August 9, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



175 



must in some way have charge of the institu- 

 tion; and this of itself throws the organiza- 

 tion of the governing hoard into one of three 

 or four alternatives. I am afraid myself that 

 the plan that you have proposed would in the 

 end prove to be too complicated, although it 

 seems of itseK to be simple. The general 

 tendency in our busy American life is that 

 persons will delegate their authority and their 

 responsibilities to persons who are willing and 

 in position to take them. My own feeling is 

 that we must accept the general block outline 

 of the American system, and then make 

 changes here and there, but more particularly 

 try to develop a better spirit of cooperation and 

 correlation between all parts of the institu- 

 tion. For myseK, I think that the developing 

 of this new spirit is really the keynote to the 

 whole situation. I think this can be de- 

 veloped by free public discussions of all the 

 questions involved, just such as you yourself 

 are making. I should not myself be so much 

 interested in any scheme as I would to put be- 

 fore the college and university people of the 

 country a dignified series of discussions, run- 

 ning over a series of years, that would uncover 

 the weak spots and the inefficient and domi- 

 neering practises that are likely to result in 

 the American systems. I think that we should 

 soon find ourselves able to distinguish four or 

 five cardinal principles around which we could 

 group all the varying opinions and that we 

 could make very great progress toward the de- 

 velopment of a greater cooperative responsi- 

 bility on the part of all persons who are parts 

 of the institutions. 



(1) I am afraid that this is not feasible. I 

 doubt whether the professors would pay dues. 

 As you yourself point out, there are special 

 difficulties in the case of state institutions. 

 (2) Not feasible. The president has to travel 

 and entertain in a way that the professor does 

 not. He can't do this unless he has a larger 

 salary directly or indirectly. (3) Sound. 

 (4) Sound, except that it makes no provision 

 for a department which has run down and 

 which really needs reorganizing. Of course 

 the members of the department are outvoted 



two to one, but I am not certain how it would 

 work. While the principle of equal salaries is 

 good, I don't know whether the average uni- 

 versity would not be handicapped under it. 

 (5) Sound. To my mind the worst feature 

 about the university situation is that the 

 president is the only man who explains the 

 views of the faculties to the trustees and vice 

 versa. No man can do that fairly. There 

 ought to be at least two other members of the 

 faculty on the board of trustees. This would 

 be an easy reform to put through and would 

 eliminate many, though of course not all, of 

 the present difficulties. 



While I agree with the main principles of 

 your proposition for university control, I 

 could not agree with all its details. I am 

 heartily in accord with your proposition to 

 limit the activities of the American univer- 

 sity president, particularly with reference to 

 the appointments of professors and to their 

 tenure of office. At the same time it seems to 

 me that there is need of a more centralized 

 organization than your plan proposes. There 

 surely seems to be need of a competent execu- 

 tive, and in private endowed institutions 

 there has apparently been justification for 

 the view that there is need of an executive 

 who can also secure funds for the university. 

 It is my feeling that the activities of the 

 American university president should be dis- 

 tinctly curtailed, and that he should receive 

 supervision on the faculty side as he has on 

 the trustee side, but I am not of the opinion 

 that the office should be abolished. I believe 

 the evils that have crept into the system can 

 be amply checked by very light modification 

 in existing conditions. 



In university control the wisdom of having 

 both a chancellor and president is question- 

 able. Although separate duties and qualifica- 

 tions may be required of each, there would 

 doubtless arise occasion where there would be 

 an overlapping of function, giving rise to 

 divided authority and divided responsibility. 

 This usually means less harmony and less effi- 

 ciency. The university executive should pos- 



