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SCIENCE 



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



where bad kings once had unlimited power 

 to inflict injustice and to disturb the lives 

 of men, the people for protection have so 

 hedged him about as to make him almost a 

 figure-head, so it may become necessary in 

 our great universities to put such limita- 

 tions upon the governing boards that it 

 will not be possible at least for them to do 

 much harm, if indeed they are not wise 

 enough or intelligent enough to do much 

 good. 



"What, then, is a good board? A good 

 board is composed of a body of men, 

 whether large or small, who have at least 

 two qualifications: (1) plain, old-fashioned 

 honesty and horse sense; (2) technical 

 knowledge, whether acquired in or out of 

 the university, sufficient to call to their 

 service competent experts, and to sift the 

 advice of these experts and, when this is 

 done and only then, to inaugurate right 

 movements and wise policies, and to reach 

 conclusions in the solution of the delicate 

 and difficult problems that continually face 

 such a board. The besetting sin of the uni- 

 versity board is that they either do not 

 know how, or, knowing how, are too cow- 

 ardly, to call to their service the best edu- 

 cational experts. Hopeless beyond any 

 possibility of redemption, the board that 

 does not know that while they may govern, 

 they can not administer, the university. 

 That belongs to the faculty and to the 

 faculty alone. How many American col- 

 leges and universities have been injured, if 

 not indeed absolutely ruined, by meddle- 

 some interference on the part of trustees 

 with the work of the faculties, by the tak- 

 ing upon themselves tasks for which they 

 are wholly unfitted, tasks that belong to 

 the faculty. Sad indeed the state of that 

 university whose board removes able pro- 

 fessors who have rendered long service, to 

 make places for men not fitted for pro- 

 fessorial chairs or, worse still, for political 



henchmen without either the character or 

 the training that fits them to become in- 

 structors of youth. 



Many illustrations are at hand. Just 

 before leaving home I had a letter from a 

 well-trained teacher, which, as nearly as I 

 can remember, reads as follows : " I am 

 seeking a position in another school for the 

 same reason that induces forty of our pro- 

 fessors and three heads of our state institu- 

 tions to look for positions elsewhere." In 

 that state politicians on the board and off 

 the board have so long tinkered with the 

 state institutions and so long harassed the 

 professors in them, that good men can en- 

 dure it no longer except under the compul- 

 sion of stern necessity. 



Take another illustration. Only a few 

 weelcs ago an old friend wrote me as fol- 

 lows : ' ' For God 's sake help me if you can. 

 For years I have been harassed to distrac- 

 tion by this ignorant, conceited, crooked 

 board. I am not merely on the brink, I am 

 in the very middle, of hell itself." That 

 man is an educator, an M.A. and a Ph.D. 

 of a great American university. 



Take another. Not long ago the presi- 

 dent of a well-known state university said 

 to me that he had decided to resign his posi- 

 tion, giving as his reason the constant in- 

 terference of the board in matters that 

 seemed to him to belong to the faculty. He 

 pointed out many instances of this inter- 

 ference. One member of the board, a law- 

 yer and a college graduate, one day tossed 

 before him a big bundle of papers with the 

 remark: "The faculty has been giving a 

 good deal of time to courses of study. I 

 have taken up the matter myself. The 

 other day I went down to my office, took 

 off my coat and worked for four hours pre- 

 paring a curriculum for each department 

 of the university. Here it is and I expect 

 you to put it through. ' ' 



" Our colleges," says J. J. Chapman, an 



