Jlly 5, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



There are boards which leave nothing to be 

 ■desired in these respects ; but there are also 

 numerous boards that have everything to 

 learn with regard to academic freedom. 

 These barbarous boards exercise an arbi- 

 trary power of dismissal. They exclude 

 from the teachings of the university un- 

 popular or dangerous subjects. In some 

 states they even treat professors' positions 

 as common political spoils ; and all too fre- 

 quently, both in state and endowed institu- 

 tions, they fail to treat the members of the 

 teaching staff with that high consideration 

 to which their functions entitle them. In 

 the newer parts of our country, it has of 

 course been impossible to find at short 

 notice men really prepared to discharge the 

 difficult duties of educational trusteeship; 

 and it will take generations yet to bring 

 these communities in this respect up to the 

 level of the older states and cities which 

 have had for generations abundant excel- 

 lent material for such boards of trustees. 



In the institutions of higher education 

 there is usually found an organized body 

 of the permanent teachers called a faculty. 

 This body exercises customary powers dele- 

 gated to it by the board of trustees; and 

 its determinations are ordinarily made by 

 a majority vote after more or less discus- 

 sion. It deals with questions of general 

 policy affecting both teachers and students, 

 and its votes may sometimes limit the free- 

 dom of its own members. Such restric- 

 tions, however, as proceed from a faculty 

 are not likely to be really oppressive on in- 

 dividuals; for every voter in a faculty is 

 likely to remember that he himself may 

 hereafter be unpleasantly affected by the 

 same kind of majority vote which he is 

 thinking of taking part in against a resist- 

 ing colleague. 



As a rule, the faculty of a college, pro- 

 fessional school, or university is the real 

 source of educational policy and progress, — 



so much so, that the vitality of any institu- 

 tion may best be measured by the activity 

 and esprit de corps of its faculty. Is the 

 faculty alert, progressive, and public-spirit- 

 ed, the institution will be active and in- 

 creasingly serviceable ; is the faculty slug- 

 gish, uninterested, and without cohesion, 

 the institution will probably be dull or even 

 retrograde. If a faculty chooses, it can 

 really limit academic freedom; but it is 

 not likely to do so, because its members will 

 not deny to others the freedom they desire 

 for themselves, unless, indeed, on rare oc- 

 casions, and for short periods. A faculty 

 is much more likely to limit unduly the 

 academic freedom of students than of 

 teachers; and yet, even in this field, it is 

 harder and harder for a lively and enter- 

 prising faculty, representing any adequate 

 variety of university subjects, to restrict 

 the just freedom of students. 



Interference with the academic freedom 

 of an individual professor is in these days 

 more likely to come from his colleagues in 

 the same department than from the faculty 

 as a whole. Of course in those institutions 

 which maintain only a single teacher for 

 each subject, there is no competition 

 among teachers of the same subject, and 

 no departmental organization which may 

 become formidable to the individual teach- 

 er; but many of our colleges and universi- 

 ties have now got beyond that elementary 

 stage, and have considerable groups of 

 teachei-s working on one subject, as, for in- 

 stance, the classics, the modern languages, 

 the mathematics, history, government, eco- 

 nomics, philosophy, the physical sciences 

 and the biological sciences. These groups 

 of teachers, whatever called— divisions, de- 

 partments, or schools— have lately acquired 

 in some American universities verj^ real 

 powers, and among these powers is partial 

 control over the teaching of the individual 

 teachers within each group. The senior 



