Febeuaby 17, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



241 



and his fitness for work in an institution 

 is the personality of the man in reference 

 to energy, adaptability and other general 

 qualities. Concerning these points the 

 president has a right to a judgment. If a 

 man does not in his opinion come up to the 

 standards which he holds he may decline 

 to make a nomination or reconunendation 

 for promotion urged by a department. 



Finally, after a department is once es- 

 tablished, very exceptionally the president 

 might take the initiative in the nomination 

 of a man of professorial rank. Such an 

 action could only be justifiable in case the 

 president does not have confidence in the 

 department as it exists. This situation is 

 more likely to occur in institutions that are 

 trying to raise their faculties to a higher 

 standard, for instance from that of a col- 

 lege to a university basis, than in those 

 institutions the departments of which are 

 well established and on a somewhat per- 

 manent basis. 



The extent to which the president per- 

 sonally participates in the councils leading 

 to the nomination of a man depends largely 

 upon the proposed rank of the man. His 

 participation is usually more intimate with 

 reference to the nomination of men whose 

 appointments are indeterminate — profess- 

 ors and associate professors; he is per- 

 haps more likely to accept the judg- 

 ment of others without close personal in- 

 vestigation in the case of the assistant 

 professor who is appointed for a definite 

 term, and a mistake in reference to which 

 is not so serious a matter. He usually ac- 

 cepts without question the recommendation 

 of the department or a dean for instructors 

 and lower ranks. 



THE POWER OF THE PRESIDENT. 



It is clear from the above statement of 

 facts that the president of the university 

 for the great majority of the institutions 

 of this association occupies a very impor- 



tant place in the building up of the staff. 

 The question therefore arises as to 

 whether his authority should be curtailed. 

 During the past half dozen years a number 

 of papers^ have appeared which have 

 strongly urged this, not only with refer- 

 ence to appointment and removal, but in 

 other directions. The writers of some of 

 these have gone so far as to state that the 

 office of president should be abolished. 



With reference to the particular point 

 under discussion — the appointment and 

 promotion of the instructional stafE — the 

 only substitute for the exercise of the 

 nominating power by the president which 

 has come to my notice is that the faculty 

 shall elect and dismiss the professors, this 

 being subject merely to the veto of the 

 trustees. This proposal goes farther than 

 is the practise of the Prussian universities. 

 There, the faculty nominates three mem- 

 bers for a vacant professorship, from among 

 whom the minister of education selects 

 one; but in one case out of three during 

 the last seventy years, according to Presi- 

 dent Pritchett,^ the minister has gone alto- 

 gether outside of this list. The reason 

 assigned for so doing was that the faculties 

 are likely to be influenced by "personal 

 considerations in their choice, not by con- 

 siderations of the highest usefulness of the 

 man to be chosen." The implication that 

 if in America the ofiice of president were 

 abolished and his duties assigned to the 

 faculty, the situation would be similar to 



^This class of papers is illustrated by: "Closer 

 Relations between Faculties and Trustees," James 

 P. Munro, Scdenee, 'Vol. 22, 1905, pp. 848-855; 

 " Kxternalism in American Universities," George 

 M. Stratton, Atlcmtio Monthly, Vol. 100, 1907, 

 pp. 512-519; "Academic Control," J. McKeen 

 Cattell, Science, March 25, 1906; "Academic 

 Aspects of Administration," Joseph Jastrow, Pop- 

 ular Science Monthly, Vol. LXXIII., October, 

 1908, pp. 326-339. 



' Henry S. Pritchett, Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 96, 

 p. 296. 



