December 29, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



851 



been a salutary change; but there has fol- 

 lowed from it one signal disadvantage— 

 that of putting the trustees more and more 

 out of touch with the faculties whose mem- 

 bers they appoint. Although the reverend 

 gentlemen of those antique college boards 

 could scarcely have distinguished a govern- 

 ment bond from a wildcat stock, they were 

 usually scholars by inclination and teach- 

 ers by profession, and their relations with 

 their faculties were close and sympathetic ; 

 while the modern financier who, by skillful 

 investing, secures every possible penny of 

 income for his college, generally finds its 

 educational problems quite outside his 

 range, and sees, therefore, less and less 

 occasion for meeting, or even knowing, that 

 faculty over which, legally, his power is 

 of life and death. 



This change in personnel, however, is 

 not alone responsible for the progressive 

 alienation between trustees and faculty. 

 That estrangement has come about, no less, 

 through the rapid growth of college cur- 

 riculums and in college attendance. When 

 educational institutions were small and 

 their courses of study undifferentiated, it 

 was possible for trustees, even though not 

 trained as teachers, to acquire an admirable 

 education (so far as concerned their own 

 college) through intimate relations with 

 the faculty and personal supervision of 

 their work. But with the enormous devel- 

 opment in numbers and complexity, this 

 old-fashioned contact between trustees and 

 teachers has become impossible, and, at 

 best, a trustee can now make himself fa- 

 miliar with only that department of the 

 university which it is his duty (more hon- 

 ored in the breach than in the observance) 

 to inspect. Therefore, the modern trustee 

 has gradually withdrawn from the teaching 

 side of the college to fix his attention upon 

 those questions of revenue, housing and 

 legislation which have multiplied even 

 faster than the undergraduates. 



But here again the size and complexity 

 of the problem are appalling to men al- 

 ready overweighted with other responsi- 

 bilities. These material questions, how- 

 ever, must be met and settled just as those 

 on the educational side must be faced and 

 solved. And both business and political 

 experience have taught men of the world 

 that the quickest and least troublesome way 

 to solve administrative problems is to give 

 as free a hand as possible to some man with 

 brains, with tact, with power of initiative, 

 of leadership, and of persuasion — with, in 

 short, those peculiar abilities which dis- 

 tinguish the generals of our intricate twen- 

 tieth century enterprises. 



Hence has arisen the modern college 

 president — a being as different from the 

 awe-inspiring clergymen of the eighteenth 

 century or from such men as Josiah Quincy 

 (who was given the presidency of Harvard 

 as a sort of haven for his declining years) 

 as it is possible to imagine. The modern 

 executives have had thrust upon them pow- 

 ers which give to their decrees the finality 

 of an imperial ukase. They have assumed 

 such sway, not from love of dominion, but 

 because their task is so enormous that 

 nothing short of practically plenary powers 

 would permit of its being done at all. And 

 it should be said to their honor that they 

 have met the demands upon them as organ- 

 izers and administrators so ably that, to- 

 day, the leaders of the country are not, as 

 formerly, the great statesmen and clergy- 

 men; they are these modern Ceesars — the 

 heads of our principal colleges and uni- 

 versities. 



These modern presidents have their cab- 

 inets in the board of trustees (if that board 

 be small) or in an executive committee 

 selected from it if the board be large ; they 

 have their staff in the several administra- 

 tive officers, such as deans and registrars; 

 they have their field officers in the heads 

 of departments or courses; and the work 



