Decembek 26, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



917 



better teaching; fewer snap courses, fewer 

 substitutions and special dispensations ; less 

 care for the poor student and more food for 

 the good student; less interest in sending 

 forth graduates and more measuring up of 

 students against standards of honesty, in- 

 dustry and self -judgment. 



Finally, the presidency. Shall the presi- 

 dent be elected by the faculty? Shall his 

 actions be subject to review by the senate? 

 Shall he have a veto power over the senate ? 

 Shall his duties be limited to those of a 

 gentleman, orator and representative of uni- 

 versity culture, or to those of the business 

 agent and manager ? The discussion of these 

 questions seems to the writer to be of minor 

 importance. With such a governing board 

 and such an internal organization as has 

 been briefly outlined, it can scarcely be 

 doubted that the president will be represen- 

 tative of his faculty or that he could secure 

 intelligent action from the board. Nor 

 would it be diiScult for the president to be 

 a leader in whatever ways he was fitted for 

 leadership or in whatever matters leader- 

 ship was required. It seems to me that the 

 presidency should be controlled by un- 

 written rather than by written laws. What 

 is essential is that the university have a 

 strong executive; strong in the discovery 

 and application of right principles, strong 

 in his reliance upon the consent and the 

 support of the governed and strong in the 

 execution of their ideals. The remedy for 

 our evils is not to object to a strong execu- 

 tive, but to remove the necessity for an arbi- 

 trary executive ; not to cry out for anarchy, 

 but to introduce self-government. 



Allow me to recapitulate. Our univer- 

 sities are laboring under a bureaucratic 

 form of government in which the initiative 

 rests chiefly with the heads of departments, 

 in which there is a constant struggle for 

 power among the bureau heads, in which 

 these same heads are the chief source of in- 



formation and advice to the executive, in 

 which most of the faculty have no voice in 

 framing policies, and in which — at its 

 worst — the student is concerned only to be 

 counted and the public only to be milked. 

 The extreme of degradation is reached 

 when research is wholly neglected and 

 teaching is regarded as only the excuse 

 for material aggrandizement. The bad 

 state of affairs which we see every now 

 and then in this or that department or 

 college in all our universities can not be re- 

 garded as the free choice of any average 

 group of men. I can not conceive of any 

 of these things being voted by members of 

 a staff. These conditions are the result of 

 the arbitrary power placed in the hands of 

 single men without check or publicity. 

 Such a system always breeds dishonesty 

 and crime. The remedy is to recognize the 

 primary interest of every member of the 

 staff and to establish representative govern- 

 ment in the university. On the whole and 

 in the long run the combined judgment of 

 the members of the staff of any department 

 is sure to be better than that of any indi- 

 vidual. Self-government stimulates indi- 

 vidual initiative and calls forth ideas for 

 the common good. The enjoyment of 

 freedom and responsibility will make of 

 our faculty morally strong and practically 

 efficient men, and will call into the profes- 

 sion capable men, men robust in intellect 

 and imagination, instead of the weaklings 

 who now barter their souls for shelter from 

 the perils of a competitive business world. 



It may be true in a legal sense that the 

 state through the board of regents now 

 hires the members of the university faculty. 

 But men to do university work can not be 

 hired. Those of the faculties who now do 

 university work do it not because they are 

 paid living wages, but because they love the 

 work. It has been one of the great fallacies 

 of human history to suppose that workmen 



