THE PRO GEE SS OF SCIENCE 



93 



THE PKOGRESS OF SCIENCE 



ADMINISTRATIVE 21 ET HODS IN 

 AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 



Recent events at Syracuse, Cincin- 

 nati and Oklahoma direct attention to 

 the anomalous conditions of university 

 control that obtain in this country. 

 Elsewhere throughout the world the 

 university is a republic of scholars, 

 administered by them. Here it is a 

 business corporation. The ultimate 

 control is lodged in a board of absentee 

 trustees, whose chief duty is the elec- 

 tion of a president. The qualifications 

 most regarded in the president are 

 the ability to get money for the insti- 

 tution and a good presence at public 

 functions ; but he is expected to " run " 

 the university. The professors and in- 

 structors are employed " at the pleas- 

 ure of the trustees," and so long as 

 the president maintains his position 

 this means at his pleasure. Advances 

 in salary or position, appropriations 

 for apparatus, etc., are subject to the 

 same pleasure. In larger institutions 

 the department-store system naturally 

 grows up. Deans and heads of de- 

 partments are responsible to the presi- 

 dent, and their subordinates are re- 

 sponsible to them. 



As a matter of fact, men are not 

 dominated by governments and laws, 

 but conversely. In a great university, 

 such as Harvard, courtesy and consid- 

 eration do not fail. In the smaller 

 colleges, there is the spirit of the 

 family. So long as the best men are 

 found at our colleges and universities, 

 it may not matter greatly under what 

 system of academic government they 

 live. But there is real danger that 

 the existing system may prove repul- 

 sive to men of the highest intelligence 

 and character, and that mediocrity and 

 time-serving may be developed, where 



we need the most vigorous ability and 

 independence. Then we have occasional 

 i academic scandals which exhibit the 

 seamy side of the system. 



At Syracuse University the chan- 

 cellor did not like the dean of the 

 School of Applied Science, and has 

 dismissed him, giving no grounds ex- 

 cept that he had. been a disappoint- 

 ment to the administration. However 

 this may be, it appears that the dean 

 has conducted the affairs of his school 

 with skill, and has the sympathies of 

 his colleagues at Syracuse and in the 

 engineering profession, of the students 

 : and the alumni. A competent engineer 

 can earn far more by practising his 

 profession than as a professor, and the 

 Syracuse dean has not been forced to 

 sacrifice his independence to feed his 

 children. He has consequently con- 

 ducted a good public fight, which will 

 doubtless lead to an improvement of 

 affairs at Syracuse and elsewhere. The 

 Syracuse chancellor has written : " Our 

 professors have nothing to do with the 

 hiring, continuing or dismissing of 

 professors and students." But when 

 Syracuse recently needed a professor 

 of botany, men looked askance at the 

 position, and the same thing will hap- 

 pen now when the deanship of the 

 school of engineering must be filled. 

 Neither the largest stadium in the 

 world, nor a chancellor who is a 

 methodist orator, nor a president of a 

 board of trustees, whose corporation 

 controls the kerosine of the country, 

 suffices to make a university. 



At the University of Cincinnati 

 there was a few years ago a deplorable 

 state of affairs. A president was 

 brought there to dismiss a large part 

 of the faculty and then he was in turn 

 dismissed. Xow the head of the de- 



