ACADEMIC ASPECTS OF ADMINISTRATION 333 



given to Professor B; while Professor C, but recently refused recog- 

 nition, finds that his merit has risen several points because his stock is 

 quoted higher at a rival university exchange. Not thus is academic 

 loyalty furthered. The salary question is a most disturbing factor of 

 the academic situation; and the cure is prevention. Most of the 

 irritating situations must not be allowed to arise; the ones that legiti- 

 mately find their place will be suitably solved under a suitable system 

 of principles ; and the president's life, if he wishes it, will be a happier 

 one. An equalized system of comfortable salaries fixed for the pro- 

 fessorship and the scale of living of the environment, will dispose of 

 this question and leave all freer to devote themselves to what their 

 functions demand. I do not advocate for the good of the academic 

 life the existence of large rewards or special prizes, though I deem it 

 for the good of the community to thus manifest its appreciation of 

 academic service. I agree with President Eemsen that once the pro- 

 fessor is relieved from financial worry the cause would not be par- 

 ticularly benefitted, though the professor might be pleased to receive a 

 larger income. It is thus clear that the procedure by which incomes 

 are to be determined and adjusted follows directly from the principles 

 that show the way to remove far more difficult though not more 

 irritating disabilities of the academic life. 



President Eemsen's remark laid him open to a retort which was 

 promptly made : that a president would not be injured though he might 

 be pained by having his salary reduced to that of a professor. The dis- 

 paragement between the appraisal of academic and of administrative 

 service is yet another and a serious misfortune of externalism. It 

 affects not presidents alone, but deans, and heads of departments; it 

 diverts unusual talents into unprofitable channels; it obstructs many 

 of the byways of academic activity. It is thoroughly bad in appear- 

 ance or reality to countenance the view that the only or the normal 

 method of rising is by assumption of administrative powers. It is 

 equally bad to encourage the popular misconception o*f academic serv- 

 ice by throwing the limelight either upon administrative position or 

 upon athletic prowess or upon any but the central purpose for which 

 the university exists. It was far different in the older simplified col- 

 lege, in which the president was commonly the leader of the faculty, 

 the embodiment of the spirit of the institution, distinguished for just 

 what the academic sanction of the day approved, and quite incidentally 

 an administrator. To-day when the office seeks the man, the search is 

 for one with executive taste or pioneering ambition; and when the 

 man seeks the office, it is too commonly because he likes the disposition 

 of authority and the enjoyment of movement with no oversensitiveness 

 to the jar or other disquieting accompaniments of locomotion. I do 

 not for a moment imply that the university presidency is other than 



