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SCIENCE. 



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



men into high office and into the academic 

 chairs who have not within them the pos- 

 sibilities that contribute to the inspiration 

 of the institution of which they become an 

 organic part. Confining the issue to the 

 administrative aspect only, I am content to 

 repeat the comment of one of the speakers 

 of this conference, whose point of view is 

 hardly likely to be regarded as prejudiced. 

 He tells us that 'Young men of power and 

 ambition scorn what should be reckoned the 

 noblest of professions, not because that pro- 

 fession condemns them to poverty, but be- 

 cause it dooms them to a sort of servitude. ' 

 And as a forecast of the future in the light 

 of the present, this : 



Unless American college teachers can be as- 

 sured . . . that they are no longer to be looked 

 upon as mere employees paid to do the bidding 

 of men who, however courteous or however 

 eminent, have not the faculty's professional 

 knowledge of the complicated problems of educa- 

 tion, our universities will suffer increasingly from 

 a dearth of strong men, and teaching will remain 

 outside the pale of the really learned professions. 

 . . . The problem is not one of wages; for no 

 university can become rich enough to buy the in- 

 dependence of any man who is really worth pur- 

 chasing. 



A situation that calls forth such earnest, 

 disinterested protest can not but be somber 

 in tone. Yet I am anxious to reveal the 

 touch of optimism that makes the world 

 akin, and record that the brighter colors 

 have as legitimate a place in academic 

 portraiture as my enforced selection for 

 this occasion of the neutral and the dai-ker 

 grays. The compensations of the academic 

 life are real enough: they simply form, 

 like much else that I have omitted, an- 

 other story. I should be sorry to have it 

 inferred that a happy academician must be 

 sought by the despairing light of a 

 Diogenes lantern; though I have implied 

 that in one's less hopeful moods, the lamp 

 of learning seems a precarious illumination 

 amid the blinding incandescence of the 



rival interests of our intensely modern life. 

 The devotion to the purer, more sensitive 

 flame is in fact endangered; and those 

 whose responsibility and consolation it is 

 to hand it on to others with undiminished 

 ardor, have cause to feel that their voca- 

 tion is shorn of favoring fortune, is beset 

 by lack of power to order their lives by 

 appropriate standards, is embarrassed by 

 needless and remediable adversities. 



I must also forestall the deduction, which 

 would be quite wide of my purpose, that I 

 am in any sense advocating the abolition 

 of presidencies and boards, and am pro- 

 posing measures far too radical to be prac- 

 ticable. On the contrary, I concede that the 

 present mode of administration, if it can be 

 freed, as there is good reason to believe it 

 can, from the spirit of its practise that 

 now seems dominant, is a very efficient and 

 commendable method of accomplishing a 

 purpose which from the outset has been set 

 forth as a subsidiary means to an end. If 

 it furthers that end, it would in my judg- 

 ment hardly be worth while to change it, 

 even if that were readily possible. If the 

 present spirit of administration is the in- 

 evitable result of the present method, then 

 the method can not be commended, how- 

 ever modified. Here the ways divide; and 

 the judgment of expediency has a more 

 commanding voice, which it should not 

 raise, however, in defiance of principle. 



It would be possible to frame an aca- 

 demic decalogue, the obedience to which, 

 though it would not ensure the realization 

 of all ideals, would guard against the more 

 obvious transgressions. I shall content 

 myself with suggesting but two of the pro- 

 visions. The first is the introduction of a 

 definite system of salaries with such liber- 

 ality as may be possible, that provides for 

 promotions and increases, and establishes 

 the academic applicant upon a definite 

 footing. This measure is not proposed as 

 a panacea, and can at best be but negatively 



