ACADEMIC ASPECTS OF ADMINISTRATION 339 



sion seems to be that of a joint council of trustees and faculty, or an 

 advisory council to the president as at Stanford University. With 

 the establishment of these reforms or their equivalent, the rest may con- 

 fidently be left to the wisdom that universities have already shown 

 themselves to command, and to the cooperative spirit which these 

 changes inevitably incite. 



Should it be said that by my own argument, administrative methods 

 are secondary and that the great struggle needed to effect these changes 

 will not be justified, I reply first with a decided assent, and second 

 with a vital reservation. Naturally administrative measures are of 

 minor importance if academic ends are secured; but it is because the 

 current methods are directly subversive of such ends, and because, most 

 of all, they imperil the academic career, and wantonly deprive it of its 

 due standing, that the change of such methods becomes the major con- 

 cern of the present educational situation. " The constitution of our 

 universities is an appearance of their indwelling mind, and therefore 

 it is of moment for their future" (Stratton). 



The outward semblance and public garb of the university, no more 

 than personal beauty, is skin deep. Or if, indeed, we consider it such, 

 the retort is at hand, that at all events ugliness goes right down to the 

 bone. The unfortunate and distorted features of the academic system 

 are not superficial; and the remedy likewise must be radical. While 

 I make my plea for administrative reform dominantly because I am so 

 deeply convinced that the rehabilitation of the academic career is 

 possible only upon that condition, I yet emphasize that the welfare not 

 alone of the profession will be secured by the change of front which 

 is the consummation alike to be wished for and to be worked for, 

 but equally that the good of the student community and of all that, 

 makes for the strength of the university will be similarly advanced. 

 Measures will then be the issue of an inner harmony, of a slow matur- 

 ing conviction, of sensibilities and perceptions fostered by the experi- 

 ence of the academic life. As has been well said, a university — like- 

 much else in this world and very different from the advertising fusilade- 

 of commercial blank cartridges — a university works best when its work 

 is quiet and deep; and all its forms and organization should express 

 and strengthen this idea. 



Ordinarily, amid the routine of pressing duties, in the leisure 

 between obligations, under the ever-pfesent sense of accountability, the 

 dweller in the modern grove checks his enthusiasms, and withstands 

 the temptation to unfold the future. But in surroundings, such as 

 these and under the incentive of occasion and with a sympathetic body 

 of hearers, he is emboldened to disregard the overcast horizon and 

 contemplate distantly, yet hopefully, the things that are to be. 



