November 20, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



731 



I 



of the student body everywhere has resulted 

 in what Eulenberg calls a lush " Nachwuchs " 

 of assistants of all grades. Statistics show 

 that on the average the Extraordinarii or as- 

 sistant professors receive this appointment at 

 the age of 37, at an average salary of $523, 

 and remain in this position nearly 20 years, 

 attaining an average salary of $1,200, before 

 promotion, at the average age of 57. These 

 now constitute, with the docents, about half 

 the teaching personnel of German institutions, 

 and they often have neither seat nor vote in 

 the faculty and little participation in the cor- 

 porate life of the institution. In the munici- 

 pal university which opens at Frankfurt this 

 fall it was even proposed to have a president 

 of the American type, to safeguard the as- 

 sistants against the oppression of the fuU 

 professors. A few years ago Tiibingen, and 

 last year Ziirich, radically revised their an- 

 cient statutes to remedy these evils, and the 

 projected university at Hamburg will go yet 

 further. The two new universities in Hun- 

 gary, at Pressburg and Debreczen, and the 

 private one at Hongkong — ^these grant more 

 liberty and show more appreciation of the en- 

 thusiasm and ideals of the younger members 

 of the faculty. Even students in Germany 

 have caught the spirit of unrest, if not revo- 

 lution, and now have a strong inter-institu- 

 tional organization, and their pamphlets are 

 boldly demanding better methods of teaching, 

 printed outlines of professors' lectures, are 

 trying to develop a sentiment that no in- 

 structor shall ever repeat in a lecture anything 

 he has ever published ; are calling for more op- 

 tions, especially more freedom of choice in the 

 selection of subjects for their theses and more 

 meaty topics for them that do not make their 

 work ancillary to that of the professor, more 

 personal rights to what they produce or dis- 

 cover in them, a longer period of hospitieren 

 or of trying out each course before they finally 

 sign for it, more and better seminaries with 

 better tests for admission, more practical 

 courses, better access to books, journals and 

 library facilities generally, less overcrowding 

 and more elimination all the way from Oher- 

 Sekunda in the Gymnasium to the doctorate. 



better social opportunities, dormitories, more 

 personal contact with the professors, less re- 

 strictions on their personal liberty, reform of 

 the corps, honor system and the Mensur. 

 This unrest, although it seems ominous to 

 conservatism, can not fail to prevent waste 

 and bring reform. 



In the English universities agitation has 

 had many recent expressions, from Lord Cur- 

 zon's demand for reforms in 1909 on to TiU- 

 gard's of last year. Here the protestants 

 grant that these institutions still breed the 

 flower of national life, the English gentleman, 

 but demand better library facilities than the 

 individual colleges, with their wasteful dupli- 

 cation, afford, and especially more of what 

 the critics so strenuously insist is still lacking 

 and that parliament should enforce, namely, 

 more teaching and research. Thus the deep- 

 ening sense that something rather radical 

 must be done seems now crystallizing into 

 just what that something should be. In 

 France and in Russia unrest is greater and 

 reforms are more loudly demanded. 



In this country academic unrest has been 

 largely directed against organization and ad- 

 ministration. In the old days the college 

 president, though he usually taught, was su- 

 preme and autocratic, and as leading institu- 

 tions grew and he ceased to teach, the concen- 

 tration of power in his hands became alto- 

 gether excessive. The foundation of new in- 

 stitutions, the Hopkins, and a little later 

 Stanford and Chicago, greatly augmented his 

 power under our system. He had to deter- 

 mine the departments, select professors, fix 

 their status, build, organize, represent the in- 

 stitution to the board and public, perhaps the 

 legislature, plunge into the mad, wasteful 

 competition for students and money, lay sup- 

 ply pipes to every institution that could fit. 

 Never was the presidential function so sud- 

 denly enlarged nor its power so great and un- 

 controlled as a decade or two ago. Even the 

 University of Virginia and other southern 

 universities, which had only a president of 

 the faculty, elected by its members, fell into 

 line, and a reaction toward democratization, 

 which in its extreme form seemed sometimes 



