Ateil 13, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



565 



by the president to the faculty as final de- 

 cisions; and the faculty is called upon to 

 carry out the decision in reaching which 

 they have had no part. Officially and 

 authoritatively, the faculty enjoys— as one 

 is said to enjoy bad health— painfully re- 

 stricted rights. Its members naturally 

 make their influence felt through unoffi- 

 cial, mainly individual, prestige. Tet in 

 many academic autocracies, the president 

 would look askance upon the direct con- 

 ference of a member of the faculty with a 

 member of the board, especially to urge 

 views opposed to his own. This is the 

 situation stated in its mildest, most ob- 

 jective terms. Introduce a tactful, sym- 

 pathetic personality, and the even tenor 

 of academic life is likely to proceed with 

 reasonable serenity. Many colleges — par- 

 ticularly the smaller ones, with simpler 

 problems, more unified interests — will be 

 happily governed by any system and under 

 such leadership as they are likely to ac- 

 cept. But surround the situation with the 

 actual complexities of a great and expand- 

 ing university, and inject into this relation 

 what the gods occasionally or oftener give 

 unto masterful men— personal ambition, 

 a secretive habit of mind, a protective in- 

 sensibility, a pseudo-diplomatic behavior, 

 and the love of power that seems to come 

 with the executive title — and you have a 

 situation that may vary from the ridicu- 

 lously irritating to the sublimely intoler- 

 able. 



I am tempted to refer, though main- 

 taining the incognito, to a recent experi- 

 ence. A member of a faculty propounded 

 to me the attitude of its president as a 

 psychological problem. I was unable to 

 give any enlightenment, but this is the en- 

 lightenment that I received, the result of a 

 careful indiictive study. (1) Whenever 

 President X. announced to his surprised 

 faculty that the board had adopted such 

 and such a measure, it proved to mean that 



the president had proposed the measure to 

 the wholly innocent board, and that it was 

 a measure that the faculty, were it given 

 a chance, would have cordially opposed. 

 (2) When a measure was 'up' before the 

 faculty, and opposition unexpectedly de- 

 veloped, an announcement was made by 

 President X. that there were reasons, which 

 unfortunately he could not disclose, that 

 really made the measure necessary, and 

 this meant that if not approved by the 

 faculty, the board would take the proposed 

 step anyway. There were two other types 

 of situations that entered into this psycho- 

 logical analysis ; but they are too individ- 

 ual to make it proper to cite them. 



The academic comment that occasionally 

 reaches the college president's ears to the 

 effect that his troubles are largely of his 

 own making is intended to remind him 

 that he encourages, or complacently accepts, 

 does not, at all events, protest against 

 and strive for the abolition of the condi- 

 tions out of which troubles naturally grow. 

 MHien the presidential policy, or better, the 

 university policy, shall favor the settle- 

 ment of intrinsically educational questions 

 by the faculty and not for the faculty, the 

 president's lot will be a happier one. The 

 principle that the essential questions, the 

 critically formative and expanding meas- 

 ures, the issues that make or mar the 

 academic career, shall be shaped by faculty 

 consideration, equally demands that they 

 shall not be authoritatively or virtually dis- 

 posed either by the board or by the presi- 

 dent. As to the actual business of the 

 faculty: it is a rather dreary tale. De- 

 tails, routine, student affairs, occasionally 

 a real issue that somehow reaches that 

 body, but in regard to which they can act 

 only conditionally, not authoritatively; 

 such is the situation that naturally en- 

 courages inconsequential talk, inefficient 

 deliberation, restrained initiative. It is 

 nothing short of absurd to withdraw from 



