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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 919 



two or three men nominated by the faculty. 

 The organization of departments into auton- 

 omous divisions is a good scheme. We have 

 lately adopted unofficially something of this 

 sort here in the form of an advisory com- 

 mittee of all the biological departments. It 

 works very well. This committee recom- 

 mends to the president on biological affairs of 

 general interest. As regards the organization 

 of a department, I believe it makes little dif- 

 ference whether there is a head chosen by the 

 president or a chairman elected by the de- 

 partment. I have lived under both systems. 

 Each is good with the right kind of men in 

 the department and each is bad with the 

 wrong kind. I should like to see the plan 

 tried. 



I thoroughly agree with your general prin- 

 ciples, especially with your demand that each 

 department should have as complete auton- 

 omy as possible, and that there should be as 

 much flexibility and as complete anarchy 

 throughout the university as is consistent 

 with unity and order. But it seems to me 

 that your specified list of desiderata is some- 

 what too detailed, considering the great di- 

 versity of American universities. In partic- 

 ular I think that different rules ought to be 

 laid down for the college and the university 

 proper. I also doubt whether your method of 

 appointing professors is the best. I think it 

 dangerous to give any body of professors, ex- 

 cept those in the special department con- 

 cerned, a deciding influence upon the appoint- 

 ment. 



The plan suggested seems to me to be admir- 

 able. I wish to emphasize my belief in the de- 

 sirability of those features of the plan suggested 

 in paragraphs (1) and (2), and in that part 

 of paragraph (4) which deals with the nomi- 

 nation for professorships. The present sys- 

 tem of control is, at least in most institutions, 

 highly unsatisfactory and moreover is not 

 really effective. 



Of course, if I went through your paper 

 with a fine comb, I could probably find some- 

 thing to criticize, but reading it in a proper 



spirit I find that it grows on me, and that the 

 oftener I read it the more anxious I become 

 to see it put in force. One criticism that first 

 suggests itself is that there is nothing hard 

 and fast about the plan, but that you offer 

 alternatives wherever possible. This elastic- 

 ity, however, is one of its good points, for the 

 new method of controlling the university, if 

 there is to be a new method, can not be put 

 in force all at once in a state of perfection, 

 but will have to be more or less experimental. 

 It has seemed to me with the growing power 

 of the president there has been a distinct 

 retregression in some directions, and that the 

 great American universities of to-day, with 

 their thousands of students, their hundreds 

 of professors, are in some respects behind the 

 small freshwater colleges of a generation ago. 

 The president in many cases seems to look 

 upon the university as his own property to be 

 exploited for his own aggrandizement. He 

 wants to be the " whole thing," and selects his 

 professors, not on account of their fitness or 

 researchability, but for personal reasons, and 

 because they will toady to him. The inde- 

 pendent man is made to feel that he is not 

 wanted, and although his tenure of office is 

 theoretically for life, things are made so un- 

 comfortable that he is glad to leave. It has 

 seemed to me that some of the presidents do 

 not want men on the faculty who are bigger 

 than they are, and although here and there a 

 tmiversity may become great through having 

 a truly great president the system is bad and 

 should be eliminated. 



I have read your article "University Con- 

 trol." It is most timely. I doubt if I can add 

 anything of value to it. The trouble with the 

 university president is often that he has to 

 spread over too much ground and comes to 

 rely upon the busybody who has the presi- 

 dent's ear and a bag-full of rumors for his 

 '• information " upon which to base promo- 

 tions. Also, if he takes his job seriously he 

 will periodically " butt in " to the doings of 

 a department of which he has only the most 

 superficial knowledge. The university presi- 

 dent should adopt the principle of relying on 



