August 9, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



181 



and need, I think, no comments. I am not 

 sure, however, that your suggestion of an an- 

 nual election of a director is a wise one, because 

 the complexities which exist in an institution 

 of this kind, I imagine that it would take the 

 larger part of the year for a man to learn the 

 task before him. A period of five or ten years 

 might be highly desirable, and I would also 

 suggest that some sort of provision be made 

 for referendum and recall when the adminis- 

 trative officer is no longer satisfactory or 

 when his policies become unbearable to the 

 rest of the professorial body. I think opinion 

 would diifer very much with regard to num- 

 ber (3), especially with regard to the size of 

 the group which you suggest as a psycholog- 

 ical constant. In principle, however, these 

 aspects of university organization seem to me 

 to be admirably conceived of and very much 

 in advance of the present arrangement. In 

 (4) and (5) I think I have nothing to com- 

 ment upon. I am in harmony with the prin- 

 ciples expressed therein, with the single ex- 

 ception, under (4), that the division should 

 have financial as well as educational auton- 

 omy, which would depend upon the type of 

 financial organization adopted in the institu- 

 tion. I judge that your plan would be to have 

 a series of separate endowments for the de- 

 partments. I would like very much to see this 

 sort of thing put into operation and see how 

 it works out. 



It must be clear to every one that in the 

 small college of earlier days the president's 

 ideas on college policy and the policy of his 

 college were almost or quite identical. Further- 

 more, the college seems to be about as con- 

 servative an institution as we have in this 

 democratic country. This early college presi- 

 dent was usually conversant with practically 

 all the siTbjects taught in his college. The 

 number of subjects was limited and confined 

 almost entirely to the classics in which the 

 president had received his own training. 

 Since that time the sciences and humanities 

 have been diilerentiated into so many sub- 

 jects that no college president pretends to 

 know much about many of the fields of work 



covered in the college curriculum. It must 

 be equally clear that in order to represent the 

 interests of all these various departments the 

 opinions of all must be considered. The 

 field is certainly too broad and too specialized 

 to enable any one man to govern all of them 

 adequately and justly. If the faculties were 

 incompetent that of itself would be justifica- 

 tion for a continuation of the earlier policy, 

 but that claim can not be upheld. Demo- 

 cratic government of a university would cer- 

 tainly make a place for utilization of the in- 

 telligence and sympathetic cooperation of the 

 large number of men who are really interested 

 in university administrative affairs. To 

 speak of your propositions by number I wish 

 to say: First, that responsibility placed upon 

 a larger number of men is certainly desirable 

 and your plan for securing it appeals to me. 

 Secondly, the president certainly should be 

 selected because of his " expert knowledge of 

 education and university administration." I 

 do not quite see how it would be possible to 

 have a president and a chancellor both opera- 

 ting to the best advantage to the university 

 without having their fields overlap consider- 

 ably. For example, the public is quite as much 

 interested in the educational aspects of the 

 university as in its business aspects and in 

 its connection with public affairs. Thirdly, 

 the departmental unit seems best to me. 

 Fourth, in a great many of the universities 

 at the present time appointments to major 

 positions are made only upon nominations 

 which are the result of careful consideration 

 by all the faculty of the department in ques- 

 tion. It seems desirable that that plan 

 should be made general. Fifth, I like the 

 proposition of number five if we assume that 

 the senate or the general faculty of the uni- 

 versity has prepared a full and definitely 

 stated constitution outlining the policies — ad- 

 ministrative, financial and educational — of 

 the university as a whole. This policy should 

 be general but definite and should leave au- 

 tonomy to the departments on all questions 

 that are at all likely to concern departments 

 only. But general policies should certainly 

 be stated in a general constitution that would 



