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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 589. 



that to some extent the budget itself must 

 be included in this group. As it is, faculty 

 opinion has in most institutions no oppor- 

 tunity to express itself in regard to that 

 which concerns the faculty most intimately. 

 Upon this aspect of the matter I have 

 touched in the general statement. 



There is finally a group of minor admin- 

 istrative details, also involving financial 

 matters, which intimately concern the aca- 

 demic activities. I refer to such matters 

 as modes of conducting laboratories, of se- 

 curing material and all the inevitable busi- 

 ness of handling apparatus, and the house- 

 keeping side of instructional and investiga- 

 tive work. This is clearly partly a business 

 matter, and as such belongs to the board, 

 but likewise is it in equal part a matter 

 that affects the efficiency of the laboratory 

 and its work. The contention thus seems 

 just that some mode of administration shall 

 be devised which shall be as satisfactory to 

 the director of the laboratory in the matter 

 of meeting his needs, as it shall be to the 

 administration as business procedure. This, 

 as many another question, is one that con- 

 cerns jointly these two cooperating parts of 

 university administration; and can be met 

 only by joint consideration. 



And now let us bring these various con- 

 siderations into mutual relation. The sys- 

 tem that so generally prevails and whose 

 deficiencies detract from the value of the 

 academic career may be called ' government 

 by imposition.' Possibly this is a harsh 

 word ; but to the professor who is obliged to 

 pursue his calling under it, the measures 

 which it enforces are often harsh measures. 

 The system which is advocated to replace it 

 may in like brevity be termed 'government 

 by cooperation,' with the explicit interpre- 

 tation that the government is by the faculty 

 and the cooperation the function of the ad- 

 ministrative officers, including the presi- 

 dent and the board. The management of 

 the university's material affairs advantage- 



ously falls to the board; and what shall be 

 included under this head is not likely to be 

 a serious point of contention, if once it be 

 admitted that many material provisions di- 

 rectly influence the work of the faculty, 

 and that for such the faculty shall have a 

 voice in determining how these material af- 

 fairs shall be administered. Assent must 

 be gained for the view that the faculty is 

 quite capable of determining whether the 

 needs of the institution make it preferable 

 to administer certain details themselves or 

 have them otherwise regulated. So long as 

 measures are not imposed, but are the issue 

 of deliberation of both bodies acting co- 

 operatively, concord and progress are as- 

 sured. For the most part the material ad- 

 ministration may well remain where it now 

 is placed; but the right of discussion, of 

 opinion and of protest should be freely ex- 

 ercised. Even with similar measures, the 

 spirit of the administration and the dignity 

 and security of the academic career, would 

 be wholly different under the two systems. 

 To what measure the present system of 

 administration is due to the irrelevant 

 transfer of methods suited to a business 

 corporation, to institutions flourishing un- 

 der conditions of wholly opposed character, 

 I can not stop to discuss. Many critics 

 find in this perverse application of glorified 

 business procedure the source of academic 

 inadequacy; others count it as but one of 

 several influences, and not the chief. "What 

 is unmistakable is the pernicious dominance 

 of the business spirit both in the adminis- 

 tration and in the academic interests. I 

 prefer to speak of the internal influences as 

 more closely allied to my thesis. There is 

 at work among American universities a 

 spirit of intense rivalry, a desire for each 

 to measure its own work by standards of 

 tangible material success. College presi- 

 dents like to be remembered by the build- 

 ings which were erected through their ini- 

 tiative, by the departments which have been 



