916 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 991 



he found that his choice of a profession was 

 unsuited to his individual talents. 



In such an organization the university 

 senate might have somewhat enlarged 

 powers and more detailed duties. The ad- 

 ministrative functions now exercised by the 

 faculties and deans of colleges would in 

 part vanish, in larger part be transferred 

 to the several departmental staffs and in 

 part devolve upon the senate either in the 

 first instance or through reference from 

 departments. The senate would continue 

 to be a court of appeal in cases of dispute 

 between faculties or departments. The 

 establishment of new degrees or degree- 

 courses would require action of the senate, 

 and sweeping changes in any curriculum 

 or the membership of any faculty should 

 have the approval of the senate. For 

 example, the university could not estab- 

 lish a new school of naval architecture 

 or of mental healing or of colonial 

 administration each leading to its spe- 

 cial degree, without the sanction of a 

 body representing the whole university. 

 Neither could the faculty of arts radically 

 change the character of the course leading 

 to the A.B. degree, either by the ingestion 

 or the extrusion of a large group of depart- 

 ments, without such action being subject to 

 review by the university senate. More need 

 not be said on this phase of the subject. It 

 seems clear that with the greater freedom 

 of action on the part of students and de- 

 partments, with special faculties laying 

 down regulations for the various degree- 

 courses, with the elimination of rivalries 

 and strife growing directly out of the or- 

 ganization by colleges, the problems of in- 

 ternal correlation and control would be 

 greatly simplified and could readily be 

 cared for in a senate organized very much 

 as ours is at present. 



Simplification in university work and 

 administration is the erving need next to 



independence and responsibility of the 

 members of the faculty. The endless red 

 tape of business administration could be 

 largely done away with by the logical com- 

 pletion of the budget system. The budget 

 having been made by the governing board, 

 each department should be perfectly free 

 to expend its own quota of funds by vote of 

 its staff Avithout supervision or approval of 

 anybody — and should be held responsible 

 for the results secured from year to year. 

 Nobody can know so well how money should 

 be expended as the staff who are to use 

 the things purchased, no one knows so well 

 where to get things or how to get them 

 promptly when needed, none feels so di- 

 rectly and keenly the effects of misuse of 

 money, none will so carefully guard its 

 resources as the department itself. The 

 dangers of duplication will be set aside by 

 the better correlation of departments al- 

 ready suggested. In establishing common 

 storerooms, purchasing agents and the like, 

 the first and chief step should be to ask of 

 the members of the staff throughout the 

 university, how can the administration help 

 you in your work through such agencies as 

 these, instead of thinking how these agen- 

 cies can remove from the departments 

 the ultimate control of their work. Time 

 and money may be wasted at a frightful 

 rate through fear to place responsibility 

 and confidence where they belong — a fear 

 which is well-founded on our present system 

 of irresponsible heads of departments. 



Simplification in the administration of 

 teaching would be favored by the dissolu- 

 tion of the colleges and the setting free of 

 the elective system under a few simple regu- 

 lations as to the combination of elementary 

 and advanced courses and of major and 

 cognate work which would be necessary for 

 an academic degree, and as to the pre- 

 scribed curriculum in a professional course. 

 What is needed is fewer regulations and 



