THE ADMINISTRATIVE PERIL IN EDUCATION 501 



ing; he must make the nation understand the functions and the rights 

 of the learned classes. He must do this through a willingness to 

 speak and fight for himself" (J. J. Chapman). 



The system is concentrated in the president. So often uncritically 

 the recipient of praise as the visible embodiment of the source from 

 whom all blessings flow, he is as naturally chosen as the one on whom all 

 curses fall. Critically temperate statements admit the enormous pow- 

 ers he wields to mitigate or to aggravate the evils of the system; yet 

 we are asked to consider that " the benevolent and efficient despot is 

 the worst kind; the cruel and incompetent despot soon disappears" (J. 

 McK. Cattell). The educational situation is naturally subject to the 

 unfortunate influences of the social climate. " The individual has 

 once more been subordinated, crudely commercial standards prevail, 

 and control has been seized by the strong and the unscrupulous " (J. 

 McK. Cattell). The relation between the president and the profes- 

 sor, though not untouched by the quality of mercy, is indeed strained, 

 quite too commonly to the breaking-point. Its vital wrong is this: it 

 sets forth that " we exalt administrative ability above scientific insight." 

 Universities " should be the last to typify in their own structure the 

 thought that discovering truth and imparting the vital principle where- 

 by others may discover it are of a dignity less than that of organizing 

 and management" (G. M. Stratton). This is the charge; that the 

 president " is in large measure thought of, and thinks of himself, as 

 the master, or the foreman, or the captain, of a body of men working 

 under his direction; and this fact has a potent influence on the whole 

 character and spirit of academic life in America " (New York Even- 

 ing Post: editorial). Presidential inaugural addresses show the drift 

 of the current : " And there is the style of ill-concealed arrogance, ex- 

 pressing the personality of the man who frankly thinks of his colleagues 

 as subordinates, and who will ride rough-shod over their rights as men 

 and their freedom as educators whenever his masterful instincts prompt 

 him so to do" (Dial: editorial). The president is appointed "not to 

 elevate the institution as an educational power, but to make of it ' a big 

 thing/ . . . The executive duties of his office render the president less 

 and less fitted as the years go by to represent the purely educational 

 side of the institution, yet every year strengthens his control of all the 

 interests. This condition is not in accord with business common-sense " 

 (J. J. Stevenson). The universities seem to drift towards or to desire 

 " high-priced imperious management " and " low-priced docile labor " 

 (Dial: editorial) — truly a dismal combination. The censure is at times 

 diverted to the governing board. " Our colleges have been handled by 

 men whose ideals were as remote from scholarship as the ideals of the 

 New York theater managers are remote from poetry. In the mean- 

 while the scholars have been dumb and reticent" (J. J. Chapman). 

 And this in extenuation : " The financial gentlemen are applying in 



