846 
taken up with trying to dissuade the presi- 
dent from doing unwise things or in ma- 
king the best of them after they have been 
done. Administrative details should be at- 
tended to promptly and correctly; this is 
the proper business of secretaries and 
clerks. Then we need leaders, most of all 
in a democracy. But in a democracy lead- 
ers are the men we follow, not the men who 
drive us. In the university each should 
lead in accordance with his ability and 
character. 
The trouble in the case of the univer- 
sity president is that he is not a leader, but 
a boss. He is selected by and is respon- 
sible to a body practically outside the uni- 
versity, which in the private corporations 
is responsible to nobody. In our political 
organization, the mayor, governor or presl- 
dent has great power, too great in my opin- 
ion, if only because it demoralizes the legis- 
lature; but they are responsible to the 
people who elect them. I object even more 
to the irresponsibility of the university 
president than to his excessive powers. 
The demoralization that the president 
works in the university is not limited to 
his own office; it has given us the depart- 
ment-store system, the existing exhibit of 
sub-bosses—deans, heads of departments, 
presidential committees, professors ap- 
pointed by, with salaries determined by, 
and on occasion dismissed by, the presi- 
dent, all subject to him and dependent on 
his favor. 
It is not my wish to depreciate unfairly 
the services of the American university 
president. Like the promoter in business 
and the boss in politics, he has doubtless 
been a factor natural and perhaps desir- 
able in a given stage of evolution, when the 
crowth of the complexity of society and the 
need of new adjustments have outrun the 
adaptability of the individual. Itis probable 
that the president has increased appropri- 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 909 
ations and gifts; it is possible that he has 
promoted rather than hindered the devel- 
opment of the university and the exten- 
sion of its work. The president, however, 
has not usually been the cause of gifts, 
professors and students, but only the 
means of diverting them from one institu- 
tion to another, and on occasion of doing 
sO In ways unworthy of the institution 
which he then misrepresents. The presi- 
dent has not infrequently sacrificed educa- 
tion to the fancied advantage of his own 
institution. Thus college entrance re- 
quirements have imposed studies in the 
high school which drive from it the major- 
ity of boys. The opposition of certain 
presidents of proprietary universities to a 
national university is not less pernicious, 
if it results from honest prejudice. The 
prestige of the president is due to the 
growth of the university, not conversely. 
He is like the icon carried with the Russian 
army and credited with its victories. Pres- 
ident Eliot claimed that he had never 
asked for a gift for Harvard. During the 
lean years he was regarded as a poor 
money-getter; when the fat years came 
with the increasing wealth of the alumni 
and of the country, this opinion was re- 
versed, but he had not changed. President 
Eliot is a truly great man, but his remarks 
on all sorts of subjects, usually wise but 
occasionally otherwise, were reported 
everywhere, not for their wisdom, but on 
account of his position. 
While I regard it as desirable to do 
what little I can to make ridiculous an 
institution which has become a nuisance, 
and while I should find my state of depend- 
ence on a president for my opportunity to 
serve the university intolerable if I con- 
cealed my views, I certainly do not wish 
to be understood as lacking in apprecia- 
tion of the fine characters and high mo- 
tives of most of the men who have served 
