964 
ductive, and as a result the pipe has been pulled 
out, broken down and the hole abandoned. 
A. F. Lucas 
WASHINGTON, D. C., 
June 3, 1912 
UNIVERSITY CONTROL 
LETTERS FROM YALE UNIVERSITY 
It is quite unnecessary for me to speculate 
regarding what such a system as you propose 
would be. Exactly this system is in effect in 
New Haven. In fact Yale University consists 
of a collection of separate schools. Each has 
its own funds and almost complete autonomy. 
These funds are indeed held by the corpora- 
tion and president, but in the main each de- 
partment spends its income as its own judg- 
ment dictates with little interference from the 
university authorities. Each faculty nomi- 
nates to the corporation its own new members, 
and as the corporation nearly always confirms 
nominations this amounts to election by the 
faculty. Each faculty elects its own dean who 
presides over its meetings. Its committees 
are either appointed by the dean (never by 
the president) or elected by the faculty itself. 
Such conditions fulfill almost exactly the sug- 
gestions of your pamphlet. The question is 
then: Does this system of university govern- 
ment attain the objects to which you look? 
I gather from your pamphlet and from previ- 
ous articles of yours that the happiness of the 
professor is the principal object toward which 
you are striving. This is certainly achieved 
at Yale to a degree equalled, perhaps, nowhere 
else in America. Of course, satisfaction with 
one’s position makes for loyalty and other 
incidental advantages; but is the happiness of 
the members of the faculty the principal ob- 
ject for which a university exists? Is not that 
form of university government best which 
provides the most ready adaptation of the uni- 
versity to the community which it serves? 
Ought not any form of university government 
to be judged by the degree of progressiveness 
of the institution having this government? I 
am inclined to believe from personal observa- 
tion that in spite of all the advantages of 
democratic government which Yale enjoys— 
and which any university planned as you sug- 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 912 
gest would doubtless have—a more central- 
ized control would make for great interde- 
partmental cooperation and a more ready 
adoption of new measures than is afforded by 
such democratic government. After all every 
institution inevitably adapts itself to the 
views of the masters whom it serves, that is, to 
those from whom it obtains funds. The state 
universities depend upon the people of the 
state, the endowed universities upon their 
alumni. It is an article of faith with every 
loyal alumnus that his alma mater is perfec- 
tion. With a body of “loyal” alumni viewing 
every change with suspicion and with a fac- 
ulty thoroughly satisfied with things as they 
are, there would not be under the system of 
government which you propose any sufiicient 
machinery for the initiation of change. There 
are few—if any—of the endowed universities 
at least which would not in my opinion bene- 
fit enormously from haying a Woodrow Wil- 
son in the presidential chair. Certainly the 
one institution that has enjoyed this advan- 
tage failed to reap the full benefits therefrom, 
because the presidency carried with it too little 
power and the other elements in the univer- 
sity too much. 
There are many things in the statement 
which are in harmony with my own views. I 
have always been, and still am, a strong be- 
liever in the desirability of autonomy for the 
individual schools or departments of a univer- 
sity. To-day our universities are so large and 
so complex in character that it is impossible 
to have adequate control over all the varied 
interests of the university in the hands of a 
central body. JI believe in the desirability of 
a corporation, or board of trustees, in whom 
rests final authority for all matters pertaining 
to the university; but I think that the initia- 
tive, the control and the general management 
of a department or school of the university 
should rest in a governing board or subcom- 
mittee, whatever you choose to call it—with a 
chairman or dean or director, who is given, 
subject to said board, a large measure of au- 
thority. The corporation of the university 
should be representative of all the interests of 
the university, so far as possible. Here at 
