August 9, 1912] 



SCIENCE ■ 



179 



intelligent administrator, and carry through 

 a policy of reform, than it is to get the sym- 

 pathy of a number of heads of departments. 

 In the second place, I do not believe that heads 

 of departments are as efficient when it comes 

 to deciding general policies for an institution 

 as some detached executive officer who can 

 look beyond the interests of each of the de- 

 partments. The experience of such institu- 

 tions as Yale and Cornell seems to me to be 

 conclusive against the democratic organiza- 

 tion. They found exactly the same difficulty 

 in Cornell and voluntarily voted away the au- 

 thority which they at one time held. I am 

 not optimistic, either, about the ability of 

 academic men to organize their own govern- 

 ment. I think that the specialist in science or 

 literature prefers to have somebody develop 

 the methods of scientific organization and re- 

 lieve him of the necessity of considering these 

 matters. In other words, an administrative 

 officer equipped with methods of investigating 

 his own problems seems to me to be a very 

 proper solution of the difficulty in which we 

 now find ourselves. 



As regards your first proposition, I may say 

 that it seems to me at least harmless. If it 

 resulted in attaching to the university a larger 

 group of serious-minded and intelligent per- 

 sons than is at present the case, I should think 

 it in so far useful. I am not clear that the 

 chancellor, for whom you make provision, 

 would be a particularly useful official, unless 

 he were content to remain largely ornamental, 

 as is often the case in the English universities. 

 His usefulness in that case would be of a sort 

 not likely to come into conflict with the poli- 

 cies adopted by those more directly respon- 

 sible for the conduct of affairs. Tour propo- 

 sition under the second heading to elect a 

 president from the members of the faculty and 

 to give him no larger powers and no larger 

 salary than is received by other members of 

 the faculty strikes me as somewhat impracti- 

 cable. I can not imagine any man whose in- 

 tellectual capacities and attainments would 

 justify his presence on a faculty of a first rate 

 modern university, who would be willing to 



make the sacrifice of time and strength neces- 

 sary to assume administrative control under 

 such conditions. Possibly members of the 

 department of education might find in such a 

 function a professionally advantageous occu- 

 pation, but for other members of the faculty 

 it could only be a time-consuming and thank- 

 less job from which the abler men would un- 

 questionably shrink, and presumably would 

 succeed in avoiding. The idea that the faculty 

 should have some voice in the selection of a 

 president I heartily approve, but our own 

 generation seems not to be in sight of such a 

 distribution of administrative detail as would 

 justify any able scholar in turning his atten- 

 tion to this phase of university work were he 

 not rewarded by some increase in his salary 

 or his powers. The application of your sug- 

 gestion in point three meets my hearty ap- 

 proval. Experience has abundantly shown 

 that we need a smaller unit of organization 

 with very definitely specified responsibilities 

 if we are to secure effective and intelligent 

 participation by members of the faculty in 

 university government. The fly in this par- 

 ticular ointment comes at the point where the 

 interests of any particular group may run 

 counter to those of some other similar group. 

 You provide in your fourth paragraph that 

 such a group shall have as complete autonomy 

 as is consistent with the welfare of the uni- 

 versity as a whole. This means that some one 

 has got to decide whether the welfare of the 

 university is or is not in any given case in- 

 vaded by the action of one or another depart- 

 ment. You will then have to fall back on a 

 larger body, or on some administrative official 

 who may prove to be an unjust judge. I do 

 not regard this difficulty as insuperable, but 

 I could relate instance after instance in which 

 it has proved practically very serious. I ap- 

 prove also very heartily the spirit of your 

 suggestion in paragraph four that nomina- 

 tions to professorships shall be subject to a 

 competent advisory board. You supply a 

 rather undue amount of machinery for this 

 purpose, but some check of the kind repre- 

 sented by a competent board is certainly 

 highly desirable. I also approve the sugges- 



