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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 975 



ably do not. For reasons not hard to dis- 

 cern, many of our ablest scholars and 

 bravest spirits have come to hate the very 

 atmosphere of the university and are long- 

 ing to escape from it and to turn their steps 

 toward the big wide world of struggle and 

 strife, where men are at least free to carve 

 out their own destinies in their own way 

 and by their own efforts. In no other civil- 

 ized country have the great scholars and 

 teachers so little influence in university 

 administration. For many centuries Ox- 

 ford has in the main been governed and 

 administered by the thinkers and scholars 

 and teachers within her own walls. ' ' Else- 

 where throughout the world," says an edi- 

 torial in Popular Science Monthly, " the 

 university is a republic of scholars admin- 

 istered by them — here it is a business cor- 

 poration." In America the university is 

 governed and unfortunately sometimes 

 actually administered by men whose ' ' life 

 activities lie outside the realm they rule." 

 " The very idea of a university as the 

 home of independent scholars," says Pro- 

 fessor Creighton, of Cornell, "has been 

 obscured by the present system." " The 

 disastrous eifect of the system," says Pro- 

 fessor Jastrow, of the University of Wis- 

 consin, "is blighting the university 

 career. " " It is one of the most productive 

 of the several causes," says Professor 

 Ladd, of Yale, ' ' which are working to- 

 gether to bring about the degradation of 

 the professorial office." " If the proper 

 status of the faculties is to be restored, if 

 the proper standard of educational effi- 

 ciency is to be regained, there must be," 

 declares Professor Stevenson, "a radical 

 change in the relation of the teaching and 

 corporate boards." Says Mr. Munroe, 

 of The Massachusetts Institute: "Unless 

 American college teachers can be assured 

 that they are no longer to be looked upon 

 as mere employees paid to do the bidding 



of men who, however courteous or however 

 eminent, have not the faculty's profes- 

 sional knowledge of the complicated prob- 

 lems of education, our universities will 

 suffer increasingly from a dearth of strong 

 men, and teaching will remain outside the 

 pale of the really learned professions. The 

 problem is not one of wages; for no uni- 

 versity can become rich enough to buy the 

 independence of any man who is really 

 worth purchasing. Young men of power 

 and ambition scorn what should be reck- 

 oned the noblest profession, not because 

 that profession condemns them to poverty, 

 but because it dooms them to a sort of 

 servitude." " Whatever organizations 

 may be necessary in a modern university," 

 declared President Schurman, of Cornell, 

 ' ' the institution will not permanently suc- 

 ceed unless the faculty as a group of inde- 

 pendent personalities practically control 

 its operations." 



These protests are made not merely by 

 sore-headed, dyspeptic men whose princi- 

 pal business in life it is to growl and snarl, 

 but by sober-minded, patriotic men, some 

 of them the great scholars and thinkers of 

 the nation. My own experience as a col- 

 lege executive confirms the opinion that the 

 university career is becoming more and 

 more repulsive to men of real ability. 

 More and more also, our brightest students 

 are turning from the teaching profession to 

 enter the more independent and the more 

 lucrative professions of law, of engineering, 

 of medicine, of farming and of business. 

 More and more students of mediocre ability, 

 the wooden fellows without initiative or 

 courage, are they who, subsisting upon 

 scholarships and fellowships, turn towards 

 the university career and work for the high- 

 er degrees. To become a Ph.D. appears to be 

 the sole ambition of large numbers of them 

 who, when the degree is won, seem satisfied 

 to rest upon their laurels throughout the 



