8 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 705 



THE IDEAL UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION 

 The recent controversy in Syracuse Uni- 

 versity is one that is of far more im- 

 portance to the educational interests of this 

 country than a mere quarrel between two 

 individuals. It is a symptom of a disease 

 which to some extent is common in many 

 universities, that is, the government of a 

 imiversity by a single autocrat, supported 

 in power by a body of absentee trustees 

 who are not educational experts. The time 

 is ripe for a general study of the subject 

 of university administration. 



A university is primarily a congregation 

 of students and teachers. The corporation 

 responsible for the administration of the 

 university may or may not be constituted 

 wholly or partially of either students or 

 teachers. The earliest university in Eu- 

 rope, that of Bologna, Italy, founded in the 

 year 1119, was a corporation of students. 

 The University of Paris, founded in 1200, 

 was a corporation of teachers. Given a 

 body of students of legal age, they might 

 under our laws form a corporation, and it 

 might hire a body of teachers, frame a set 

 of by-laws, erect and furnish buildings 

 and equipment, and so form a university. 

 Or another body composed exclusively of 

 teachers might form an organization, elect 

 themselves as ofScers, issue stock, rent or 

 erect buildings and furnish them, and ad- 

 vertise for students just as ' a mercantile 

 house advertises for customers. A third 

 method of making a university would be 

 for a single rich man to furnish money, 

 form a corporation with four dummy 

 stockholders, giving them one share of 

 stock each, erect buildings, provide the 

 necessary equipment, hire teachers, adver- 

 tise for students, and begin the business of 

 furnishing education in exchange for tui- 

 tion fees. 



These three different corporations might 

 each organize and carry on a university 

 of the highest rank. These three uni- 



versities may differ in many things ; in age 

 and reputation, in wealth, in numbers of 

 professors and students, in social standing 

 and in fame in athletics, in methods of 

 teaching and in number of subjects taught, 

 in systems of government and administra- 

 tion. One may have a magnificent campus 

 and marble palaces, another no campus at 

 all, but a lot of rented brick buildings 

 in a city block, converted from old resi- 

 dences. They may differ in all these 

 things, but in one thing they must agree, 

 the possession of a corps of professors of 

 the first rank. Given such a corps of pro- 

 fessors and the students will come as a 

 matter of course. The real university is 

 the body of professors and students. The 

 real work of the university is teaching. 

 The buildings, the equipment, the system 

 of administration, are the possessions, the 

 appendages of the university, not the uni- 

 versity itself. As the body is more than 

 the raiment, as the inhabitants of a house 

 are more than the house, as a man is more 

 than his possessions, so is a university more 

 than its mere equipment. 



Given a real university, a body of 

 capable, cultured gentlemen, able and will- 

 ing to teach, a body of carefully selected 

 students, able and willing to learn, a roof 

 to cover them, the necessary equipment of 

 furniture, apparatus and other material 

 that modern methods of teaching require, 

 what else does a university need to enable 

 it to carry on its work? 



First, money to keep it from going into 

 bankruptcy. This may be furnished by 

 the state, as is done in the west. The stu- 

 dents may contribute a great deal of it, 

 as in most eastern colleges. The pro- 

 fessors contribute some by working for 

 small salaries, getting the remainder of 

 their income from interest on their invest- 

 ments or from doing outside work, and 

 some is presented in the shape of contribu- 

 tions or legacies from philanthropic citi-^ 



