May 24, 1912] 
recently they were essentially degree-con- 
ferring institutions. They are adminis- 
tered by councils elected by the resident 
teachers, but the ultimate control is vested, 
as is becoming, in the masters of arts. The 
Church of England clergy have perhaps 
had more influence than is desirable, but 
their interference has in the main been 
confined to prescribing the conditions for 
the degree. In any ease it is only a tem- 
porary phase, and a certain amount of con- 
servatism is not so bad for a university. 
It would seem quite absurd to invest the 
ultimate control of Oxford and Cambridge 
in a self-perpetuating board, consisting of 
a score or larger crowd of business and 
professional men. The chancellorship is an 
honorary office, without executive power or 
influence, to which a non-resident graduate 
of distinction is elected. With the special- 
ization of knowledge and the need of labo- 
ratories, the colleges could not give all the 
instruction needed, and the universities of 
Oxford and Cambridge are becoming in- 
creasingly teaching bodies. Parliament has 
required the colleges to give some part of 
their income to the support of the univer- 
sity. The professors are usually nomi- 
nated by boards of electors, consisting of 
men of distinction in the subject or in 
related subjects, partly from the university 
and partly from outside. I have never 
heard of the expulsion of a fellow or pro- 
fessor. That a professor’s salary should 
depend on the favor of a president or that 
he should be dismissed without a hearing 
by a president with the consent of an ab- 
sentee board of trustees is a state of affairs 
not conceivable in an English or German 
university. 
Harvard College was founded in 1636 by 
the general court of the Colony of Massa- 
chusetts Bay and placed under a board of 
overseers named by the court. In 1650 
there was established a self-perpetuating 
SCIENCE 
801 
corporation consisting of a president, a 
bursar and five fellows, which, however, 
was made responsible to the overseers. In 
1865 the election of overseers was trans- 
ferred from the legislature to the alumni 
of the college. The Collegiate School of 
Connecticut, subsequently named Yale Col- 
lege, was chartered by the legislature of the 
Colony of Connecticut in 1701 and placed 
under the control of trustees or partners, 
consisting of ten reverend ministers of the 
gospel. In 1745 the corporation received 
the title of The President and Fellows of 
Yale College. Later the governor, the 
lheutenant governor and six senators of the 
state were added to the fellows; in 1872 
alumni trustees were substituted for the 
senators. The College of William and 
Mary was chartered in 1693 by the sover- 
elgns whose names it bears. Princeton, 
Pennsylvania and Columbia, chartered, 
respectively, in 1746, 1751 and 1754, were 
placed under the control of boards of 
trustees, and, like Harvard and Yale, 
either at their inception or later, were con- 
trolled by the state and received appropri- 
ations from it. In my opinion it would 
have been better if the relation between 
the state and its university had been main- 
tained. 
The colonial college was largely modeled 
on the Cambridge college; thus the form 
of the Harvard and Yale corporations—the 
president and fellows—was directly bor- 
rowed. At Harvard the corporation in- 
cluded the teachers of the college; there 
was much protest the first time an alumnus 
was elected a fellow when there was a 
tutor eligible. It would be interesting to 
trace—did time and my competence per- 
mit—the steps through which our colleges 
slipped from the control of the state and 
of the graduates and teachers into the 
hands of small self-perpetuating corpora- 
tions; until we reach the most reactionary 
