THE ADMINISTRATIVE PERIL IN EDUCATION 507 



tocracy — or to avoid prejudice, let us say isocracy — obtains among the 

 judges of a bench, each presumably qualified to serve, each with like 

 status with the others, yet exercising to the full the qualities of his 

 personality. It is about as appropriate to subject the decisions of a 

 faculty to review by an external board, as it is apt to be constituted, 

 as it would be to have the decisions of the bench reviewed (or in- 

 fluenced, as a suspicious journalism implies is the case) by non-com- 

 missioned captains of industry. If the members of the faculty are not 

 qualified to decide educational measures, and to do so broadl}', not with 

 a narrow professionalism but with due regard to diversified, at times 

 conflicting, public interests, then there is something seriously wrong 

 about their training or the manner of their election or the influences 

 to which their judgments are exposed. If such incapacity is inherent 

 in the academic character, the appointment of a board of guardians 

 is defensible. Yet initiative is paramount. The more expert judg- 

 ment is always needed to see what is wanted, to frame policies, to make 

 platforms, to raise issues; to decide whether this or that is wanted 

 may often be referred with advantage to a wider constituency. To 

 secure a double or a multiple basis of judgment on many-sided issues 

 is a proper function of boards of trustees, corporations and alumni. 

 The usual statement that educational questions are decided by the 

 faculty and financial ones by the board is absolutely specious and is 

 not borne out by practise. There is a group of plainly financial and 

 a group of plainly educational questions; but most questions partake 

 of both aspects. Instead of " hedging," the fact should be frankly met. 

 Old-world precedents — and in favored cases our own usage — abundantly 

 show that and how this may be done. Under the prevailing system the 

 professors neither individually nor collectively settle the important di- 

 rections in which matters are to move. They await the pleasure or fear 

 the displeasure of the president and deans; and if they move, it is too 

 apt to be with an eye to the man higher up, just as the president is 

 tempted to urge not what his untrammeled judgment approves but what 

 he considers will be approved by the board. The professor does not 

 stand face to face with determinative issues; there is not a considerable 

 body of men thinking of the university as a whole, not a sufficiently cor- 

 porate sense of their being a whole; the system does not encourage it, 

 distinctly discourages it. The referendum is there but is not unre- 

 stricted; it is beset with implications of accountability to another, 

 rather with an independent responsibility. The scope of questions and 

 policies included in the referendum is curtailed. The faculty is at times 

 entrusted with the details of a plan on the general desirability of which 

 it has not been consulted; it receives commissions, conducts a second- 

 table order of deliberation, which makes a sorry feast. All of which is 

 bad for the faculty, as duly set forth ; and bad for the university as is 

 also coming to be realized. 



