July 22, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



113 



class interests, boldly, frankly, proudly; rather 

 than have it looked upon, as it too commonly 

 is looked upon, as a rather ill-advised expres- 

 sion of a personal grievance or of opposition 

 to constituted authorities. 



The natural custodians of education in any age 

 are the learned men of the land, including the 

 professors and schoolmasters. Now these men 

 have, at the present time, in America no concep- 

 tion of their responsibility. They are docile 

 under the rule of the promoting college president, 

 and they have a theory of their own function 

 which debars them from militant activity. 



Mr. Chapman applies these criticisms par- 

 ticularly to the common situation of an in- 

 justice done to a member of the faculty, which 

 his colleagues do not resent, against which 

 they do not protest. All this is true and 

 serious ; but it may be regarded as but a single 

 though common illustration of the more fun- 

 damental evil: the fact that matters of this 

 kind are decided by college presidents and not 

 by the faculties. In this aspect the presidents 

 need not be specifically censured. They are 

 personally not much to blame except as per- 

 sonally they aggravate a situation inherent in 

 the nature of the position .which they have 

 helped to create. I can state the point un- 

 ambiguously by using a colleague's cynical 

 phrase : that any man who would accept a 

 presidency and exercise the authority which it 

 implies thereby adequately proves that he is 

 not the right man for the place. The danger 

 is in the oiEce rather than in the man; for it 

 seems unmistakable that the office changes the 

 man. Professors become presidents and lose 

 the academic attitude with surprising and re- 

 grettable alacrity. All this is a part of the 

 administrative peril in education. There is 

 entertained a totally false view of the dignity, 

 worth and necessity of the administrative 

 function in education; of this the president is 

 the acute expression, and in some measure 

 likewise the cause. 



It is then the fact, regret it as we may, that 

 the university president gets to think in ad- 

 ministrative terms; that the professorial inter- 

 ests are not expressed by him or through him ; 

 that indeed in many aspects the presidential 

 aspect and the faculty aspect of policy and 



measures are quite opposed. The injustice and 

 the danger is enhanced by reason of the fact 

 that the president is in the position of vantage 

 and places measures before the board of trus- 

 tees or regents, with whom he stands in direct 

 relation; and thus the administrative policy 

 is enforced and the professorial interests sacri- 

 ficed. It would be foolish not to mention in 

 the plainest words that the authority which 

 the president exercises in the way of fixing 

 salaries and promotions is the most serious 

 obstacle to a removal of the ills as well as to 

 the proper expression of protest by the pro- 

 fessors themselves. This is one of the sources, 

 and a most natural one, of the timidity of 

 which the professor stands convicted. 



It so happens that the same issue of Soienck 

 which brings Mr. Chapman's notable contribu- 

 tion contains an extract from President Had- 

 ley's report in regard to the mode of fixing 

 professors' salaries. The matter may be cited 

 just because of the exceptionally high stand- 

 ing of President Hadley and his well-known 

 sympathy with the professorial interests, and 

 his approval of the largest democratic privi- 

 lege enjoyed by any faculty— rthat of Tale — 

 in participating in the elections and promo- 

 tions of its own members. Tet the issue is 

 discussed from a purely administrative point 

 of view, the question of the benefit of the 

 academic situation or the personal preference 

 of the professors being wholly neglected. And 

 in this issue I believe emphatically that the 

 actual solutions of the salary question as an 

 academic one and as an administrative one 

 are quite opposed. A very large uniformity 

 of salary, automatic promotion, a complete 

 unwillingness to use salaries as a means of 

 reward (or punishment by withholding ad- 

 vances) or as a differentiation of merit — ^this 

 is the academic solution. Tet this issue it is 

 not necessary here to discuss, only to point 

 out that this is a question upon which the 

 professorial and the administrative attitudes 

 are likely to lead to opposite conclusions ; that 

 at present the danger is great, almost a cer- 

 tainty, that the administrative side will pre- 

 vail and the professorial remain imheard, be- 

 cause of the timidity of the professor, and 

 the fear of misunderstanding his motives. I 



