848 
people could live there, what work they 
must do and what incomes they should 
have. Why should a university be con- 
ducted in that way ? 
The bible is often misquoted to the effect 
that ‘‘money is the root of all evil.’’ The 
love of money and the lack of money are 
indeed factors in most of the difficulties of 
society. Next after the getting of men, the 
getting of money for the university is its 
most troublesome problem, and next after 
the proper treatment of men, the use of 
money is the most important question. He 
who holds the purse strings holds the 
reins of power. That the president should 
decide which professor shall be discharged 
and which have his salary advanced, 
which department or line of work shall be 
favored or crippled, is the most sinister 
side of our present system of university 
administration, more pernicious in the 
private universities, where dismissals and 
salaries are kept secret, than in the state 
universities, where salaries are published 
and teachers are, or should be, dismissed, 
as in the better public-school systems, only 
after definite charges. 
To transfer the control of appointments 
and finances from the president to the pro- 
fessors would strike many as passing from 
purgatory to a worse place. A university 
executive said to me the other day that if 
the professors were in control the first thing 
that they would do would be to raise their 
own salaries. Well, perhaps worse things 
have been done. It may be admitted that 
this is what a president usually does for 
himself and to an extent beyond the dreams 
of the most avaricious professor. Butthere 
are at least two points of difference. First, 
the president may increase his salary by 
withholding a small sum from each pro- 
fessor, whereas the professors could only 
increase their salaries by obtaining the 
money for the purpose. Second, it is un- 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 909 
desirable for a president to receive three or 
four times the salary of the greatest scholar 
or teacher on the faculty, as is the case at 
California, Columbia and other institu- 
tions. It is subversive of decent social and 
educational ideals for the president of Har- 
vard University to be permitted to build 
on the grounds of the university a house 
for himself costing $100,000, and for the 
trustees of Columbia University to build 
for their president a house which with its 
grounds may cost twice that amount. But 
it would be in the interest of the university 
and of society if the salaries of professors 
were increased. Abuses are possible, but 
at present whatever makes the academic 
career more attractive to men of genius is 
in the interest of all the people. 
The undeniable difficulties in the way of 
adjusting salaries and the conflicting needs 
of schools and departments, whether the 
decision rests primarily with the president, 
the trustees or a committee of the faculties, 
may be minimized by permanence of tenure 
and fixed salaries, and by giving the de- 
partments financial autonomy: President 
Van Hise, of the University of Wisconsin, 
and President Butler, of Columbia Univer- 
sity, have recently pronounced in favor of 
the competitive system in the university. 
The former says: ‘‘There is no possible 
excuse for retaining in the staff of a uni- 
versity an inefficient man.’’ The latter 
says: ‘‘A teacher who can not give to the 
institution which maintains him common 
loyalty and the kind of service which loy- 
alty implies ought not to be retained 
through fear of clamor or eriticism,’’ and 
further in respect to equality of salaries: 
“‘TIn my judgment such a policy would fill 
the university with mediocrities and render 
it impossible to make that special provision 
for distinction and for genius which the 
trustees ought always to be able to make.”’ 
