THE NEXT COLLEGE PRESIDENT 275 



That the college president " is bearing up well " under these mani- 

 fold duties and responsibilities and that unlike his brother politician in 

 the state he does not " view the present situation with alarm " there is 

 abundant evidence on every side to prove. He has in the first place 

 written two or three books on the subject — that the number is so limited 

 is in itself perhaps indicative of the insignificant part the whole subject 

 takes in his mind. A more extended source of information is found 

 in the memoirs of college presidents who have taken the public into 

 their confidence. Occasionally the college president has written an 

 anonymous magazine article; in one of these he has enlarged on the 

 perplexities of his position, which he likens to those of a stage-coach 

 driver compelled to prod one lazy horse into doing his share of the work 

 while at the same time trying to prevent another spirited one from 

 kicking over the traces. The near-professor was a near-instructor at 

 the time he read this particular article, but he still vividly recalls the 

 strong desire he felt to urge the college president to give up stage-coach 

 driving for a living and get another job. 



But the college president, unlike the college professor, seldom finds 

 it necessary or wishes to conceal his identity. Educational reviews, 

 educational associations, the inaugurations of brother presidents, and 

 public educational functions of every description give him abundant 

 opportunity to express his opinions in regard to the present distribution 

 of powers between president and faculty and to give his general ap- 

 proval of the principle " it's heads I win and tails you lose." 



At a somewhat recent inauguration of a university president, the 

 previous incumbent of the position gave an address on " The University 

 Presidency." In this he states that "the president must mark out his 

 official course for himself and bear the responsibility of it without cavil. 

 He can not expect that the work he has to do will make everybody 

 happy. It will discomfit many. In one way or another they will give 

 him all the trouble they can." This statement seems so absolutely final 

 as to make it unnecessary to add further illustrations, many though 

 there be at command. 



But extreme as this statement of a former university president must 

 seem to all who take an active interest in the organization of our educa- 

 tional system, much as these extreme statements are in themselves to 

 be deprecated, irritating and exasperating as must seem the official 

 relationships between college president and college faculty in view of 

 this apparently prevailing conception of the college presidency as held 

 by the college president, it must, after all, never be forgotten, even by 

 those who suffer from the system, that the college president of to-day 

 is the victim of the very virtues of his official predecessors. An over- 

 conscientious desire to do all that he should has often led him to under- 

 take more than he can accomplish; a real desire to save his colleagues 



