338 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



ing, of successive short tacks to each gust of shifting sentiment. By 

 all means evolution and not revolution ; but also by all means steer and 

 do not drift. If we are on the wrong track, let us manfully confess 

 it and set the compass to a different course. There is already in the 

 air a growing sentiment against autocracy, a decidedly increased will- 

 ingness, even an anxiety, on the part of presidents to seek counsel and 

 to prevent the ruptures invited by the official organization — all this 

 parallel with an increasing development of organization upon prin- 

 ciples antagonistic to real professional independence. It is obvious to 

 all that so impossible a situation as that now made publicly available 

 by the commendable willingness of Dean Kent to set forth the facts 

 of the case is not likely to recur; and the next president of Syracuse 

 University will be both a wiser and a happier man because of the 

 public indignation aroused by this extreme example of presidential au- 

 tocracy. Presidents are likely more and more to be benevolent, even con- 

 descending; and their efficiency is admitted. But as Professor Cattell 

 says : " The benevolent and efficient despot is the worst kind ; the cruel 

 and incompetent despot soon disappears." The increasing gracious- 

 ness and reasonableness of the administrative attitude, while it miti- 

 gates the situation for the present dwellers in the grove, must not be 

 permitted to set aside the real need for reform. Such reform, I have 

 urged, comes alike from the guiding dominance of principle, and the 

 facilitation of a suitable organization. The most practical outlook is 

 towards university presidents of different views of administration, of 

 independent insight, not overawed by convention or popular prejudice, 

 of a democratic temperament. I hold, as do others, that one of the 

 first requisites is that faculties shall elect their own presidents; and 

 the legal relations being what they are, I look forward (perhaps tele- 

 scopically) to the day when no worthy man will be willing to preside 

 over a faculty unless invited by them to this place of academic leader- 

 ship. More than this, I believe it essential that the faculty invest the 

 president with such authority and only with such as they regard as 

 desirable for academic welfare. Professor Stratton, quite independ- 

 ently, has expressed the same conviction : 



Still more important and beneficial for our present needs would it be to 

 have the professors rather than the trustees elect the university president and 

 determine the powers which he should yield. The office of president would thus 

 remain, but he who occupied it would be the representative directly of the 

 faculty, and he could be efficient only so long as he retained their confidence. 



Equally important with this reform is another: the authoritative 

 voice of the faculty in the determination of what measures shall be 

 decided with the cooperation of the board, which by the board alone, 

 and which by the faculty alone, and with this an essential representa- 

 tion of the faculty at the meetings of the board. An effective provi- 



