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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 1014 



for precaution and proper warning. The 

 average graduate student who holds a 

 scholarship or fellowship needs greater en- 

 couragement to become independent and to 

 develop high scholarly ideals. The atmos- 

 phere should not create the feeling that 

 further assistance is likely to depend on 

 whether he takes a course with the head of 

 the department or with some other member 

 of the department who may have unusual 

 administrative influence. 



A large university makes many demands 

 on the faculty for committee work and for 

 other incidental services. It often happens 

 that some professors fail to do their just 

 share of such work. In the eases where this 

 work appears useless they are to be com- 

 mended for expressing in this way their 

 disapproval. On the other hand, there is 

 much very useful and necessary work out- 

 side of the class room, and those who are 

 unwilling to do their full share of such 

 work belong to a class of grafters who might 

 appropriately be called shirking grafters. 



All tendencies towards scholarly graft 

 which have been considered thus far are 

 generally represented in an ordinary fac- 

 ulty. Probably most of us have excellent 

 illustrative examples in mind even if we 

 fail to see where we might ourselves eon- 

 tribute to the list of illustrations. It may, 

 however, be more agreeable to proceed to 

 consider a type of graft which relates to 

 the future American university which has 

 at least twenty thousand students. We 

 shall thus have the advantage of a univer- 

 sity faculty whose members we may praise 

 or censure with perfect freedom. 



I desire to call your attention to the seri- 

 ous text-book graft in this future Ameri- 

 can university. "Whenever a new adminis- 

 trative head* of a large department is elected 



* Heads of departments are determined by the 

 scholars in the field represented by the department. 

 It seems as foolish for the administrators of the 



he is practically beseiged by the agents of 

 publishers of text-books. These publishers 

 want him to write text-books for the thou- 

 sands of students in his department. They 

 care little about the merits of the books. 

 The fact that these books will be used in this 

 university for several years, at least, and 

 that they can be sold at a high price is a 

 sufficient guarantee to publishers. 



Moreover, it might happen that such a 

 man would aetualy write as good books as 

 those placed on the market by other pub- 

 lishers. In this case there would be a fair 

 chance that by judicious advertising the 

 sale of the text-books, written by our new 

 administrative head, might become exten- 

 sive, and this would mean so much more 

 profit for the publisher. 



Administrative heads of departments in 

 our large future universities have an addi- 

 tional advantage in the fact that publish- 

 ers will not assume the risk of publishing 

 college text-books unless they are written 

 or edited by such administrative heads. 

 The smaller institutions are thus practi- 

 cally compelled to use the text-books 

 written by the men in the larger universi- 

 ties and this reduces competition. 



There are other very serious elements in 

 this situation. Ostensibly these text-books 

 are written on the supposition that they 

 meet local needs better than any of those 

 already on the market. There are fifty men 

 in the department who have to teach the 

 books written by the administrative head 

 and all of these fifty men agree that these 

 books meet local needs admirably. That is, 

 they are perfectly agreed on this point as 

 long as there is no change in the adminis- 

 trative head. If, perchance, one would 

 hold a different view, his influence in the 

 university to appoint heads of the departments as 

 it would be for state legislatures to fix by law the 

 value of IT. Administrative heads can, of course, 

 be appointed by the administrators of the univer- 

 sity. 



