Mat 29, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



867 



have been of the chancellor's making. 

 Neither does there seem to be any investiga- 

 tion as to the merits of any trouble which 

 arises between the chancellor and those under 

 him. The chancellor is to be supported re- 

 ;gardless of the fact that injustice may be done 

 thereby. 



The conference members of the trustees 

 "forming a majority appear to have no duties 

 ■except to attend meetings of the board twice 

 a year. They listen to the chancellor's report, 

 approve all his recommendations, eat a dinner 

 and adjourn. The other trustees, the business 

 men, are busily engaged with their own affairs 

 and turn the whole administration of the uni- 

 versity over to the chancellor. Vacancies in 

 the board of trustees, other than the confer- 

 ence members, are filled by the chancellor 

 nominating one of his personal friends to the 

 position. This gives him practically un- 

 limited power; the board of trustees being 

 made up first of some of the chancellor's rich 

 friends, and secondly, of the inactive con- 

 ference trustees. The board allows him to do 

 as he pleases and agrees to all his recom- 

 mendations, even to mortgaging the univer- 

 sity for $400,000 to obtain funds to build the 

 largest college gymnasium in the world, and, 

 if the ideas of the trustee quoted above are 

 followed, to' dismiss the head of one of his 

 colleges without any investigation on the part 

 of the trustees to discover whether the dis- 

 missed man is a suitable person for the posi- 

 tion or not, and without giving him any op- 

 portunity to present his side of the ease. 



The chancellor thus has unchecked power, 

 which always tends to tyranny. The chancel- 

 lor has, therefore, become a czar. 



The conference trustees while they have it 

 in their power to see that the university is 

 provided with the best possible system of gov- 

 ernment, and while they have every oppor- 

 tunity to study by visiting other universities, 

 what the best system of government is, have 

 abdicated all their power and delivered it to a 

 czar. Under such circumstances it can not be 

 expected that the educational interests of the 

 university can be well managed, any more 

 than it can be believed that the governments 



of Russia and Turkey are the best govern- 

 ments under the sun. It is not to be expected 

 that one man, however able he may be, pos- 

 sesses all the wisdom necessary to the proper 

 outlining and developing of the many varied 

 courses of a large university. 



The remedy for this state of affairs is 

 entirely within the control of the Methodist 

 church. Controlling as it does the majority 

 of the board of trustees, it can, if it so wills, 

 give the university the best governmental 

 system possible. Would it not be well for 

 the Methodist General Conference to request 

 its committee on education to study the sub- 

 ject and report to the several conferences 

 which have jurisdiction of colleges, what 

 should be the best system of administration 

 in a university, in order to make it as efficient 

 an educational institution as possible and be 

 a credit to the Methodist denomination? 

 William Kent, 

 Dean of the College of Applied Science 



Steacuse University 



CONFERENCE ON CONSERVATION OP 



NATURAL RESOURCES 

 The Conference of Governors on the Con- 

 servation of the Natural Resources of the 

 country, held in the White House, May 13- 

 16, proved a notable occasion. Except a few 

 detained or called away by pressing state busi- 

 ness, all the governors of the states and terri- 

 tories, including Hawaii and Porto Rico, took 

 part, as did the governors' advisers, the 

 justices of the Supreme Court, the members 

 of the cabinet, the presidents of the leading 

 scientific and technical organizations, and a 

 few special guests, including Messrs. Andrew 

 Carnegie, James J. Hill, W. J. Bryan and 

 John Mitchell. President Roosevelt presided 

 throughout two of the five sessions, and dur- 

 ing a part of each of the other three. It was 

 the consensus of opinion that the condition and 

 probable duration of our leading resources 

 were summarized more completely than ever 

 before; and that the deliberations did more 

 to emphasize the importance of research rela- 

 ting to the physical phenomena of the conti- 

 nent than those of any other earlier as- 

 semblage. 



