44 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1019 



neering may be costing 46 cents per work- 

 ing hour, English 18.2 cents. Either may 

 be costing too much, or each too little. As 

 for the results, the unfinished products, 

 engineering instruction or English instruc- 

 tion, or the finished product, education, they 

 still await measurement. 



Doubtless it would be well for the college 

 to know exactly how it is spending, how it is 

 losing, its money. What must be guarded 

 against especially is the misuse of state- 

 ments of costs, as well as inaccurate state- 

 ments of costs derived from insufficient data 

 and unscientific investigation. A determi- 

 nation of the cost per student hour, or per 

 working hour, which does not separate sal- 

 aries of the instructing staff into wages, 

 general administration and departmental 

 admiinistration charges; which does not 

 properly allocate to various departments 

 costs of rent, power and other items ; which 

 makes no attempt "to apportion the over- 

 head expense exactly, as would be done in a 

 manufacturing business"- — such a determi- 

 nation may, perhaps, be valuable and sug- 

 gestive if applied to a hypothetical college, 

 but is misleading and dangerous if applied 

 to an actual institution for the purpose of 

 deducing practical consequences and sug- 

 gesting practical reforms. 



There is no consensus of opinion as to 

 what education is — except, perhaps, the 

 widespread view that it is a failure — and 

 no general agreement as to what it should 

 be. It is, perhaps, unfortunate that so 

 much attention is being given to the deter- 

 mination of the costs of this unknown quan- 

 tity; unfortunate that, obsessed by the 

 slight analogy between industrial and edu- 

 cational organizations, so many investiga- 

 tors and writers fail utterly to see the in- 

 numerable and insuperable differences 

 between education and business. It is true 

 that as yet but little harm has been done, 



but there are indications that if this tend- 

 ency be not checked serious evil may follow. 

 The executive and administrative 

 branches of the educational business are 

 coming to be looked upon as its trunk and 

 its roots. The college is coming to be looked 

 upon as an establishment in which educa- 

 tion is administered, not as a seat of learn- 

 ing, where knowledge is taught, scholarship 

 fostered and wisdom diligently sought. 

 The teacher is no longer looked upon as an 

 essential part of education; he is no longer 

 an individual, teaching in freedom and 

 earnestness, but is simply one of a numer- 

 ous class of underpaid workmen whose bet- 

 terment is impossible and whose usefulness 

 is doubtful. In investigating the costs of 

 the educational institution it will be well to 

 count these costs of education treated as a 

 business, and to take heed lest academic lib- 

 erty be sacrificed to executive demands; 

 lest truth be sacrificed to expediency. 



Leonard M. Passano 

 Massachusetts Institute op Technology 



FLOOD PREVENTION AND ITS RELATION 

 TO TEE NATION'S FOOD SUPPLT 



The problem of preventing' the enormous 

 losses from floods is one of the greatest before 

 the American people. It is second only to 

 that of increasing the nation's food supply and 

 thereby decreasing the cost of living. That 

 the two problems axe closely related will be 

 seen from the following facts and figures 

 taken from statements raade by experts who 

 have not been contradicted. 



These few facts, which have been culled 

 from a mass of overwhelming evidence should 

 convince every reasonable person — 



First: That the federal government's pres- 

 ent policy of river regulation is wrong. 



Second: That a better policy is possible and 

 is now under consideration by Congress. 



Third: The necessity for the immediate 

 adoption of the new policy. 



The present policy of building levees only 

 is radically wrong because it ignores the neces- 

 sity of preventing flood conditions, and is 



