3o6 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



in an editorial article in the last i 

 Educational Review he writes: 



Truly the academic animal is a queer 

 beast. If he can not have something 

 at which to growl and snarl, he will 

 growl and snarl at nothing at all. , 

 In the Educational Review for Oc- 

 tober last he quotes from The Nation . 

 the following: 



There is a fine opening for a new 

 institution to show what a college can 

 be wherein the personal domination by 

 the president is abandoned, and in its 

 stead we have a company of gentlemen 

 and scholars working together, with 

 the president simply as the efficient 

 center of inspiration and cooperation, 

 and with some inconsistency remarks: 



Concerning this statement two things 

 may be said with a considerable 

 amount of emphasis. The first is that 

 the condition described in the last four 

 lines is precisely what is to be found 

 at every American college and univer- 

 sity that is worthy- of the name, and 

 that no evidence to the contrary has 

 ever been produced by anybody. The 

 second is that, while the attempt to 

 create a contrary impression may be 

 originally due to ignorance, when per- 

 sisted in it can only be attributed to 

 malice. 



Permanent tenure of office for the 

 professor is not such a unique state 

 of privilege as President Van Hise 

 imagines. A president's wife has per- 

 manent tenure of office; he can not 

 dismiss her because he regards her as 

 inefficient or because he prefers another 

 woman. In the army and navy, in the 

 highest courts, to a certain extent in 

 the civil service of every country, there 

 is permanence of office. Indeed it is 

 nowhere completely disregarded; serv- 

 ice is always a valid claim for con- 

 tinued employment. Perhaps one wife 

 in fifty is divorced by the courts, 

 one army officer in a hundred court- 

 marshalled, one judge in a thousand 

 impeached; but such actions are taken 

 after definite charges and opportunity 

 for defence. 



Permanent tenure of office is in- 

 tended to improve the service, not to 

 demoralize it. It is attached to hon- 

 orable offices, where public spirit and 



self-sacrifice are demanded, and the 

 wages do not measure the performance. 

 In Germany, France and Great Britain 

 the permanence of tenure has given 

 dignity and honor to the university 

 chair, attracting to it the ablest men 

 and setting them free to do their besc 

 work. In this country the better the 

 institution, the more permanent has 

 been the tenure of office. Up to the 

 time of the writing of President But- 

 ler's report only one professor had ever 

 been dismissed from Columbia Univer- 

 sity, and then it was for entering the 

 confederate army. 



It is possible to adduce arguments 

 for the introduction of the competitive 

 system into the university. Thus 

 President Butler holds that it is unde- 

 sirable to pay equal salaries. He says: 



In my judgment such a policy would 

 fill the university with mediocrities 

 and render it impossible to make that 

 special provision for distinction and 

 for genius which the trustees ought 

 always to be able to make. 

 But it appears that the general course 

 of social evolution is not towards com- 

 petition. In the university it would 

 probably be adverse to the finer traits 

 of scholarship and character, most of 

 all when, as under our present system, 

 ihe competition would be for the favor 

 of presidents and trustees. The presi- 

 dent may assume superhuman respon- 

 sibilities, but he is after all human in 

 his limitations. He may regard com- 

 mon sense as agreement with him, 

 common loyalty as subservience to him, 

 respect for the opinions of mankind as 

 deference to that small portion of 

 mankind which has money to give. 



If there is to be competition in order 

 to retain university chairs, then the 

 university must be prepared to forego 

 able men or to compete with other pro- 

 fessions in the rewards it gives. It 

 must offer prizes commensurate with 

 those of engineering, medicine and law, 

 namely, salaries as large as a hundred 

 ^ thousand dollars a year. It is further 

 true that under these circumstances a 

 I man must be judged by his peers. 



