May 24, 1912] 
opinions which seem lacking in apprecia- 
tion of what is being accomplished in this 
country for higher education and for the 
advancement of science, this is only be- 
cause it is not possible to put in each para- 
graph or even in a single paper everything 
that one believes. The most useful for- 
ward movements and the greatest men are 
subject to just criticism. It is only when 
the work has been accomplished and the 
men are dead that we may forget the fal- 
tering and the errors and eulogize the good 
that has been done. In our educational 
and scientifie work, as in our business, so- 
cial and political life, we must oppose with 
all our power the materialistic aims and 
autocratic usurpations which are the not 
unnatural accompaniments of the develop- 
ment of the vast resources of a new coun- 
try and the passing from aristocratic to 
democratic control. As I wrote? before the 
present democratic movement had gathered 
its existing force: 
The applications of science—which in the first 
instance made democracy possible by supplying 
the means of subsistence with possible leisure and 
education for all—have in their recent develop- 
ments enormously complicated modern civilization. 
Our methods of communication, transport and 
trade, of manufacture, mining and farming, have 
led to the doing of things on an immense scale. 
The individual has once more been subordinated, 
crudely commercial standards prevail, and control 
has been seized by the strong and the unscru- 
pulous. Those of us who are not ashamed to 
profess faith in democracy regard all this as a 
temporary phase, which will only last until intel- 
ligence has developed equal to the complexity of 
the environment. The only real danger is that 
instincts may become atrophied before reason is 
ready to take their place. 
The trust promoter and insurance president, the 
political boss and government official, the univer- 
sity president and school superintendent, have as- 
sumed powers and perquisites utterly subversive 
of a true democracy. The bureaucracy is defended 
on the ground of efficiency; but efficiency is not a 
2‘<The University and Business Methods,’’ The 
Independent, December 28, 1905. 
SCIENCE 
803 
final cause. To do things is not a merit regardless 
of what they are, and bigness is not synonymous 
with greatness. There is no ground for hopeless- 
ness. Of the things done the good may last and 
the rest may be eliminated; bigness may become 
greatness. The organizers of our huge corpora- 
tions have in a way made history prematurely; 
these vast combinations were inevitable; the trouble 
is that they have come before we are ready to 
manage them. We have no evidence that people 
are less competent, honest and kindly than they 
were; it is the difficulties and the temptations that 
have increased. 
There is ground for maintaining that the meth- 
ods of the business corporation and the political 
machine have been somewhat wantonly applied to 
educational administration in this country. On 
the one hand, educational institutions are not and 
need not become so big and complex as to require 
the sacrifice of freedom to supposed efficiency, and, 
on the other hand, those who are the university— 
the teachers and the students who are or have been 
under their influence—have far more than average 
intelligence. ... 
In stating frankly views that are shared by a 
larger proportion of my colleagues than is generally 
supposed, I by no means wish to adopt the attitude 
of a pessimist. I know well from personal experi- 
ence with what unfailing courtesy and ceaseless 
effort a university president may conduct the 
affairs of his difficult office. Much has been ac- 
complished for higher education in the United 
States. As the industrial trusts will in’ the end 
be directed by the world’s greatest democracy for 
the benefit of the people, so our educational system 
may give the material basis for an efflorescence of 
creative scholarship springing from a free and 
noble life. 
My own academic experience has been 
mainly in the endowed institutions of the 
Atlantic seaboard. My father was presi- 
dent of Lafayette College from 1863 to 
1883, during which period the teachers in- 
creased from nine to thirty, the students 
from 60 to 300, and the property from 
$50,000 to $1,000,000. There the personal 
and patriarchal system of college control 
was exhibited at its best. It doubtless now 
flourishes in many small institutions 
throughout the country as in the English 
public schools, A man such as Mark Hop- 
