JUNE 7, 1912] 
elected for terms of three years, and are not 
eligible for immediate reelection. The presi- 
dent of the university, the chairmen of the 
divisions and the dean of the school make up 
what is called the faculty council. This 
council considers all questions arising in re- 
gard to courses of study or extension of 
medical study, the general development of the 
medical school and the creation of new depart- 
ments, and reports on the same to the faculty 
of medicine. Questions on such topics may 
originate in a division and be brought before 
the council for consideration, or they may 
originate in the council; but in such case, no 
matter directly concerning a division or a 
department shall be referred to the faculty for 
action until it has previously been referred to 
a division for discussion and recommendation 
to the council. Of course there are other de- 
tails, but I will not make this letter too long 
by putting them before you. The general 
plan has now been working for more than two 
years, and seems to be meeting with entire 
approbration. Certainly the results are good 
in that they have brought together men and 
interests that before were drifting widely 
apart. It may interest you to know that this 
scheme is being discussed with a view to its 
adoption in at least two large medical schools. 
The essential point in which it differs from 
the organization of, say, the Johns Hopkins 
Medical School, is that it increases the dig- 
nity of the professor and does not compel a 
young man who has secured such rank to 
remain under the control and tutelage of an 
older professor or else change his university. 
The fundamental objection to the Carnegie 
report on medical education has always 
seemed to me to be the assumption that the 
Johns Hopkins organization is the best. In 
the ease of that university it undoubtedly 
worked well, because they were fortunate in 
securing strong men in the beginning; but 
certainly the present indications are that they 
must either reorganize and give some of their 
juniors independence or else lose them. 
It seems to me that the general plan out- 
lined is excellent in so for as it gives a hand 
SCIENCE 
899 
in the control of a university to those who are 
most intimately interested in its welfare; 
namely, its alumni, its faculty and the section 
of the community at large which it serves. 
I think it is also excellent, in so far as it 
seeks to increase the dignity and respect in 
which a university chair should be held by all 
persons. The weakest part of the scheme, as 
it seems to me, lies in the direction for se- 
curing new professorial appointments. It 
goes without saying that each department of a 
university contains among its teachers expert 
judges of the intellectual standing of men out- 
side the university, prominent in various lines 
of scholarship and achievement. In so far as 
the faculty members are judges of the stand- 
ing of outside men, their judgments are of 
great value, when the question of appointing 
a new man to an assistant professorship or a 
full professorship comes uppermost. On the 
other hand, I think that a faculty may often 
err in its judgments as to the type of intel- 
lectual work that should be encouraged in a 
university. I think that in some cases ex- 
perience has shown that faculties invested 
with the power of appointing new professors, 
subject to the approval of trustees, have erred 
grievously in policy, by appointing men too 
narrowly along certain intellectual lines. For 
example, I can readily imagine that at some 
particular university, some particular subject 
may be taught by the faculty members in its 
department, who may be staunch supporters of 
some particular doctrine or line of work. The 
men in that department are naturally and 
properly enthusiastic and earnest in their de- 
sire to see their favorite line of intellectual 
work extended. If they are empowered to 
appoint new faculty members, they are likely, 
with the best and worthiest of motives, to ap- 
point new men whose views and work lie par- 
allel to their own. The consequence of con- 
tinuing such elective policy, might, in the 
course of years, unbalance a university seri- 
ously, developing its activities too extensively 
in some particular lines, to the neglect of 
other lines equally important. For the above 
reasons I consider that while the faculty of a 
university should have some hand in appoint- 
