October 20, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



505 



ment of the larger questions, seem to me dis- 

 tinct and practical steps in the direction of 

 development which the university administra- 

 tion ought to study. 



For one must not forget in considering the 

 administration of a university that there are 

 to every form of administration two sides : 

 the mechanical and the spiritual. The me- 

 chanical part of administration is that which 

 provides the machinery necessary to can-y out 

 a given enterprise. The other side of ad- 

 ministration, the spiritual side, consists in 

 getting out of men the best there is in them. 

 For a set of perfect men any administrative 

 system would suffice. Good administration 

 consists in taking men as they are, with their 

 prejudices, their faults, their virtues, and in 

 getting out of them the highest results of 

 which they are capable. 



Now, our attention has been given of late 

 years, in American university life, increasingly 

 to the mechanical side of administration, ' and 

 the machinery has been made to approximate 

 more and more closely, both in its form and 

 in its choice of executive officers, to the prac- 

 tise of the business corporation. Its very 

 closeness and compactness of organization are 

 in some respects its chief faults. That which 

 is mechanical is always simpler than that 

 which is living. To-day we need, in my 

 judgment, to concern ourselves in the univer- 

 sity with the spiritual side of administr^" ion. 



It has been my purpose rather to state ques- 

 tions than to argue them; not to propose a 

 substitute for our present administration of 

 the university, but rather to point out certain 

 tendencies in it. To inquire whether, if the 

 republic be the ideal system of administration, 

 it is not also a good one for the scholar, and 

 to ask, at least in these days when events move 

 so rapidly, whether the administration of the 

 university as it is now organized tends toward 

 the development of a larger type of professor 

 and a finer order of students; to ask whether 

 we are developing the mechanical side of the 

 administration at the expense of the spiritual 

 side. 



For after all, we can never too often remind 

 ourselves that the first purpose of the univer- 

 sity is not to further industrial development 



or to increase the wealth of a state, but that 

 it is the development of the intellectual and 

 spiritual life. This development can take 

 place only in the air of freedom, however evi- 

 dent are the dangers which freedom brings 

 with it. Wealth, power, the niceties of life, 

 may all grow in an atmosphere of limited or 

 of artificial freedom, but only in the air of 

 real freedom can be grown that spirit and that 

 intelligence which shall minister to those 

 things whi(ih are spiritual and to those things 

 which are eternal. — President Henry S. Prit- 

 chett, of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 

 nology, in The Atlantic Monthly. 



• AGRICULTURE IN THE SCHOOLS. 



A DISTINCT step in the direction of encour- 

 aging the teaching of agriculture in the high 

 school is the movement to recognize that work 

 in the entrance requirements of higher insti- 

 tutions. To a certain extent these higher 

 institutions determine what must be taught in 

 the high schools leading up to them. Here- 

 tofore there has been no inducement to schools 

 that were fitting for the colleges and univer- 

 sities to offer such courses, however much 

 they might desire to do so, and no incentive 

 to a student to take agricultural work if it 

 were offered, since it would not entitle him to 

 credit in meeting the entrance requirements. 



This matter has been under consideration 

 in several states, for it has been recognized as 

 a bar to progress in introducing agricultural 

 studies. Definite action has now been taken 

 in Missouri. The university in that state 

 practically determines what shall be taught in 

 the high schools, as students are admitted to 

 it on their accredited high school work. Mem- 

 bers of the agricultural faculty have been 

 urging that agricultural work in the schools 

 should be given some recognition, and the 

 council of the university has recently decided 

 to allow a credit of one unit on the entrance 

 requirements for a year's work in agriculture 

 in a high school. Boys who are planning to 

 pursue the agricultural course in the univer- 

 sity can now take elementary work in the 

 high school without endangering their stand- 

 ing for entrance to the university. It is be- 

 lieved that this recognition will stimulate the 



