406 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



hold college work in high esteem when he finds that, though almost 

 wholly uninformed respecting it, he is thought competent to select the 

 managers and to direct the method. It is not surprising that some of 

 our modern trustees entertain little respect for college professors; the 

 only wonder is that so many of them entertain any respect whatever. 

 Under the proposed method, however, the trustee would be no longer 

 a mere name, he would hold office with definite duties and definite 

 responsibilities, whose nature he would understand. He could not fail 

 to become familiar with some portion of the institution's work, for 

 conference would bring every trustee into contact with representatives 

 of the faculties. His personal interest in one department or another 

 would be apt to take practical shape. 



As business principles would prevail in the management, funds for 

 endowments could be obtained with less difficulty because there would 

 be less dread of waste through bad investment. Patrons would be more 

 ready to found departments, equipped with men, materials and build- 

 ings, seeing in them more enduring monuments than mere memorials of 

 stone. 



The writer has been a college professor for thirty-three years. 

 Familiar with the changes for good and ill to which this article refers, 

 he has felt compelled to write without reserve and it may be with some 

 emphasis, that the conditions may be brought sharply before those who 

 really control the futere of American colleges and universities. He 

 appeals to that business common sense which characterizes the great 

 majority of college trustees. American colleges and universities have 

 outgrown their swaddling clothes; no amount of patching can make 

 them fit; the new garments must be of different cut and of different 

 material. 



