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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 826 



own advantage rather than fulfil the spirit 

 of the trust, as, for instance, by dis- 

 tributing benefices in as many different 

 districts as circumstances permit, so as to 

 advertise the institution as widely as pos- 

 sible instead of finding the most deserving 

 recipients. Where this is done, there is 

 probably no consciousness of its being 

 wrong, so completely has the sense of the 

 importance of commercial success blunted 

 the conscience to other obligations. 



It is commercial expediency also that 

 causes American colleges to tolerate ath- 

 letic excesses and other student indiscre- 

 tions lest by suppressing them they should 

 make themselves unattractive to under- 

 graduates, and so reduce their revenue, 

 and what is even more important, their 

 prestige due to a large enrollment. The 

 same motive justifies the adoption of an 

 attitude that will be pleasing, or at least 

 not offensive, to large donors or possible 

 donors; something which often involves 

 concessions to wealthy students which do 

 not tend to keep either the moral or intel- 

 lectual standards on a plane that com- 

 mands respect. Commercial aims also jus- 

 tify the practise so common in America of 

 teaching everything the latest popular or 

 pedagogical whim demands, entirely irre- 

 spective of whether there is equipment to 

 justify such attempts or not, or whether the 

 subjects have any educational value or not. 

 The practise of paying inadequate salaries 

 to a large number of nominally qualified 

 men instead of securing a less imposing 

 array of competent teachers has a commer- 

 cial basis, and so has the disposition to ex- 

 tend faculties by giving appointments to 

 wealthy men who are willing to take their 

 pay in the reputation for intellectuality 

 such appointments are supposed to confer. 

 Of course not all teachers who volunteer 

 their services are sources of weakness; 

 some of the most capable and effective 



men teaching in American colleges to-day 

 are unpaid, but the majority of such men 

 have all the superficiality and ineffective- 

 ness of the amateur. "Wealthy men, too, 

 are often given places on the governing 

 boards of colleges, in the hope that they 

 will either contribute funds for their sup- 

 port during their lives or bequeath them 

 money when they die. It is probable that 

 many of them do one or both of these 

 things, and it is unquestionable that many 

 of them also render faithful and valuable 

 services; but the practise, nevertheless, is 

 the root of many evils. Men chosen for 

 reasons such as these are, in general, prom- 

 inent either commercially or as intellectual 

 amateurs; and in neither case are they 

 likely to have a profound, or even an in- 

 telligent, understanding of what qualities 

 are necessary for success in educational 

 work. The practical man of affairs mis- 

 takes aggressiveness for strength, with the 

 result that many men are given preferment 

 in teaching who are well adapted to com- 

 mercial pursuits, but who lack the intel- 

 lectual breadth and refinement necessary 

 for success in any educational work that is 

 more than elementary. The intellectual 

 amateur, on the other hand, mistakes 

 mental dexterity for creative power, and 

 so brings a large number of teachers into 

 prominence who are more or less brilliant 

 according to drawing room standards, but 

 whose moral and mental insipidity makes 

 them as incapable of realizing as they are 

 of discharging the grave responsibilities of 

 their positions. Men of. both classes are 

 also occasionally guilty of more or less 

 flagrant nepotism, and undoubtedly much 

 of the popular opposition colleges are at 

 present encountering is due to this, and 

 to other evidences of the fact that, for rea- 

 sons that are only commercially justifiable, 

 they have subjected themselves to the con- 

 trol of men who guide them in accordance 



