JUNE 7, 1912] 
bers generally, old and young, feeling that, 
when certain questions of general policy were 
up, each man of them was expected to do his 
duty, though comparatively few, as a rule, 
took an active part in the debates. Further- 
more, the frequent faculty meetings, though 
they did not by any means make every mem- 
ber know every other member, tended adyan- 
tageously toward general acquaintance, and 
individuals who, from temperament or from 
departmental affiliations, must differ, could at 
least differ more intelligently than if they 
had not known each other by sight. The com- 
bination which I have described, a masterful 
but considerate president, strong enough and 
fair enough to invite frank counsel, with a 
faculty willing to give this counsel in a broad 
spirit of loyalty, has existed, I believe, not in 
one institution alone, but in many. With 
this combination formal checks and balances 
of authority are needless; without it they are 
of little avail. It seems to me the “ necessary 
and sufficient” condition of genuine success 
for a university dealing with educational 
problems as they exist in this country. In 
using the term faculty I mean a body which 
controls the instruction leading to some de- 
gree or degrees, and I am not advocating gen- 
eral meetings of all the various faculties which 
may exist together under the university name. 
It is unlikely that any president could feel 
himself equally a master of the situation in 
all the various faculties, arts, law, medicine, 
ete., of a modern full-fledged university; but 
the advantage of having some one active man 
to preside at all meetings of these faculties, 
to watch, and report upon, and in a measure 
control, the relations of the several faculties 
to each other, seems great. A “chancellor” 
for show occasions, “to represent the univer- 
sity at public functions” or even “to obtain 
endowments,” would, I think, be ineffective in 
comparison. As to the selection of professors, 
I fear that the plan of having all nominations 
come from departments might result in that 
condition of academic inbreeding which is 
noted in some places. At any rate, the fac- 
ulty selection of professors appears to have 
had a tendeney toward this condition in cer- 
SCIENCE 
895 
tain institutions. I am sorry to take issue 
with you on some of your most important 
propositions, for I agree with much that you 
maintain, and especially with your declaration 
that “security, permanence, honor, the slow 
growth of traditions, are essential to a true 
university.” The proposition that great sal- 
aries are needed to induce able men to enter 
university positions, or that great salaries 
would bring into university professorships the 
best men, on the whole, for these places, I hold 
to be fallacious. Great salaries are not needed 
to eall great lawyers from the gainful practise 
of the bar to the security and honor and sense 
of public service which they find on the bench. 
Every teacher, every “productive scholar,” 
should feel himself to be a servant of the 
public, of a public wider, it may be, than any 
judge can serve. He should bear himself, and 
be honored, accordingly. 
The plan which you outline is an interest- 
ing one which I should be glad to see tried as 
an experiment somewhere where I am not. 
The gravest danger I see in it is the proposi- 
tion that professors be nominated by the de- 
partments. This would almost inevitably 
have the tendency to cause the promotion of 
men already in the departments, rather than 
the securing of the best man available, if he 
happened not to be there. The method of 
nomination by a faculty composed of only the 
full professors, as is the case in Germany, 
obviates this difficulty, since the full professors 
are no longer looking for advancement, and 
an appointment from outside will not put any 
one ahead of them as would be the case for all 
other members of the department. I am not 
at all sure that even this method of selection 
by a faculty of full professors is superior to 
the present methods commonly in vogue. 
Yale, I believe, has such a system, and I do 
not see that the appointments there have been 
unusually strong. The main reason why I 
feel doubt about your scheme is that the aver- 
ages of our faculties the country over are still 
so low intellectually. Mediocrity is the al- 
most unbroken rule. No doubt this will im- 
prove in time; it has improved greatly during 
