THE ADMINISTRATIVE PERIL IX EDUCATION 513 



retirement of the calmer, sober claims of sound education ! So far as 

 youth and the frontier is the excuse, it no longer obtains. We are of 

 age; nor is it so much a matter of age as of tradition. It is the sur- 

 vival of an unwholesome tradition into a state of affairs in which 

 it becomes a hindrance and not a help, that constitutes the administra- 

 tive peril. 



A retrospect suggests the prospect and foreshadows it. I find some 

 difficulty in attaining the degree of despondency which the outlook 

 demands. There are many signs of a reaction against the system; 

 while, as I have repeatedly noted, the spirit of the academic relations 

 has steadily improved, and will, I am confident, lead in the directions of 

 the reforms so urgently desired. The ability, earnestness, and eager- 

 ness to cooperate, on the part of governing boards, is itself a sufficient 

 assurance. They are becoming sensitive to their externalism, and rec- 

 ognize the unwisdom of snapshot judgments of momentous issues, con- 

 cerning the pros and cons of which they are increasingly reluctant to 

 accept the president's view as representative. The retrospective con- 

 trast is indeed amazing. It falls just beyond my experience to have 

 members of the faculty addressed by a member of the board as "You 

 men whom we hire." It is within my experience to have professors 

 summoned inquisitorially before a committee of the board to give an 

 account of themselves, the interview conducted by the chairman with 

 his feet on the table, and displaying a salivary agility that needs no fur- 

 ther description. Such reminiscences carry no sting; they are merely 

 amusing because now so impossible. The} r are instructive as showing 

 how quickly the products of a world-culture follow upon the receding 

 frontier. It lies in the power of governing boards to restore the aca- 

 demic prerogative. A movement in this direction would lie in accord 

 with the tendency in public affairs to correct national weaknesses and 

 to revise cruder codes of procedure. 



Returning some years ago from a prolonged sojourn abroad, I was 

 on the watch for the first convincing incident that would reflect the 

 American trait. Emerging from the attentions of the customs officials, 

 who lost no time in showing me my place in their scheme of existence, 

 I was accosted at the gates of liberty by a foreign urchin with the 

 breezy offer: " Carry your bags, Boss?" — in his own land it would have 

 been " Signor." I recognized the title as the proper address for the 

 returning American citizen. But now the boss, political, industrial, or 

 educational, is no longer in such high repute as to make the term an un- 

 questioned compliment. Methods are coming to be scrutinized, policies 

 challenged, rights and wrongs as well as successes considered, and ethical 

 and social as well as economical balance-sheets demanded. All this 

 makes for a refinement in the adjustment of means to ends which is 

 sympathetic with my plea. It is natural that the men of affairs chosen 

 for posts of honor, so many of them of the high-principled classes 



VOL. LXXXI. — 35. 



