218 educational system of the city under its board of education." 

 Its deanship was not a bad offer — six thousand the annum and 

 the post of pathologist in Detroit's largest hospital were there 

 for the man. Officers and faculty wrote officially and privately 

 in warmest appeal. One "had not taken to the applicants;" 

 another wanted an "independent, out-of-town man, an origi- 

 nal investigator who would put the college in the front rank." 

 Albert P Mathews, about to join Cincinnati's faculty expressed 

 that town's feelings: "I am getting heart disease waiting to 

 hear whether you are to remain or go." After a visit to Detroit, 

 Wherry refused. His letter to the temporarily active dean, W 

 H MacCraken (June 20, 1918) , spoke so clearly his views in 

 matters academic, that it is quoted: 



I did not send you a night letter as you suggested because I felt 

 it rather hard to express my reasons in so few words. I shall find 

 it difficult anyway. Originally I hesitated considering the posi- 

 tion at all, because my leaving this school would cripple it at 

 a time when it is extremely hard to get men, and when it has 

 just raised my pay to $4,000. . . . I did not realize until we 

 talked the matter over in Detroit that the Board expected me 

 to teach pathology and bacteriology in addition to being dean. 

 Such an arrangement would of course make me dean in name 

 only. Furthermore, while it was stated that the dean would 

 have full power, I came to feel that in reality he would be wise 

 if he adopted a policy already mapped out for him — at least 

 for the time being. 



Now I might be willing to give up some of my time for 

 research for the sake of developing a new scheme of education 

 — where the biological and dynamic subjects of the curricu- 

 lum are favored and nurtured more than the morphological — 

 but in order to do so the dean would certainly have to be 

 assured of full power. The question of his leadership would 

 then involve tenure of office; and assurance of this, you must 

 admit, rests on rather insecure foundations. [He had been 

 informed that he would be appointed not for life but under 

 a two to five year "contract."] 



Lest my letter is taking a tone which I don't wish it to 

 assume, I hasten to say that I was very much pleased with the 

 treatment you accorded me. I thank you for the plain fashion 



