THE NEXT COLLEGE PRESIDENT 269 



Even the college student himself has often had personal experience 

 in matters of government. The average age of the college man at 

 graduation is about twenty-three and he has been a possible voter for 

 two years. If he has sufficient maturity to have a voice in the decisions 

 of affairs of state, is it not reasonable to suppose, he asks, that he can 

 be given some small share in the decision of educational matters that 

 immediately affect him? 



That the college undergraduate has had as yet so small a share in 

 the conduct and policy of the institution with which he is temporarily 

 connected by no means augurs that his share will continue permanently 

 negligible. 



The alumni of a college have but recently been given a representa- 

 tion on boards of trustees. This representation has not always been 

 warmly welcomed by the boards as previously organized, and it has been 

 granted only through the persistent efforts of alumni organizations. 

 These efforts have been made because of a growing feeling that some 

 official medium of communication is necessary between a board of 

 trustees and the undergraduate body. The college has, moreover, been 

 enlarging its activities along lines not strictly academic, and with the 

 increasing interest in college athletics, college dramatics and college 

 musical clubs, appeals have been made to the alumni to assist in financ- 

 ing these enterprises. These appeals have usually been made through 

 class organizations, alumni associations, and the graduate and under- 

 graduate college press, and the very appeals themselves have stimulated 

 interest in general college affairs. One result has therefore apparently 

 been to increase the general contributions of the alumni to their alma 

 mater and this fact has furnished another and perhaps more valid reason 

 for the election of a limited number of trustees by and from the alumni 

 themselves. 



Just how effective this representation is in influencing the policy of 

 boards of control is at least a question. The alumni trustees are always 

 in a minority, the}'' hold office for a limited term while their colleagues 

 on the board usually are elected for life, their point of view may not 

 always be that of the other members of the board, yet they are often 

 cautious, if not in reality timid, in expressing views divergent from those 

 of the majority, they represent a body having no legal but only a senti- 

 mental relationship to the institution, and they are as a rule only con- 

 tributors of ideas not signers of checks. But if the direct results of 

 alumni representation seem somewhat negligible, the indirect results of 

 such representation have been most wholesome. It has stimulated the 

 loyalty and the enthusiasm of college graduates in behalf of their own 

 college, it has led to acquaintance among the alumni representatives of 

 different colleges and thus to the exchange of facts, opinions and experi- 

 ences to the profit of all concerned, it has resulted in a more intelligent 



