334 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



a most honorable career, or that the incumbent should set aside the 

 honorable satisfactions of high office. I do imply that a president who 

 in any way uses the university as a means of personal exaltation is 

 abusing his office ; I do imply that such success even when most deserv- 

 ing and well directed is too dearly bought when it is paid for, as 

 commonly it is, by the mutilation of the academic efficiency, often the 

 personal unhappiness of many a professor. I imply more than this : 

 that the spirit in which the presidency should be assumed is not wholly 

 different from the attitude which I heard a progressive American 

 demoiselle prescribe for her mother as a most effective way to encourage 

 the social success of her daughters; namely, to efface herself except 

 when summoned. Now I am not approving this rule of conduct; I 

 am but suggesting that a large measure of this spirit of depersonaliza- 

 tion, somewhat more loftily conceived, shall dominate all who serve the 

 administration of the grove. Administration must ever be second ; and 

 often must it be last. Academic perspective can be retained only by an 

 advancement to the foreground in every presentation of scientific in- 

 sight, educational wisdom and commanding personal quality, by the 

 retirement to the background of all auxiliary services however essential, 

 difficult or worthy, so that those within and without shall see, hear 

 and understand. Once more let me cite the testimony of another 

 (Stratton) : "We exalt administrative ability above scientific insight," 

 which should not be. Universities " should be the last to typify in 

 their own structure the thought that discovering truth and imparting 

 the vital principle whereby others may discover it are of a dignity less 

 than that of organizing and management." 



I can not better reenf orce the scattered contentions of my plea than 

 by gathering a few citations from one and another who, surveying the 

 same sets of influences in which as it seems to me lies the future 

 strength or weakness of the American universities, have brought away 

 a similar and even less hopeful outlook. Professor Cattell regards with 

 special concern the autocratic domination that externalism brings and 

 the deterioration of character that follows in its wake: 



The individual has once more been subordinated, crudely commercial 

 standards prevail, and control has been seized by the strong and the unscru- 

 pulous. Those of us who are not ashamed to express faith in democracy regard 

 all this as a temporary phase, which will only last until intelligence has devel- 

 oped equal to the complexity of the environment. The only real danger is that 

 instincts may become atrophied before reason is ready to take their place. The 

 trust promoter and insurance president, the political boss and government 

 official, the university president and school superintendent, have assumed 

 powers and perquisites utterly subversive of a true democracy. The bureauc- 

 racy is defended on the ground of efficiency; but efficiency is not a final cause. 

 To do things is not a merit regardless of what they are, and bigness is not 

 synonymous with greatness. There is no ground for hopelessness. Of the things 

 done the good may last and the rest may be eliminated; bigness may become 

 greatness. 



