work and low 

 living. They are in it for what they can get out of it, much more than 

 their old-time predecessors were. They need not be at all so careful as 

 their elders were about any shadow being cast upon their reputation for 

 the most upright and austere morality; but they are almost sure to be 

 more careful about standing in with the power that has most to do with 

 appointments and promotions. For the question may at any time be 

 thrust upon them : Which shall I sacrifice, my hard- won position or my 

 highly prized spirit of manly independence? 



Immediately following the consideration of the evils of the present 

 system of university administration in this country comes the question : 

 Can these evils be abolished or lessened by any feasible changes in this 

 system ? And on the heels of this question follows another : If changes 

 are to be made, what shall those changes be? In treating these ques- 

 tions it scarcely needs to be said that, as a matter of course, no system 

 of administration, to whatever purpose that system may be applied, can 

 avoid encountering and in all probability collecting about itself, a host 

 of embarrassments and of obstacles to its perfect working. Institutions 

 that have developed as large and old universities have, even in this com- 

 paratively new country, in fact developed, can not be subjected to radical 

 changes, suddenly, and on grounds of theoretical significance alone. But 

 as I have already said, so obvious and important in their power to defeat 

 the smooth and successful working of the highest functions of a great 

 and good university have some of these evils grown to be, that the time 

 has fully arrived for a frank and thorough discussion of the topics sug- 

 gested by them. And this discussion may be entered upon with the 

 conviction that some of these evils, and those not the least of them, are 

 so largely due to the nature of a worn-out system, that by changing the 

 system we shall lessen if we do not wholly extirpate them. 



In order to point the direction in which changes are both needed and 

 promising, as respects the present system of university administration 



