388 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



men to the boards, while the urgency for additional funds has led to 

 selection of men very prominent in all callings — extremely busy men. 

 On the other hand, the extraordinary growth, internally, of the colleges 

 and universities has made no longer possible for the trustee that 

 familiar acquaintance with professors and with the departmental needs 

 which he ought to have. Ordinarily, one finds in a board two or three 

 members who become so attached to some school or department as to 

 give genuine attention to its affairs and who do gain much information 

 respecting it ; but most of the others have no leisure, or think they have 

 none. To make this isolation complete, there is no official communi- 

 cation with the faculties except through the president, for cases are 

 very rare in which the faculties have representatives in or before the 

 board of trustees. Unfamiliar with educational affairs, unacquainted 

 with the needs of the college under their care, too often without per- 

 sonal knowledge of the professors or their qualifications, these trustees 

 select a president. Eecognizing their inability to perform the duties 

 devolving upon them under the law, they practically transfer their 

 responsibilities to their appointee, and thereafter their principal func- 

 tion seems to be simple legalization of his acts. Although the average 

 trustee of to-day is a far abler man than his predecessor of a genera- 

 tion ago, circumstances have made him far less efficient as trustee; 

 in too many instances he is director in name only and many men seem 

 to assume the office with as little sense of responsibility as though they 

 were to be directors in a corporation of which one man holds a con- 

 trolling interest. The creature has become greater than his creator 

 and the board of trustees has lost even its old-time efficiency as ' a 

 pipe-line for shekels.' 



Effect on the President. — Formerly, the president was to all intents 

 simply a professor with some additional responsibilities for which he 

 received additional remuneration. But the president of this day is very 

 different. His duties have been summed up recently by Dr. A. S. 

 Draper, and the catalogue as given is sufficiently interesting to deserve 

 at least partial reproduction. The president must 



see that the property is cared for; that the teachers are efficient; that proper 

 men are found to fill the chairs; that the institution's work is organized 

 properly; that the resources are assigned rightly to the several departments 



Decide the lines along which the institution should develop; uphold proper 

 ideals and make them attractive to real men — old and young; be forehanded 

 and peer into the future; initiate policies; puncture fallacious logic and 

 much of it; augment the resources of the institution; make the whole 

 efficient for increasing service; manage and guide students, who must be 

 dealt with individually; construct as well as administer; declare the best 

 university opinion concerning popular movements and serious interests of 

 the state; connect the university with the life of the multitude; exert 

 university influence for quickening and guiding public opinion; be able to 

 work harmoniously with others; 



but he must work out his official course for himself. 



