October 13, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



489 



to retain them. The president who has the 

 welfare of his institution at heart will spare 

 no effort to secure the permanency of ten- 

 ure of those on his teaching staff who are de- 

 sirable. If here and there he finds a colleague 

 whose work is not satisfactory and can not be 

 made so, he will meet the situation fearlessly 

 in the interests of the young people committed 

 to his care, but he will also meet it with a 

 thoughtful regard for the feelings of the col- 

 league concerned. A resignation is always less 

 painful than a dismissal. It tries the courage 

 of a manly president more to ask, in the spirit 

 of kindness, a resignation than it does in the 

 presence of his board to demand, with heart- 

 lessness, a dismissal. The unpleasant respon- 

 sibility will be courageously accepted by the 

 high-minded man and in a fraternal spirit, 

 the unsatisfactory teacher will be approached 

 by his president months before his connection 

 with the college must be severed with a cour- 

 teous request for his resignation. An instruc- 

 tor of good sense will appreciate the consid- 

 eration that prevents a humiliating dismissal, 

 and that affords him ample time, while still 

 under pay, to find another position; and his 

 resignation will be given as requested without 

 disturbance. He who lacks this fine sense of 

 appreciation will still be dealt with in fearless 

 kindness by his president and will not be re- 

 tained at the expense of institutional effi- 

 ciency. . . . 



If one feature of presidential duty may be 

 emphasized at the expense of another, it will 

 doubtless be agreed that the chief responsibil- 

 ity of a college president is for his educa- 

 tional staff. Before boards of trustees came to 

 a proper comprehension of their limitations, 

 they took official notice of the fitness or unfit- 

 ness of every member of the faculty, and not 

 only determined the retention or dismissal of 

 incumbent professors and instructors, but 

 solemnly debated the qualifications of all pro- 

 posed candidates before voting to fill a chair. 

 Their opinion of the worthiness of a professor to 

 continue was formed by the report concerning 

 him coming from immature students or some 

 other incapable informant. As to the election ' 

 of new faculty members, the board was gov- 



erned in most instances by flatteringly worded 

 and usually worthless testimonials. To-day it 

 would be difficult to find a trustee presumptu- 

 ous enough to entertain the thought of passing 

 judgment on the qualifications of teachers. 

 The president is charged with this responsi- 

 bility and the head of an institution must 

 stand or fall on his ability properly to meet 

 this responsibility. The retention of present 

 members of his faculties and the election of 

 new members in the modern university de- 

 pends entirely upon the dictum of the presi- 

 dent. Those who object to granting such 

 arbitrary power to one man will, on reflection, 

 admit that to hold an executive responsible 

 for all the work of an institution, including 

 the teaching done, would be unfair unless 

 there were guaranteed therewith the privilege 

 of choosing the colleagues for whose work he 

 must answer. In some instances, the presi- 

 dent is required by ordinance to nominate new 

 faculty members, the Board confirming or re- 

 jecting his nominations, and that is the sys- 

 tem which will obtain in this institution from 

 this time forward until it is changed by order 

 of the board of trustees. . . . 



The wide-awake president may know of the 

 competency or incompetency of his colleagues 

 by ways more accurate than personal inspec- 

 tion can guarantee. The college community 

 is much more compact than a large public 

 school system. The professors do their work 

 in class-room, lecture-room, laboratory, li- 

 brary and study in buildings on the same 

 grounds and near to each other. The presi- 

 dent, when at home, is constantly in their 

 midst and with his hand ever on the college 

 pulse, knows more, or should know more, of 

 what his associates are thinking and accom- 

 plishing than the public school superintendent 

 knows of his teachers after all his inspection. 

 The daily intercourse of the president with 

 his coworkers in faculty and committee meet- 

 ings, in private conferences, and in social re- 

 lationships, will give to the keen leader of 

 men a knowledge which will enable him to 

 make a fair judgment of individual educa- 

 tional fitness in the day of final reckoning. 



The administrative office is a veritable cess- 



