UNIVERSITY CONTROL. 397 



accumulated wealth, desire to leave the world better than they found 

 it. Such men, in many eases, hesitate to entrust the disposition of 

 their gifts wholly to others and each year finds them in increasing num- 

 bers upon corporate boards of colleges and universities — sometimes be- 

 cause they have contributed, sometimes because it is hoped that they 

 will contribute. 



These patrons, if not college graduates, labor under a disadvantage 

 in that they are unacquainted with the nature of the work for which 

 colleges have been founded; even if they be college graditates they are 

 at an almost equal disadvantage, as absorption in business or profes- 

 sional pursuits has prevented them from keeping track of the changes 

 which have come about since their graduation. As a rule, their new 

 responsibility does not tend to create or to renew acquaintance with 

 college work; the trustees' duties usually begin and end with labors 

 on committees, so that naturally enough the business affairs with which 

 they have to do become for them the all-important work of the institu- 

 tion. And this conception is strengthened by thoughtless assertions 

 of men who ought to know better. Only recently this community was 

 informed that the millionaires make the universities. With such flat- 

 tery ringing in their ears, one is not surprised that some trustees forget 

 the object for which the university exists and think of professors, when 

 they think of them at all, as merely employees of the corporation, whose 

 personality and opinions are as unimportant as those of a bank clerk. 



Unacquainted with the faculty, unfamiliar with the extent and even 

 character of the work done by individual professors, the trustees depend 

 for knowledge of the educational affairs upon reports by the college or 

 university president, for in rare instances only have faculties, as such, 

 representatives in the board. Unfortunately, very few of our college 

 presidents have taken a preliminary course to qualify them for the posi- 

 tion. Indeed, it must be confessed that ability to superintend educa- 

 tional work has not been regarded in all cases as the essential prerequi- 

 site; in some cases that appears to have been thought less important 

 than a supposed ability to collect money. But at the best no one man 

 is able now to understand all the phases of university or even college 

 work, as many college presidents already recognize; but were he able 

 and willing, he has little opportunity to make his trustees comprehend 

 them. Discussion of purely business matters occupies so much atten- 

 tion during board meetings that discussion of other matters must be 

 deferred and the president's report is printed that it may be read at 

 leisure. The best of presidents becomes weakened by the overwhelming 

 importance of the financial side and comes to look upon increasing 

 numbers as the sure proof of success. He soon finds himself between 

 the upper millstone of the trustees and the nether millstone of the 

 faculty, the former insisting upon numbers, the latter upon a high 



