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SCIENCE 



[N. B. Vol. XXVII. No. 700 



call to the chancellor, and the latter called me 

 to account for it, saying, " You are going out 

 of your province as dean in making such 

 visits, and will find plenty of work to do 

 within the four walls of your own college." 

 The idea of such limitation was resented by 

 me and I replied that I did not intend to 

 narrow myself in any such way, hut intended 

 to study all educational questions that I 

 wished to and to visit any place where I was 

 welcomed. This talk probably prejudiced the 

 chancellor against me, as it indicated that 

 he was dealing with a man of independent 

 mind, who would not submit to an undeserved 

 rebuke. It also revealed the chancellor's pro- 

 pensity for petty fault iinding and scolding, 

 and showed the manner of man with whom I 

 must deal. The incident was of trifling im- 

 portance, however, and caused no lasting re- 

 sentment. 



2. Relations were very cordial up to Jan- 

 uary, 1904. I then presented, with a request 

 for their consideration, to the chancellor, a 

 package of letters which had been written, at 

 my request, by the heads of departments of 

 the college, showing what was needed for the 

 improvement of the course and equipment. 

 Aecompanjdng these was a letter of trans- 

 mittal, giving my own ideas. The letters were 

 discourteously refused, the chancellor saying: 

 " Take them away, I don't want to see them. 

 Don't you know that professors are always 

 asking for everything they can think of ? " 

 whereupon I took the letters away leaving 

 only my own with the chancellor. The letter 

 was never answered, and the matter caused no 

 controversy as neither party ever referred to 

 it again. 



3. The nest frietion occurred in June, 1905. 

 The chancellor wrote that he had expelled a 

 certain student belonging to the L. C. Smith 

 College. I replied that the man was not in 

 college, having been dropped seventeen months 

 previously, and that the printing of his name 

 in the catalogue issued April, 1905, was a 

 mistake. The chancellor's attention was also 

 called to about forty names of men who had 

 not been in college during the year beginning 

 September, 1904, yet who were listed in the 



catalogue. To this the chancellor replied in a 

 letter dated June 13, 1904 : " Tour trouble is 

 that you have not informed yourself as to the 

 method of listing our students in the cata- 

 logue. A student who is present within a 

 catalogue year for any time goes into the 

 catalogue. ... I do not like to have you state 

 that such a number of students are in our 

 list who are not in college. It reflects upon 

 the institution. Suppose you call on me to 

 discuss such matters as this instead of wri- 

 ting." Accordingly a conference was held in 

 which I protested against padding the cata- 

 logue as essentially dishonest, and done for 

 the purpose of misleading people as to the 

 size of the university, and stated that I did 

 not want Smith College misrepresented that 

 way. The chancellor became enraged, and 

 gave a characteristic eshibition of his bad 

 temper, which would lead an onlooker to be- 

 lieve that he is about to have an apoplectic 

 stroke. The rage was short, and we met at 

 the chancellor's reception the next evening, as 

 if nothing had occurred. The catalogue 

 padding continued till this year, when it was 

 changed. The present edition contains a cor- 

 rect list of the students in the L. C. Smith 

 College during the year beginning September, 

 1907. 



4. Another trifling dispute during 1905, 

 concerned a statement I had written for a 

 pamphlet describing the work of the college. 

 This was to the effect that a year of practical 

 instruction in a machine shop, in addition to 

 the high school course, afforded the best 

 preparation for an engineering course. The 

 chancellor struck these words from the manu- 

 script. I protested that I had given not only 

 my own opinion, but that of the most ad- 

 vanced engineering educators on the subject, 

 and offered to show their printed words. The 

 chancellor said he cared for no one's opinion, 

 and would allow no such statement to appear 

 under the imprint of the university. 



5. During the college year 1905-6, the chan- 

 cellor and I attended the annual meeting of 

 the Albany Association of Syracuse Alumni 

 at Schenectady. Although we rode together 

 from Syracuse to Schenectady, the chancellor 



