694 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 



possessed only by experts in university 

 affairs. 



The administration of our universities is 

 vested in a board of trustees, a corporation, 

 or overseers, president and faculty. The 

 manner in which the members of these 

 boards are selected and the relation they 

 bear to each other is not the result of a 

 carefully thought-out plan, but represents 

 a scheme in development in which oppor- 

 tunism has played the chief part. A seri- 

 ous result of a policy of administration 

 that takes no thought for the morrow is 

 seen in the persistence of a form of govern- 

 ment sufficiently elastic not to interfere 

 with the growth of the college, but pain- 

 fully restrictive when applied to the con- 

 duct of affairs in the higher institutions of 

 learning. The form of organization, with 

 but very slight modifications, that was 

 originally adopted in the early history of 

 our colleges, when these institutions were 

 about on the level with our present high 

 schools, is practically in use now and is 

 relatively as effective as would be the wood- 

 burning locomotive in pulling the modern 

 express train. The present relationship 

 between the faculty, trustees and president 

 may be regarded as a haphazard growth, 

 the result of a laissez-faire policy, afford- 

 ing an example of the same sufficient-to- 

 the-day spirit and smug satisfaction with 

 existing conditions that is so common in 

 our institutions, and is well illustrated in 

 the administration of municipal affairs 

 where the immediate exigencies of a given 

 situation are met without any provision for 

 eventualities. 



The chief duty of the trustees during 

 the early history of the American colleges 

 was to assist the president in collecting the 

 necessary revenues, while turning to him 

 for instruction in regard to the educational 

 policy of the college. He became not alone 

 their representative and spokesman, but 



also that of the faculty. The present auto- 

 cratic position of university executives was 

 created for them by the acts of the trustees 

 in shifting responsibility for the perform- 

 ance of certain duties from their own 

 shoulders to that of the president and 

 deans. 



The faculty, to an almost equal degree, 

 is to blame for the undue centralization of 

 power in the executive offices. As a rule, 

 faculties (in common with other legislative 

 bodies long deprived of constitutional 

 rights) as a body, are nihilistic and show 

 little evidence of any capacity for con- 

 structive criticism and administration. 

 During the period when the autocracy of 

 the president's and dean's office was rapid- 

 ly rising, it became a form of lese-majeste, 

 as it is now, for members of the faculty to 

 communicate their views upon university 

 questions to individual members of the 

 board of trustees. As all direct channels 

 of communication between trustees and 

 faculty are officially closed, the temptation 

 to resort to indirect methods of expression 

 and interchange of ideas is frequently 

 present. 



The ease with which the members of the 

 board of trustees transferred their power 

 as well as sense of obligation in the per- 

 formance of duties to the president plainly 

 showed they did not wish to be troubled 

 unnecessarily by the discussion of educa- 

 tional problems. The lack of sympathetic 

 interest shown by the trustees in the prob- 

 lems of most vital importance in the uni- 

 versity life has had two serious conse- 

 quences. In more than one instance a feel- 

 ing of distrust and suspicion has arisen 

 between the faculty and trustees, more 

 serious and aggravated in the case of the 

 former body, as they as individuals were 

 directly interested in the progress of events. 

 In the second place the absence of any 

 safety valve or of a channel of direct com- 



