THE SMALL COLLEGE 185 



another in the case of a tie. To the faculty, which consists of all the 

 permanent officers of instruction, is, by the statutes, "committed the 

 government of the students." This term "government" is considered 

 to include both the disciplinary and the instructional functions of the 

 college officers. 



The courses of study, prepared originally by the faculty, are pre- 

 scribed by the supreme governing body and changes are from time to 

 time made by the faculty under the authority of the trustees. Within 

 ten years at least there has been no case in which the wishes of the 

 faculty in these matters have been overruled by the trustees. 



It is probably true that the president has a good deal of practical 

 authority. It is based upon nothing except the feeling of the faculty 

 that as the president is in a peculiarly responsible position both to the 

 trustees and to the public, because his view is necessarily wider and more 

 comprehensive than that of the professors through his relation to the 

 public, because there are after all other considerations than those of 

 any particular classroom which must affect the college policies — for 

 these and other reasons his wishes are entitled to some weight. The 

 president has no veto over the action of the faculty. For many years 

 there was a provision giving him this authority. It was repealed at the 

 request of an earlier president, and the present president refused to 

 have it restored when some of the trustees were rather disposed to 

 restore it. 



As for the unhappy athletes in this small college it is unquestion- 

 ably true that they get less consideration than anybody else. Any 

 excuse asked by an athlete, or request for special consideration, any 

 explanation of failure or misconduct offered by such a person is re- 

 garded with peculiar suspicion — almost enough to justify the statement 

 in a very amusing book of college stories that " a college professor always 

 hates a man who weighs over one hundred and seventy-five pounds." 



Similarly, it is unthinkable that this faculty should modify a stu- 

 dent's marks according to the social or financial prominence of his 

 family. One of the most excruciating and most frequent tasks of the 

 president is to write letters to his personal friends and to wealthy 

 patrons of the college explaining that their sons have been dropped on 

 account of deficiency in scholarship. It is not a pleasant job and the 

 performance of it goes far to justify the somewhat larger salary which 

 the president receives. Indeed, quite antithetically to the situation in 

 the college described last May, it is the president who has to take most 

 of the " knocks " arising from the actions of the governing body of the 

 college, the faculty, whether or not he happens to be personally in 

 sympathy with all that is done. Again and again has he found himself 

 obliged to defend acts and policies with which he was by no means in 

 accord. 



VOL. LXXXV. — 13. 



