Mat 2, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



655 



It is urged with reason that the college 

 president should be a good teacher and 

 should continue to teach, in order that he 

 may keep in close touch with the students 

 and with the teaching problems of his fac- 

 ulty. The American college has been 

 widely condemned in recent years because 

 many of its classes have been entrusted to 

 young persons who did not know how to 

 teach and to scholars who did not care to 

 teach. It is said that the college has neg- 

 lected its function of teaching partly be- 

 cause the president and the classroom have 

 been divorced. ' 



It is said, with equal reason, that the 

 college president should supervise the 

 teaching. Expert supervision is regarded 

 as absolutely necessary in every other 

 branch of education, even though the 

 means for training teachers, and the pro- 

 fessional requirements of teachers, for all 

 schools below the coUege are so much bet- 

 ter than formerly. Yet the group which 

 has the least preparation for teaching is 

 the very group that teaches with the least 

 supervision. At many a college, the presi- 

 dent never appears in the classroom. If 

 he is to be held responsible for the college 

 as a teaching institution, and for the re- 

 tention and promotion of men partly be- 

 cause of teaching ability, it is reasonable 

 to expect him to supervise the teaching, 

 until that duty is definitely assigned to 

 another person. Supervision is, therefore, 

 regarded by many persons as a third among 

 the president's obligations. 



A fourth duty of the president is busi- 

 ness management. The increasing com- 

 plexity of college affairs; the larger and 

 more elaborate budgets; the development 

 of new departments; the promotion of 

 profitable relations with other institutions; 

 the growth of the material equipment — 

 buildings, laboratories, gardens, farms, 

 museums, hospitals, dormitories, dining- 



halls, experiment stations, libraries, play- 

 grounds ; — all thrust upon the college exec- 

 utive obligations similar to those that exact 

 the entire time and strength of the head 

 of a commercial enterprise. If the busi- 

 ness organization of the institution is to 

 bring about and maintain the maximum 

 economy and achievement, it demands the 

 constant care of a man whose services in 

 the open market are rewarded with several 

 times the usual college president's salary. 

 I know a man who was recently offered 

 the presidency of a university at a salary 

 of ten thousand dollars. He chose to re- 

 tain his professorship at less than half that 

 salary. He told me that if he were to give 

 up his opportunities to study and write 

 and teach in favor of a business career, he 

 would accept — not the university presi- 

 dency—but a previous offer to manage a 

 commercial house at a much larger salary. 

 As a matter of fact college presidents do 

 delegate business matters to other officers; 

 but, in nearly all instances, the ultimate 

 responsibility, apart from the investment 

 of funds, rests upon the president of a col- 

 lege, as it does upon the president of a rail- 

 road, or a bank, or a department store. 



A fifth duty of the president— the rais- 

 ing of funds— is akin to the last; it is 

 business, but a highly specialized form of 

 business. It has no counterpart among the 

 obligations that fall upon the head of an 

 ordinary commercial establishment. No 

 matter how well-endowed the institution 

 may be, or how liberally supported by pub- 

 lic taxation, the president is expected to 

 increase its resources. Bach alumnus ap- 

 plauds the effort — until the president 

 reaches him. I have heard many of the 

 faculty and graduates of a certain college 

 flatly condemn their president — certainly 

 among the ablest dozen college presidents 

 in America — because they thought he had 

 failed in this one part of his job, though 



