THE ADMINISTRATIVE PERIL IN EDUCATION 499 



while quite insensitive to the inner thralldom covered by specious pro- 

 fession. Our English exemplars accept the former naturally, gauging 

 it at its true worth, and keenly resent any invasion of the spirit of 

 liberty ; there " the university is unconstrained in presence of its visible 

 lord, bringing as he does, no thought of imposition, but standing forth 

 rather as the representative and spokesman by free choice of those who 

 are the learned guild" (G. M. Stratton). In other relations, also 

 (witness: politics), our citizen plainness may harbor the vested 

 interests of autocracy. 



We may not be deeply concerned as to the source of this American 

 brand of externalism, though such knowledge may temper without re- 

 moving our conviction of its present unsuitableness. It has been sug- 

 gested that it is a sympathetic survival of a colonial, absentee form of 

 government — " a government that was well enough for a boy's academy 

 in colonial times" (G. M. Stratton); also, that "the present rela- 

 tionship between the faculty, trustees, and president may be regarded 

 as a haphazard growth, the result of a laissez-faire policy, affording 

 an example of the same sufficient-to-the-day spirit and smug satisfac- 

 tion" (Stewart Paton) that obtains in municipal management, in 

 which in turn we acknowledge old-world superiority. The unsuitabil- 

 ity of the system to needs and conditions, and the menace it harbors to 

 interests of vital import remain the same, whatever the historical jus- 

 tification, or lack of it. Freely and fully admitting its points of merit, 

 the most charitable verdict may still recognize it as an example of the 

 partially good forming a serious obstacle to the better or the best. 

 "The administration imposed on universities, colleges, and school sys- 

 tems is not needed by them, but simply represents an inconsiderate 

 carrying over of methods current in commerce and politics" (J. McK. 

 Cattell). "The development of our American universities is seriously 

 handicapped by the present system of administration" (Stewart 

 Paton). " No single thing has done more harm in higher education 

 in America during the past quarter-century than the steady aggran- 

 dizement of the presidential office and the modelling of university ad- 

 ministration upon the methods and ideals of the factory and the de- 

 partment store" (Springfield Republican: editorial). "The very 

 idea of a university as the home of independent scholars has been 

 obscured by the present system" (J. E. Creighton). "All experience 

 of democracy with itself justifies the plea for more democracy in Amer- 

 ican educational administration" (Boston Herald: editorial). The 

 disastrous effect of the system in blighting the academic career is set 

 forth in no uncertain terms. " It is one of the most productive of the 

 several causes which are working together to bring about ' the degrada- 

 tion of the professorial office'" (G. T. Ladd). "If the proper status 

 of the faculties is to be restored, and if the proper standard of educa- 

 tional efficiency is to be regained, there must be a radical change in the 



