272 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



matters of the formation of the curriculum, standardization, election 

 and dismissal of instructors and the like, belong naturally to the fac- 

 ulty, with board and student representatives, under normal conditions 

 exercising advisory influence. It is as hazardous for boards of educa- 

 tion to assume responsibility for the complicated institutional life of a 

 university and exercise the fine shades of judgment needed for its suc- 

 cess, as it would be for the ordinary university professor without the 

 requisite years of preparation to run a bank or department store. The 

 president should be chairman of the faculty. His proper function is 

 primarily an executive one, and in no sense legislative or judicial. But 

 the prerogatives of students — what are they? I recently asked a pro- 

 fessor in a state university what power, in his judgment, students ought 

 to have in an educational institution. He replied, "Power? Why, 

 the -power to work and work like thunder." When I argued that they 

 were already in possession of such freedom, he retorted emphatically, 

 " But they do not seem to know it ! " No one has to urge a graduate 

 student, interested in his problem and inspired by personal contact, 

 to work. Usually, on the contrary, he must be restrained from too 

 continuous application on account of his bodily health. His attitude 

 toward instructors, tasks and institution is different. Student bodies 

 have rarely come into possession of their own. Why should they not 

 have full responsibility for student enterprises and social activities? 

 How mucli power of the faculty, which is legally the responsible agent 

 in such matters, should be in evidence, is an open question. Professor 

 Payne, of the University of Virginia, where for more than a century 

 students have successfully regulated questions of student honor, honesty 

 and propriety, assures me that the plan is working well, just because the 

 faculty keep their hands off entirely. Under such circumstances stu- 

 dents are glad to regulate their own affairs, and they do it well. I know 

 of no instance in which students have participated in the activities of 

 an institution, wherein they have broken faith or usurped power. Still 

 they are treated as underlings, while instructors keep school, hold exam- 

 inations and administer grades. Under present conditions they are 

 filled with ideals of military discipline rather than infused with social 

 impulses. Why may not our universities be transformed into states in 

 miniature or social communities, in which students are " the people," 

 each of whom is tempted by the entire situation, to care, to lend a hand, 

 to feel the thought currents of the time, to know men as well as books, 

 to be efficient units in society? In this direction we must tend if our 

 new ideals of social righteousness are to be woven into the texture of 

 our common life. 



The problem would be easy were we not tempted by the luscious 

 sense of power and blinded by a highly developed institutionalism. The 

 university exists for the students, and not the students for the university. 



