508 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



The crux of the matter is here reached. Is there or is there not a 

 clash of interests? Do academic needs demand distinctive provisions, 

 distinctive in end and distinctive in means ? Are there or are there not 

 economic, political, administrative, individual interests, external sources 

 of pressure, irrelevant or undiscriminating judgments or motives, that 

 conflict with academic purposes ? Does the current system of university 

 government impose such restraints and force the organism to an un- 

 wholesome existence, weakening the vitality of its expressions, distorting 

 the ends of its being? Here the case, which I have made my case, 

 stands or falls. The statement must be limited to conviction not un- 

 supported by argument. If I am wrong in my primary contention, my 

 plea is vain. 



In further illustration of the view that such divergence is real and 

 disastrous, I approach the disagreeable but unavoidable part of my task. 

 I wish it were possible always to speak of the presidency and the pro- 

 fessorship and forget the president and the professor; for these ob- 

 jective fictions are really the subjects of discussion. It is also true that 

 in large measure the office shapes the man; yet personality persists 

 despite the difficulty of recognizing in the glorified presidential butter- 

 fly the humble professorial worm. The unwise authority and false re- 

 sponsibility of the presidential office invites the incumbent to attempt 

 impossible tasks; invites him to adopt irrelevant standards; to obscure 

 issues by looking many ways and seeing none clearly; to lose the clear- 

 cut distinctions that regulate well-adjusted views and wholesome lead- 

 ership. A despondent colleague insists that the only type of man safely 

 to be entrusted with the prerogatives of the presidency is one whose 

 principles would require him to decline the office. The dismal problem 

 of salary shows the situation at its worst. (Let me assure the reader 

 that I shall not expose the futility of the professor's financial manip- 

 ulations to the kindly scorn of an affluent public; it is so magnani- 

 mously conceded that he is grievously underpaid, that there is still hope 

 that the grief may assume a pragmatic form.) It is the chaotic ad- 

 justment, the introduction of the methods of the auction-room and 

 the stock-market that have totally obscured the fact that there are prin- 

 ciples at stake. What is wrong to the core is the attempt to translate 

 academic service into dollars by an esoteric procedure which only pres- 

 idents understand and will not reveal. It is possible to recognize the 

 sublimity of Don Quixote's courage in his grotesque ventures, or of 

 Chanticleer's confidence in his relation to the solar system, though dis- 

 turbed by a humiliating mischance; but the administrative alchemy 

 seems only ridiculous ; while the waving of the magic wand of " merit " 

 is irritating because so specious and so futile. 



Principles are as clear as practise is muddy. More significant for 

 wise adjustment is what a man is paid for, than what he is paid. Sal- 

 ary represents an adjustment of resources to needs, to the composite 



