November 24, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



721 



creasing rapidly in. size a single permanent 

 head probably makes for efficiency and con- 

 tinuity of policy, a far different set of influ- 

 ences come into play after a department be- 

 comes large enougli so that it contains or 

 should contain a number of men of first-class 

 ability and rank. Such men will not be con- 

 tent to remain subordinate to any departmental 

 head, not because they themselves desire to 

 discharge the time-consuming administrative 

 duties of the head of a department, but because 

 of the subjection involved in occupying a sub- 

 ordinate position. These inherent difficulties 

 of administration are avoided by the plan of a 

 departmental committee, whose chairman may 

 be changed when circumstances require it. 

 Sufficient independence may be secured to the 

 individual professor on this plan and in a 

 large department sufficient continuity of policy 

 as well, without the deadening inflexibility 

 which often accompanies the administration 

 of a conservative permanent head. The im- 

 plied conclusion of the paper was that our 

 larger departments ought one after another, as 

 they became full grovm, to change their organ- 

 ization and adopt the committee plan in order 

 that full advantage may be taken of the talents 

 of the younger members of the departmental 

 faculty in the way of administration, etc., and 

 thus permit older men to devote more time to 

 productive scholarship. There seems to be no 

 reason why both plans of organization should 

 not coexist in the faculties of the same insti- 

 tution. 



The second paper was by President Judson, 

 of Chicago, as to how the teaching time of 

 professors may be most advantageously dis- 

 tributed between college work, both elementary 

 and advanced, and graduate work. This paper 

 treated more at length the questions which 

 President Judson discussed in his address at 

 the inauguration of President Vincent, insist- 

 ing that each professor should be used mainly 

 for those activities for which he is best fitted, 

 but that young and untried men be early given 

 a reasonable opportunity to devote some small 

 portion of their time to advanced work by 

 which they might make good and demonstrate 

 their aptitudes of advanced work, and when 



they have so demonstrated their fitness for 

 such work it is time to give them larger scope. 



Many side questions were treated in the 

 paper, among them the practical difficulty the 

 administration has in suitably appraising the 

 relative importance of the various researches 

 for which appropriations are asked. It too 

 often happens that the personality of the ap- 

 plicant and the eagerness of his request or 

 some other adventitious circumstance enables 

 him to obtain undue aid for his work while 

 more meritorious work is unable to get finan- 

 cial assistance. A suitable buffer between 

 those who ask for aid and those who grant it 

 is very much to be desired. 



This gave opportunity to explain the unique 

 plan just adopted at Minnesota by which all 

 requests for aid are submitted for considera- 

 tion to a research committee and grants are 

 made on the basis of its recommendations. 

 These two papers and the accompanying dis- 

 cussions occupied the two sessions of Thurs- 

 day, October 26. A reception followed in the 

 evening at the residence of President Judson. 



The final paper by President Lowell, of 

 Harvard, treated the disadvantages of having 

 college and university degrees granted on the 

 basis of examinations which cover the several 

 courses singly, instead of having them depend 

 on comprehensive examinations covering broad 

 subjects and embracing a number of courses. 



It was in the early days the practise to 

 confer the degree of B.A. after a single final 

 examination on the whole course. Biennial 

 examinations were the rule at Tale and else- 

 where in the past generation; and, later, an- 

 nual examinations were held. President 

 Lowell insisted that such examinations, in 

 which the questions set are not framed by the 

 instructors themselves, are essential to high 

 scholarship, be the examinations for academic 

 degrees or professional degrees. Such is the 

 practise in the English universities where the 

 first duties of professors have to do with ex- 

 aminations rather than with teaching. Indeed 

 the University of London was created merely 

 as an examining body. It was shovm in the 

 discussion that any such change in the char- 

 acter of degree examinations in America would 



