Januaky 5, 190G.] 



SCIENCE. 



13 



question of education considered from the 

 intellectual side, and the two questions are 

 not only essentially different in their na- 

 ture, but also the training necessary for a 

 business man is not the same as that neces- 

 sary for one who is to be an educator and 

 a scholar. To the trustees belongs the 

 management of the finances and it would 

 be preposterous to entrust purely business 

 matters to a numerous body like the faculty 

 even were they not unfitted for such work 

 by their lack of proper training. To the 

 faculty belong the practical work of edu- 

 cation and the advancement of learning. 

 The difficulty at the present time is that 

 when it comes to the question of the gen- 

 eral educational policy to be pursued, there 

 is an increasing tendency on the part of 

 trustees to assume that that is their busi- 

 ness and not that of the faculty. Prac- 

 tically the board which controls the ex- 

 penditure of money can, if it wishes, shape 

 the policy without regard to the opinion of 

 others. Whether it is better for educa- 

 tion and learning that they should do so is 

 another matter. Probably a large portion 

 of the educated public are of the opinion 

 that the faculty are better, qualified than 

 the trustees to decide educational questions 

 both theoretical and practical, and they 

 would certainly agree in thinking that no 

 educational policy should be adopted with- 

 out the concurrence of the faculty. It 

 would surely be a misfortune should the 

 public endorse the opinion said to have 

 been expressed recently by a trustee that 

 the faculty are merely the employees of the 

 trustees and that their opinion is of no con- 

 sequence even in cases which seriously 

 affect their work and their future. Fur- 

 thermore, the farce of asking the opinion 

 of a faculty when there was never the 

 slightest idea of following it does not add 

 to the dignity of either trustees or faculty 

 nor does it tend to bring about the har- 

 mony of action necessary to success. The 



expression, only an employee, however, may 

 not be quite so contemptuous as it at first 

 seems, for, after all, the trustees themselves 

 are only employees. They are not managing 

 their own money on their own account, but 

 are simply employed to carry out the in- 

 tentions of those who have given their 

 money to found and carry on different in- 

 stitutions of learning and they are respon- 

 sible to the public for the way they per- 

 form their duties. They may not be paid 

 in money, but they are paid in the honor of 

 holding positions which are justly highly 

 prized. Unless the public feel that they 

 are administering their trusts wisely and 

 in accordance with the intentions of those 

 who have given the money, they will sooner 

 or later cease to supply more funds and 

 there is always need of more money. 



It seems to me that the antagonism be- 

 tween the trustees and the faculty is really 

 less marked than many suppose and, if the 

 opinions of the faculty are at times ap- 

 parently disregarded, it may be in part, at 

 least, because the trustees find it difficult 

 to ascertain just what the collective opinion 

 of the faculty is. In the larger univer- 

 sities the faculties are so large that, when 

 meeting in a body, their discussions are 

 apt to be very prolonged and not always to 

 the point. It ought to be possible to con- 

 trive some way in which the views of both 

 boards could be presented in a definite, 

 practical way. In one of our universities, 

 I understand, there is a joint board com- 

 posed of some trustees and some members 

 of the faculty, known as the committee 

 on education, before which are brought 

 questions in which both boards are inti- 

 mately concerned, and the recommenda- 

 tions of this committee, it is said, have 

 always, so far as known, been adopted by 

 the trustees. The faculty members of such 

 a board should of course be selected by the 

 facultjr itself and serve only for fixed in- 

 tervals, in order that they may really rep- 



