854 
bulk. In the evolution of organic life a 
limit is placed on the size which an ani- 
mal can attain. Its surface increases more 
slowly than its mass, and there must be 
differentiation and division of labor in 
order that the animal may grow and react 
properly to the environment. Even then 
a limit is fixed; it is doubtful whether 
apart from the nervous system a structure 
more complicated than that of the mam- 
mal will be reached, or that animals much 
jarger than man will survive. Only a 
polyp or similar creature can conduct a 
pure democracy; the organization of 
higher animals must be more complicated. 
The growth in size of the American uni- 
versity has been large and rapid. Fac- 
ulty or town-meeting methods have be- 
come difficult or impossible; the institu- 
tion drifts into autocratic and bureau- 
eratic control. A representative or dele- 
gated system of government is necessary 
for the university, as a whole, but its divi- 
sions can maintain a family and demo- 
eratic system. 
President Eliot says*’ that a long tenure 
of office will be an advantage to the presi- 
dent and to the university he serves, but 
that the chairman of departments should 
be chosen for short periods and should 
generally be junior or assistant professors 
to give them opportunity and because 
‘“dangers from the domination of master- 
ful personages will be reduced to a mini- 
mum under this system.’’ It is not evi- 
dent why it is less desirable to limit ‘‘the 
domination of masterful personages’’ in 
the office of the president or of the dean 
than in the department. But it is true 
that a departmental autocracy may be 
even worse than one on a larger scale, and 
for the reason that it is conducted in the 
dark. A president may say that a teacher 
“‘ought not to be retained through fear of 
u¢<University Administration. ’’ 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 909 
clamor or criticism,’’ but fortunately pub- 
lic opinion does prevent the more serious 
abuses to which the system is liable. In 
certain departments of certain universi- 
ties instructors and junior professors are 
placed in a situation to which no decent 
domestic servant would submit. Clearly 
that is no breeding ground for genius and 
great personalities. 
It can not be denied that the organiza- 
tion of the departments of a university is 
one of the difficult problems that confront 
us. The German plan, according to which 
the individual rather than the department 
is the unit, is in many ways preferable. 
But the American university conducts 
what is practically a secondary school in 
the first two years of the college, and it 
conducts professional schools which are 
not of university grade. The high schools 
and small colleges should take over the first 
two years of the college, establish schools 
of agriculture and of the mechanic arts, 
and conduct courses preparatory to medi- 
cine, law, engineering and teaching. In a 
large state, the state university would have 
one hundred thousand students, if it re- 
ceived all the young men and women be- 
tween the ages of sixteen and twenty who 
should continue educational work. Such 
education should be provided locally and 
in connection with productive industry, 
as in the admirable plan adopted by the 
school of engineering of the University of 
Cincinnati, by which students work alter- 
nate weeks in the university and in the 
shop. Under President Eliot, Harvard 
placed both its college and its professional 
schools on a university basis; under Presi- 
dent Lowell, it has moved backward in the 
direction of making the college a school of 
information and culture and of requiring 
the professional school to begin with the 
elements. To such an extent is the uni- 
versity the plaything of its president! 
