THE SMALL COLLEGE 187 



an appointment is to be made, confers freely and with entire candor 

 with the professors whose work is most like that which is to be done by 

 the new incumbent, and some decision is generally arrived at by a 

 sort of mutual understanding arising without formal rules. Never- 

 theless it has happened again and again that appointments must be 

 made under conditions absolutely precluding any considerable confer- 

 ence with members of the faculty. It is probably true that professors 

 have means of finding out things about candidates from other institu- 

 tions which lie beyond the range of the president's powers of investiga- 

 tion ; but there is one difficulty about the circumstances brought to light 

 by professors investigating each other. A good deal of the informa- 

 tion thus collected is not true. It is based upon personal jealousies, 

 pique, personal likes and dislikes — all of which give a certain pleasant 

 tang to life in the college faculty but which are very misleading when 

 allowed to count for much in judging the man who is leaving one faculty 

 for another. 



"We are hearing a good deal just now of that freedom of thought and 

 of the expression of it which ought to be enjoyed by college professors. 

 Evidently college professors must be allowed to think without restraint 

 within very broad limits. The expression of their thoughts should 

 not be criticized or at least should not be used as a reason for dismissal 

 from college because some trustee happens to disagree with them. 

 Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that even college professors some- 

 times talk very foolishly, and if a professor or a president makes him- 

 self and the institution which he represents ridiculous there would seem 

 no very great injustice in suppressing him. Isn't it a possibility that 

 college men are all too thin-skinned, too sensitive, too jealous of each 

 other, too considerate of the persons whom they think themselves to be. 



Various recent developments seem to indicate a regrettable tendency 

 on the part of college professors toward something like class feeling; 

 toward the notion that they are somehow different from other people. 

 It will be a great misfortune if this idea is allowed to prevail, if it is 

 allowed to become permanent. "When we forget that everybody is pretty 

 much like everybody else, when any persons employed in a particular 

 fashion get to think that tbey are otherwise than just folks, there is 

 trouble brewing. This president feels pretty sure that the average 

 college professor is too sensible to allow himself to be betrayed for long 

 into such an untenable position. 



Within the last ten years there have been in this small college of 

 ours thirty-seven men who have held permanent appointments as well as 

 a good many who have taken a small amount of work in emergencies or 

 who have been here temporarily while professors have been away on 

 leave of absence. Of these thirty-seven twenty are now in the faculty. 

 Of the seventeen who have left three were dismissed either for ineffi- 



