75° POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of men. Such opportunities were rare formerly and, for their sake, 

 college work was chosen by many to whom pecuniary reward was, in 

 comparison, a secondary matter. And this led in no small degree to 

 the high esteem in which college professors were held, for the corporate 

 boards were composed chiefly of professional men, who believed that 

 they had chosen their work for similar reasons. But the boards of 

 to-day are made up largely of men of affairs, strong men of the business 

 world, who are apt to regard indifference to material success as evidence 

 of native weakness. 



While the matter of salary is important in its bearing on the future 

 of American colleges, it is of less immediate importance than that of 

 relations between the teaching and the corporate board. This is the 

 vital matter. 



Theoretically, the corporate board of to-day and the college presi- 

 dent of to-day are the same as they were one hundred years ago; but 

 in fact they are essentially different. The boards and presidents of 

 the former days were so familiar with the conditions of their little 

 schools and of the narrow curriculum that they were competent to take 

 charge of them. To-day the curriculum is so broad that neither board 

 nor president can be familiar with the needs of the several chairs even 

 in institutions of moderate size, while in universities it is barely possible 

 for them to have any personal knowledge whatever. Yet the teaching 

 board is wholly subordinate to the corporate board. Such complete 

 legal subordination was well enough as long as the chief purpose of 

 colleges was to prepare men for the ministry and subordination may 

 be well enough still in purely denominational colleges, whence it is fit 

 and wise to eject summarily those ' courageous, independent thinkers ' 

 who would hold to their salaries while rejecting denominational tenets ; 

 but the university has outgrown the swaddling clothes of the semi- 

 theological college and the method of control should be adapted to the 

 new conditions. 



It is well understood that the corporate board as a rule is not 

 composed of men familiar with educational matters. The rapidly 

 increasing financial interests of colleges and universities necessitate 

 the selection of men possessing thorough business ability. Examina- 

 tion of college catalogues shows that the boards are made up chiefly of 

 men beyond middle age, eminent lawyers, prominent business men, 

 with some clergymen and physicians, all of highest standing; all of 

 these are busy men, whose prominence proves that for many years 

 they have been engrossed in the work of their several callings so in- 

 tensely as to be disqualified for some of the duties devolving upon 

 college trustees; most of them are far removed in thought and occupa- 

 tion from educational work and few of them are in any degree familiar 

 with the changes in scope and methods of college teaching. Nor, as 



