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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 854 



bodies, composed for the most part of men 

 without anything but the most superficial 

 knowledge of educational practise, often with- 

 out liberalizing experiences or any real intel- 

 lectual training, may afford avenues of ap- 

 proach to funds available for the support of 

 educational activities; but they can take no 

 constructive part in educational work, and 

 therefore their action is most intelligent when 

 it is purely perfunctory; as, fortunately, it is 

 for the most part. This is a very general esti- 

 mate of the worth of governing boards, and 

 there is evidence to bear out its correctness in 

 President Van Hise's address. He says that 

 governing boards merely consider the ques- 

 tion of finances in establishing new chairs ; so, 

 we may suppose, that if any faculty should 

 so far forget itseH as to imagine that a chair 

 of mendacity was necessary, the average gov- 

 erning board would merely count up its cash 

 and determine by that action alone whether 

 to establish it or not. Of course it will be 

 objected that this is a flippant and incomplete 

 way of stating the situation, and that govern- 

 ing boards limit their direct responsibilities to 

 financial matters, leaving all questions of in- 

 struction to the sole decision of the faculty. 

 This answer is unconvincing, however, be- 

 cause it is impossible to consider the financial 

 and the intellectual sides of such questions 

 separately, and because it is not fair that the 

 faculty should have only responsibility and no 

 authority in such matters. The fact that there 

 is a strong feeling that governing boards have 

 much power that they do not use intelligently, 

 and that they exercise much authority without 

 being willing to accept a corresponding degree 

 of responsibility, is probably a stronger reason 

 than the one given by President Van Hise for 

 faculty objection to the interference of out- 

 side bodies in the matter of teaching appoint- 

 ments. The remedy for this condition, how- 

 ever, does not lie in changing the functions 

 of the officers who interfere or in abolishing 

 them, but in changing their character so that 

 their action on such matters shaU be intelli- 

 gent. If university governing boards were 

 selected with more discrimination than they 

 are at present, and were therefore able to give 



intelligent consideration to all the larger 

 questions that confront their institutions, 

 many other problems besides those in con- 

 nection with the appointment and removal of 

 officers of instruction would be solved, and 

 complaints of appointments due to favoritism 

 and expediency or of flagrantly unjust re- 

 movals could be dismissed as the cry of irri- 

 tated incompetence — something that can not 

 be clone with many that are now made. 



It would be pleasant to be able to believe 

 that the public is sure to reprehend any 

 abuse of the power of appointment or re- 

 moval, but any one who is familiar with the 

 way in which that power has been exercised 

 in many of our universities will have some 

 difficulty in doing so. The public is likely to 

 take an interest in the case of a man whose 

 removal can be attributed to his political or 

 religious opinions ; but where only intellectual 

 fitness and teaching efficiency are involved 

 it shows little interest, unless by some 

 accident the case becomes exploited sen- 

 sationally. It is very much as it is with the 

 exercise of political power. On certain ir- 

 regular occasions there is great excitement 

 over the appointment of an incompetent or the 

 removal of an efficient public officer, but as a 

 general thing it is taken as a matter of course 

 that such acts shall be unintelligent and in- 

 spired by selfishness oftener than a sense of 

 duty. In Science for August 19, 1910, Pro- 

 fessor A. W. Cravrtford, of Manitoba Univer- 

 sity, has a letter calling attention to the fact 

 that the University of Pittsburgh, by faculty 

 changes that involved the removal of two pro- 

 fessors, effected a saving of $2,000 a year, but 

 that $1,500 of it was added to the salary of 

 the executive officer who made the removals. 

 If the facts are as stated, it would seem that 

 the University of Pittsburgh would be an espe- 

 cially good place to establish a school of 

 politics, as the performance would do credit to 

 some of our most abused municipal govern- 

 ments. The public, however, does not seem to 

 have been at all disturbed by it, in spite of the 

 fact that a reform wave struck Pittsburgh 

 about the time it was done and several coun- 

 cilmen were indicted. 



