August 12, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



209 



interest in the recent interview in the Evening 

 Post with the president of the college that is 

 to be. 



The first is that the productive endowment 

 of $3,000,000 with which the college starts is 

 to be used exclusively for college work — uni- 

 versity work will not be attempted at all. 

 There is a wayside inn near the White Moun- 

 tains, of which the cards read thus : " What, 

 second-class? Sure! The only second-class 

 hotel in New Hampshire." A college without 

 a university attachment is as rare as a second- 

 class hotel; but President Foster wishes it 

 understood that that is what Reed College is 

 going to be, for some time to come at least. 

 The adoption of this program means some- 

 thing more than the mere devotion of the 

 whole income of the college to the work of 

 college teaching. It means a concentration 

 of the thought of the president and faculty 

 on the demands of the college, and the elim- 

 ination from the college problem of some ele- 

 ments of difficulty that come entirely from the 

 merging of college purposes with university 

 ambitions. That certain great advantages 

 come to college students from the presence of 

 the university work alongside that of the col- 

 lege is undeniable; but that much confusion 

 of purposes has also come from the combina- 

 tion is equally certain. Especially are the 

 excesses of the free elective plan, against 

 which so strong a reaction has now set in, 

 largely to be traced to this source. The work- 

 ing out of a college system in a new environ- 

 ment, with the distinction between college and 

 imiversity emphatically in mind from the be- 

 ginning, should prove highly interesting and 

 instructive to the whole country. 



The second point to which we have refer- 

 ence is closely allied to the first. " The sort 

 of men I am looking for," said President 

 Foster, " must be men, first of all. Second, 

 they must be teachers. Their proficiency as 

 research scholars will rank third in impor- 

 tance with me. In some of our universities, 

 the order of these qualifications appears to 

 have been reversed — to the detriment of the 

 students, I believe." The fact is, of course, 

 that the relative importance of these qualities 



in college teachers is altogether different from 

 what it is in university teachers. Helmholtz 

 was — with occasional important exceptions — 

 a very poor lecturer, but his students got from 

 him what they could not have got from the 

 most perfect teacher in the world; and the 

 same is true of many of the greatest investi- 

 gators. Sometimes the power of the perfect 

 teacher and the genius of the great investi- 

 gator are combined in one man, and that, of 

 course, is the best thing possible, whether in 

 college or in university ; but in the university, 

 where men are being trained to be specialists 

 and investigators themselves, the example of 

 the great leader is of infinitely more impor- 

 tance than the instruction of the perfect 

 teacher. In the college it is different, and 

 President Foster's position is well taken. „ 

 Still, even in the college, there is danger of 

 going too far — or perhaps rather of going in 

 the wrong direction — in the search for teach- 

 ing quality. To make teaching truly effective 

 in the higher departments of thought, a kind 

 of enthusiasm and insight is requisite that the 

 mere teacher can hardly possess; an enthu- 

 siasm and insight that come only with hard 

 work in one's chosen intellectual domain. 

 But, on the other hand, it is a cruel waste and 

 injustice to put ardent young men, ready to 

 respond to the appeal of a genuine teacher, . 

 under the instruction of a mere specialist, 

 without sympathetic quality, without the 

 power of expression, without the vital impulse 

 of the true teacher; and this is what happens 

 in hundreds of cases in our colleges. The 

 new college will do a great service if it sets 

 up a true standard in this extremely impor- 

 tant matter. 



With a clean sheet before him, the president 

 of the new college on the Pacific might, we 

 would suggest, profitably consider a question 

 which bears on the character of his own func- 

 tions and which is also intimately connected 

 with that matter of the personal qualities of 

 the professors on which he has laid so much 

 stress. The autocratic college and university 

 president is a peculiar product of America, 

 and a product that is especially curious as 

 contrasting with the democratic ideals of our 



