December 29, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



853 



gest any plan by which the trustees can be 

 brought into direct personal relations with 

 the students ; but I firmly believe that such 

 a plan could be devised; and I know that 

 nothing so vivifies a man of middle life 

 and of large responsibilities, nothing so 

 clears his brain and rejuvenates his heart, 

 as comradeship with bubbling and eager 

 undergraduates. 



Whether or not trustees can broaden 

 their powers and sweeten their responsi- 

 bilities by thus meeting their students di- 

 rectly, it is clear that they can influence 

 them indirectly by establishing closer rela- 

 tions with those young men's teachers. 

 For their pupils' sakes and for their own 

 advantage, the professors need the stimulus 

 and the breadth of view which they would 

 get from looking at the world through the 

 eyes of such a man of affairs as the usual" 

 trustee; those trustees, on the other hand, 

 need the insight into true education and 

 into the difficulties of training youth which 

 they would secure from intimate contact 

 with the members of their faculty. The 

 money conservatism of the trustee, hesi- 

 tating to grant funds for new enterprises, 

 needs to be enlightened by the vision which 

 the teacher has of the demands and possi- 

 bilities of higher education. Per contra, 

 the academic conservatism of the scholar 

 needs to be quickened by the hard world- 

 experience of a man of more varied respon- 

 sibilities. That purblind vision of the 

 'practical' man which exaggerates material 

 success requires enlightenment through the 

 opposite, but no less purblind, vision of 

 the scholar which magnifies intellectual 

 achievement. Each point of view is essen- 

 tial to the ends of true education, and un- 

 less each in authority can see and under- 

 stand the other's outlook, the university 

 will suffer and its youth will be defrauded 

 of some of the best things in college. 



At present— except for certain perfunc- 

 tory visiting — almost the sole point of con- 



tact between trustees and faculty is their 

 common sovereign, the president, who, as 

 I have tried to show, has administrative 

 duties and responsibilities beyond normal 

 powers. Moreover, however conscientious 

 he may be, his personal equation can not 

 but enter into his interpretations — so to 

 speak— between two bodies of which he 

 alone is a common factor. It is essential 

 to his leadership that he should have large 

 powers over the' teaching staff, but the 

 opinions of the most perfect of administra- 

 tors as to the individuals under his benevo- 

 lent despotism should have the salutary 

 check of others' close and unbiased ob- 

 servations. 



In order, therefore, that there may be 

 many instead of only one channel of un- 

 derstanding between trustees and faculty 

 (as well as for the more subtle reasons sug- 

 gested earlier), I would advocate most 

 earnestly the creation in every board of 

 trustees of a new standing committee^ 

 This committee should be most carefully- 

 chosen, and its duty should be to confer,, 

 at stated and frequent intervals, with a 

 like standing committee of the faculty, 

 selected freely by that body itself. And I 

 would advise, further, that this conference 

 committee be distinct, if possible, from 

 that executive committee which I have 

 called the president's cabinet, and that no 

 legislation of any consequence should be 

 passed by the executive committee of by 

 the trustees as a whole without the concur- 

 rence of this joint committee. And— at 

 least so far as relates to questions having- 

 any educational bearing— I would have it 

 understood that the joint committee should 

 not concur until the proposed action had 

 been submitted to the faculty as a whole, 

 had been debated, if so desired, before the 

 standing committee and the executive com- 

 mittee sitting in joint session, and had been 

 approved by at least a majority of the- 

 teaching staff. 



