Januabt 20, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



101 



tion, they may be consequently accommo- 

 dative or correlational, incidentally adapt- 

 ive, or wholly inutile in their functional 

 relations. D. T. MacDougal 



EDUCATIONAL AND INDUSTRIAL 

 EFFICIENCY 



The latest bulletin of the Carnegie Foun- 

 dation has many attractive features. The re- 

 port has evidently been made up in a spirit of 

 good will to education, and any sting that it 

 may contain should be removed by the ad- 

 mirable introduction by Dr. Pritehett. In 

 the course of more than a hundred and thirty 

 large pages the author, Mr. Cooke, makes a 

 number of excellent suggestions, which are 

 none the less excellent because of their lack of 

 novelty. He is aware that the charge of 

 Philistinism might easily be suggested by the 

 tenor of his remarks and he makes some effort 

 to protect himself accordingly. His peculiar 

 point of view seems to give undue prominence 

 to " the cost per student hour," but although 

 we hear much of this phrase in the report we 

 are distinctly told in one place that " It should 

 be borne in mind that the cost per student- 

 hour has absolutely no value in distinguishing 

 relative educational values." If this had been 

 placed as a headline to all the pages, it would 

 have greatly improved the value of the re- 

 port, and would have been in harmony with 

 this other admirable sentence which might 

 with equal propriety have been inserted as a 

 foot-note to every page : " In the last analysis 

 the usefulness of a university is the measure 

 of its mental, moral and spiritual product — 

 and product interpreted as broadly as you 

 please." 



However, although there is much that is ex- 

 cellent in the report, it has many weaknesses. 

 It is written from the point of view of the 

 man who is used to report on the efficiency of 

 a glue factory or soap works. Whenever it 

 touches the strictly educational field and gets 

 away from the factory the trail of the ama- 

 teur is over it all. It is full of commonplaces, 

 and there is scarcely a question raised that has 

 not been discussed ad nauseam by college pro- 

 fessors and other officers. It is not lacking in 



confidence. One marvels at the temerity even 

 of an " efficiency engineer " who can lay down 

 the law so definitely as to how to teach phys- 

 ics, how to conduct a recitation, how to carry 

 on research, when most of us who have 

 devoted our whole lives to such problems 

 are far less confident. There are, however, 

 here and there some pleasing evidences of 

 diffidence. In discussing the important educa- 

 tional problem of janitor service Mr. Cooke 

 says, " A sharp line should be drawn, proli- 

 ahly, between the cleaning of the buildings 

 and the care of apparatus." The use of the 

 word " probably " is a master-stroke. It con- 

 jures up pleasing pictures of janitors handling 

 the delicate instruments of a physical labora- 

 tory just as they furbish the brass plates of a 

 glue factory — if indeed " the snap and vigor 

 of the business administrator " which Mr. 

 Cooke admires so much decree that such 

 things are a necessary adjunct to the dignity 

 of the factory. Almost on a par with this 

 use of "probably" is the statement that 

 " There is a good deal of the feeling that lec- 

 tures to be good must in a way bear the marks 

 of the inspiration of the moment. But a good 

 many men who have the reputation of being 

 high authorities assured me that the carefuUy 

 thought out plan for a series of lectures would 

 win out every time over the inspiration of the 

 moment idea." Of course they assured Mr. 

 Cooke of this, but they must have smiled at 

 the naivete of the question and wondered who 

 ever suggested that the presentation of a sci- 

 entific subject be left " to the inspiration of 

 the moment." 



The report shows many evidences of igno- 

 rance of the history of education. It suggests 

 as novelties plans that have been tried for 

 centuries and abandoned only after careful 

 consideration. Such, for example, is the sug- 

 gestion that the rules for the conduct of the 

 students and the punishments for their breach 

 should be put into precise form. The collec- 

 tion of such rules from the archives of the 

 older universities would fill many volumes. 

 Again he says, " It may turn out that ulti- 

 mately the matter of examinations will be 

 handled by an agency outside of the depart- 



