Mat 12, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



727 



mine precisely what effects will follow their pro- 

 longed administration. But experiments on ani- 

 mals involving the daily and prolonged adminis- 

 tration of small quantities of each of the several 

 higher alcohols which are found to exist in traces 

 in distilled liquors are not as numerous as could 

 be desired. 



Again in speaking of alcohol as a respira- 

 tory stimulant, p. 116, it is stated that highly 

 flavored wines, brandy and other alcoholic 

 beverages which contain larger amounts of 

 stimulating esters have a more pronounced 

 action than ethyl alcohol and in numerous 

 passages elsewhere throughout the book it will 

 be found that the pharmacological action of 

 ethyl alcohol is contrasted with that of the 

 by-products of alcoholic beverages. On p. 10 

 may be read : "In ' pure ' wines the various 

 ethers and aldehydes constituting the 'bou- 

 quet,' the degree of acidity, the amount of 

 sugar and salts, are of importance, both from 

 a medical and from a hygienic point of view." 



A report which aims to show that ethyl 

 alcohol is the chief deleterious agent of alco- 

 holic beverages and the one mainly responsible 

 for the evils of intemperance should not be so 

 quoted that one could infer that it was there 

 stated or implied that the effects of all such 

 heverages on all living things (including roti- 

 fers) is to he measured only hy their alcoholic 

 content. 



John J. Abel 



Baltimore, 

 April 19, 1911 



THE APPOINTMENT, PROMOTION AND REMOVAL OF 

 OFFICERS OF INSTRUCTION 



The address by President Van Hise, " The 

 Appointment and Tenure of University Pro- 

 fessors," which was printed in Science on 

 February 17, 1911, is interesting in many 

 ways. It shows, in the first place, the prev- 

 alence of a strong feeling that there is some- 

 thing unsatisfactory about the way in which 

 the power of appointment and removal is ex- 

 ercised in our universities, and, in the second 

 place, it is noticeable for a tacit acceptance 

 of the common assumption that any objection 

 to the way in which a public trust is admin- 



istered implies a demand for a change in 

 the machinery by which its administration 

 is effected, and does not, as might more 

 naturally be thought, perhaps only exhibit a 

 desire to see the power that directs the ma- 

 chinery made more intelligent. If our cities 

 are badly governed by mayors and councils, 

 the remedy is sought in government by com- 

 mission or in some other purely mechanical 

 attempt to change the locus of power, instead 

 of in the more laborious and less outwardly 

 promising task of purifying it of selfishness 

 and ignorance ; and President Van Hise seems 

 to deal with the question of university gov- 

 ernment from a similar point of view, al- 

 though, to be sure, he does so for the most 

 part negatively and by inference rather than 

 positively and directly. He is undoubtedly 

 right in his contention that the president is 

 the proper officer to be entrusted with the 

 power of appointment and removal; although 

 many will question his implication that the 

 president's right to this power rests on the 

 fact that he makes wise and courageous use 

 of it. He is also right in insisting that re- 

 movals are necessary when efficiency or use- 

 fulness are destroyed by physical, mental or 

 moral weakness; and he is justified in attrib- 

 uting some (but not all) of the opposition of 

 faculties to the presidental power of appoint- 

 ment and removal to their selfish desire for 

 permanent sinecures; but his address implies 

 an attitude on some other points to which 

 exception may be taken. 



For one thing, he is too sanguine; for he 

 assumes two things that there is considerable 

 reason to doubt. He seems to think, first, that 

 the acts of governing boards of universities 

 are always in the interests of the students and 

 the public; and, second, that public condem- 

 nation is visited swiftly and certainly on all 

 college presidents who employ the power of 

 removal with even a suggestion of unreason- 

 ableness or injustice. That these two as- 

 sumptions are justified may fairly be called 

 into question. 



One of the greatest weaknesses of American 

 universities, according to an opinion of wide 

 prevalence, is their governing boards. These 



