856 
acquisition, and be kept even longer in 
official subjection, there is not much 
chance that they will do anything else 
thereafter. What youth can do should be 
joined with what age can know. 
Voting rights in a department might be 
in proportion to the salary the officers re- 
ceive; but such statutory regulations are 
scarcely needed. The real control is 
vested in the aggregate common sense of 
those concerned. The group may well be 
flexible in character. When courses of in- 
struction and educational problems are 
under discussion assistants and even grad- 
uate students may be admitted to ad- 
vantage. When the question is the pro- 
motion of an instructor, the group would 
naturally be limited to those of higher 
office. The chairmanship of the depart- 
ment might rotate among its members or 
the same head might be reelected continu- 
ously according to convenience. It by no 
means follows that the professor most emi- 
nent in research should be the executive 
head; on the contrary, it should usually 
be a man of competent administrative 
ability whose time is of less value. 
Every reasonable man believes in economy 
in administration and letting the men do 
things who can do them. Even the most 
important decisions can be left to the 
head of the department or its executive 
committee, so long as they represent and 
are responsible to the whole department. 
The school or department should have 
complete control of its own educational 
work. So long as there is ample room for 
differences of opinion as to the value of dif- 
ferent subjects and methods, it is well that 
there be variation and survival of the fit. 
Entrance requirements and degrees are 
among the chief obstacles to education. 
An instructor in Columbia University said 
recently to a student who had just received 
the highest grade assigned in the course: 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 909 
““Why did you take the course, if you 
don’t want a degree?’’ If there must be 
degrees, it may be necessary to standardize 
them; but this should be done only to the 
extent of prescribing the amount of work 
to be done in the direction called for by 
the degree, this being determined by the 
time spent, weighted in accordance with 
the ability of the student. I shall print 
shortly statistics in regard to all doc- 
torates of philosophy granted in the sci- 
ences by American universities. For each 
department of each university will be 
given the percentage of doctors who con- 
tinued to pursue scientific work and the 
percentage who attained a given degree of 
distinction. If any police regulation is 
needed, such publicity is far better than 
the examination of a candidate before the 
faculty, or the requirement of all sorts of 
qualifications.7§ 
Financial as well as educational auton- 
omy should be given to the school or de- 
% This paper is concerned with problems of ad- 
ministration, not with questions of teaching and 
research. The latter are by far the more impor- 
tant; indeed administrative methods are only of 
consequence in so far as they affect education 
within and without the university, research and 
the applications of knowledge. Incidentally I 
may remark that I should give the student the 
same freedom and the same democratic system 
that I should like to see the teacher enjoy. I 
should admit to the university any student and let 
him stay there so long as his presence did not do 
injury to others. J should let him choose his own 
work and his own methods of work, not because all 
kinds and methods of work are equally good, but 
because I regard myself as incompetent and most 
of my colleagues as even more incompetent to 
impose any system on the student. JI should in 
large measure do away with grades, required at- 
tendance, required courses, required examinations 
and degrees, not because these things are not in 
some ways and in some cases useful, but because 
on the whole they do more damage than good. So 
far as possible, I should let students manage their 
own affairs, their dormitories, fraternities and 
athletics, their codes of manners and of morals. 
