July 5, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



or school of technology to put a like decla- 

 ration on all the publications made by their 

 oificers. The only satisfactory defense of 

 the institutions against the risks under con- 

 sideration is to be found in the considerate- 

 ness and courtesy of the teachers concerned, 

 and in their sense of obligation to the insti- 

 tutions with which they are connected, and 

 of the added weight which their official 

 position gives to their personal opinions. 



When I was first president of Harvard 

 College I got a lesson on this subject from 

 one of the most respected of the Harvard 

 professors of that day. He had recently 

 made to the American Academy of Arts 

 and Sciences a communication which dealt 

 in a novel way with one particular aspect 

 of the financial credit of the United States ; 

 and this communication had been warmly 

 attacked by several of his fellows in the 

 Academy, including some influential Bos- 

 ton business men. He was in the act, how- 

 ever, of issuing a manual for schools and 

 colleges, in which he had incorporated the 

 questionable doctrine, and on the title page 

 of this book he had put under his name his 

 professorial title in Harvard University. 

 As the time approached for publishing the 

 volume— the plates of which he owned— 

 his mind misgave him with regard to the 

 propriety of proclaiming this unusual and 

 controverted doctrine in his capacity as 

 professor in Harvard University, and he 

 therefore asked me, as President, what the 

 president and fellows of Harvard College 

 would think on that point. I was obliged 

 to tell him that the president and fellows 

 would prefer to have that doctrine omitted 

 from the book, unless, indeed, he were will- 

 ing to omit from the title page his own 

 ofiicial title as a Harvard professor. The 

 result was that the troublesome chapter was 

 omitted; but the professor lost all interest 

 in his entire manual, and insisted on selling 

 the plates to his publisher, and foregoing 



his royalty on the sales of the book. The 

 incident taught me that the best defense of 

 an institution against abuses of academic 

 freedom was to be found in the sense of 

 duty and honor which obtains among its 

 officers. 



FREEDOM FOR STUDENTS 



The college student coming from a good 

 secondary school has probably had some 

 small amount of choice among the subjects 

 provided at his school towards admission 

 to college. He may arrive at his college 

 with more Latin and Greek and less modern 

 languages, or the reverse. He may offer 

 himself in several sciences or in not more 

 than one. His choice in this respect may 

 have been closely limited, and yet not with- 

 out sei'ious effects on his subsequent career. 

 When he reaches his college, normally at 

 eighteen or nineteen years of age, he ought 

 to find at once a great enlargement of his 

 freedom of choice among studies. This is 

 for the student the first element in a just 

 academic freedom. By close attention to 

 his own individual problem, and to his own 

 antecedents, and with a little assistance 

 from an expert in the list of courses and 

 the schedule of hours, he will have no dif- 

 ficulty in finding the courses most suitable 

 for himself. In the freest elective system 

 there are plain fences marking out the 

 feasible tracks. These fences are in most 

 cases the natural and inevitable sequences 

 of the courses offered in the several sub- 

 jects of instruction. A few may be arbi- 

 trary and artificial, such restrictions being 

 probably the results of inadequate re- 

 sources in the college itself, or of some 

 policy inconsistent with its general regime 

 of liberty. The choice of studies made in 

 any individual case may be very wisely 

 modified, or fundamentally changed, by 

 the student's choice of teachers. This 

 choice among teachers is a very valuable 

 element in academic freedom for the stu- 



