Mat 29, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



865 



of the personality and the ideals of the chan- 

 cellor may explain the situation. 



The reason why Syracuse University is 

 what it is is the overpowering personality of 

 the chancellor. He is a large man, physically 

 and otherwise, 63 years of age, and over six 

 feet tall, and weighing over 250 pounds. He 

 has a magnificent voice, a power of eloquence, 

 and mastery of an audience equal to that of 

 William Jennings Bryan and a capacity for 

 invective like that of Senator Jeff Davis. 

 Pompous in carriage, irritable in temper, and 

 often discourteous in manner, he paralyzes 

 the voice of any one who has the temerity 

 to differ in opinion with him. But to those 

 who are willing to suppress their own 

 opinions, to defer to him in everything, to 

 say yes to everything that he says, even to 

 take a scolding in silence and humility, if he 

 happens to be in a scolding mood, he is kind- 

 ness itself. He has many good qualities, he 

 is generous to a fault to poor students in dis- 

 tress, enjoys a good laugh and a good story 

 and therefore has many friends among those 

 who have not had occasion to incur his dis- 

 pleasure. He is preeminently a Methodist 

 preacher, a pulpit orator of great power, and 

 pulpit orators always have their admirers who 

 think that a great orator is necessarily a great 

 maiL It is a common saying that " you can 

 get along with the chancellor if you know how 

 to take him." The " knowing how " is to 

 suppress one's individuality, never to offer 

 one's own opinion, to flatter his vanity, and 

 never under any circumstances to enter into 

 a controversy or discussion with him. He 

 never comes to a faculty meeting of the Col- 

 lege of Applied Science except once a year, 

 but he presides over the faculty of Liberal Arts 

 and keeps it in a proper state of subservience 

 and stagnation. One member of that faculty 

 says : " No one ever dares express an original 

 opinion in the faculty meeting for fear he 

 will be snubbed by the chancellor." I have 

 been thus treated by him in a meeting of the 

 imiversity senate, before I learned that the 

 senate is not a deliberating and legislative 

 body, as it appears to be, according to the 

 charter, but a mere registering body, the chief 



duty of its members being, never to do any- 

 thing but to vote " yes " on a few purely 

 formal matters. 



The chancellor's ideal of a university seems 

 to be : the chancellor, a board of trustees who 

 provide funds and approve of the chancellor's 

 way of spending them ; large grounds ; numer- 

 ous large buildings, the largest stadium in 

 the country, the largest college gymnasium in 

 the world, the largest college of liberal arts 

 in the state; the most brawny athletes and 

 the greatest number of victories in inter- 

 university athletic contests; and for the 

 future, more real estate, an agricultural col- 

 lege, an industrial college, an alumni hall, to 

 contain an auditorium capable of seating 

 5,000 people, the largest college assembly hall 

 in the country; a hundred thousand dollars to 

 spend on beautifying the campus, and enough 

 students, male and female, to make it from 

 a real estate point of view, one of the four 

 biggest universities in the country, the other 

 three being Harvard, Chicago and Leland 

 Stanford. And while these ideals are being 

 realized, there is neglect of the intellectual 

 grovi^th of the university, and short-sighted 

 parsimony as to the teaching force. 



The end and aim of these ideals and these 

 ambitions is the glorification of the chancel- 

 lor. Like the King of France, who said, 

 " I'etat c'est moi," and the Roman Emperor, 

 who said, " See this great Rome which I have 

 builded," the chancellor says, " See this great 

 university which I have builded." " I am the 

 university." When I suggested to the chan- 

 cellor that it would be well to have a com- 

 mittee of the trustees investigate the condi- 

 tion and needs of our college he said, " No, 

 I am the committee." So far is it true that 

 he is the committee, that although there are 

 sixty trustees, not one of them during the 

 past five years has ever visited the college for 

 the purpose of inquiry into its needs, its 

 methods or its efficiency as an engineering col- 

 lege, nor has the dean ever been called on to 

 make a report of its condition. The trustees 

 have no intercourse whatever with the facul- 

 ties, they have no committees on the colleges, 

 nor even on buildings and grounds. They 



