396 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER 



obliged to admit certain students this year, against its own judgment, 

 merely on account of representations previously made to those students 

 by the Dean of the Scientific School. I have attended every meeting of the 

 Board this year, and I can state positively that no such case has arisen. The 

 Dean has been exceedingly scrupulous to avoid bringing any pressure of 

 this kind on the Board. I remember one case at least in which the Board 

 rejected a student who had been very properly granted "provisional registra- 

 tion " by the Dean and this action met with absolutely no protest from 

 him. In the only case in which the student was "given the benefit of the 

 doubt" in view of possible misunderstanding of certain correspondence with 

 the Board, the Dean had nothing to do with the case, and expressly stated 

 to the Board that the Board should not feel in the least hampered in its 

 action. 



It is true, Mr. President, that the Dean often moves the Board by elo- 

 quent, sometimes personal, appeals on behalf of some boy ; but it is not true 

 that he has ever, since I have been on the Board, based his appeal on the 

 ground of previous representations made by him to the boy. I am as sensi- 

 tive as any member of the Board to the unsatisfactory character of much 

 of our action ; but in respect to this one item of your statement to the fac- 

 ulty there seems to have been some misapprehension, which I trust you will 

 allow me, in this manner, to correct. 



Respectfully yours, EDWARD HUNTINGTON. 



From the same to Professor Shaler, after referring to the 

 letter to President Eliot, a copy of which he sent : 



I am free to say that I have often disagreed with your side of a case pre- 

 sented to the Board, and voted against it; but the idea that you have ever 

 exercised any "discretion" in admitting students other than the per- 

 suasive force of your own eloquence is certainly devoid of foundation, and 

 I hope the President will pardon my telling him so. If the members of the 

 Board have yielded more often than we think we should have yielded to 

 your persuasion, that is surely our fault and not yours! For myself, I regard 

 it as one of the privileges of my academic life to serve on the Board under 

 your chairmanship, where the fight, when there is a fight, is at least a fight 

 in the open. 



Other administrative work outside the faculty room and 

 Mr. Shaler's office, which was run with great system and punctu- 

 ality, he had at this time in abundance. The different state 

 boards (the Highway, the Metropolitan Park, and the Gypsy 



