510 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



have indeed been hard pressed; whether this condones the offence let 

 each judge. It is the common case of advancing a good end by bad 

 means, thus sacrificing a larger benefit for an immediate gain; yet in 

 so doing — and that is the sacrilege of it — the integrity of the end is 

 compromised, the worship of false gods sanctioned. 



The largest field of conflict between the standards and consequent 

 views and favored policies of the academic interests and those associated 

 with administrative measures is that of educational provisions. It is 

 true that the divergence is more commonly partial than total; yet cu- 

 mulatively it is momentous, — a chronic if not acute ailment. It is not 

 easy to illustrate it without becoming tedious. I shall choose a phase 

 in which the public is interested. How does it affect the student, the 

 manner of life which he is invited to lead; the influences to which he 

 is exposed; the curriculum to which in theory he is subjected and in 

 practise too commonly orders by devising a mingled a la carte and 

 table d'hote menu not contemplated in any well-designed European or 

 American plan of education. His very presence in college or in a par- 

 ticular college may be a result in which the administrative emphasis 

 has been a cause; for there are so many of him (or her) that are in 

 college without due warrant of present fitness and future benefit. The 

 bidding for numbers is part of the system that operates to the disad- 

 vantage of standards; for the size (not the quality) of the share of the 

 annual freshman crop, when reported, affects the rating in the educa- 

 tional Bradstreet. Prosperity is statistically measured; hence the de- 

 sire for more buildings and costly ones; for more instructors, many 

 of them occupied in work that the college should require and not pro- 

 vide; and more and more students who must be attracted towards the 

 local Athenopolis and away from the rival one. Accordingly the hills 

 are all reduced to easy grades and new democratic (not royal) roads to 

 learning are laid out for those who do not like the old ones. Eequire- 

 ments are set not to what collegians should learn but to what they will ; 

 as at the circus the strip of bunting is held ostentatiously high until the 

 horse with its fair burden is about to jump, when it is inconspicuously 

 accommodated to the possible performance. Still more fatal is the 

 continuance of a like spirit within the college; competition is encour- 

 aged for large classes and big departments; each professor bids for 

 students, and students have the air of patronage when they choose the 



academic adjustment: "I have never been able to manage a university" (note 

 the language) on that plan. That statement is a confession of unfitness. It 

 would be invidious to point out how this or that institution has admirably 

 solved one or another phase of the problem. There is sufficient proof that a 

 reasonable solution can be reached even under present conditions. I also offer 

 the two-edged philosophic consolation that since salary can not possibly reflect 

 merit, it does a man no good and no harm to receive more or less of it than 

 do his colleagues. Perhaps this truth should be kept for home consumption; to 

 offer it to the public may lead to complications. 



