THE NEXT COLLEGE PRESIDENT 279 



academic freedom, teaching and pensions, are all questions of Siamese 

 twinship. Who shall separate teaching from any other part of the edu- 

 cational body without thereby taking from it the breath of life ? 



It must be evident that the present method of collegiate organiza- 

 tion has not only produced friction, for among all the colleges and uni- 

 versities located between Maine and California and between Florida 

 and "Washington the number can be counted on the fingers of one hand 

 where there is no friction of an aggravated character either between the 

 board of trustees and the president, or between the president and the 

 faculty, but that it has also resulted in serious incongruities of condi- 

 tions and of relationships. 



Some of these incongruities are connected with the office of the presi- 

 dent. They result from attempting to fit the round peg into the square 

 hole and they would be amusing did they not so vitally concern our 

 entire educational system. If a successful business man is elected the 

 president of a college, he may inaugurate a campaign of efficiency in 

 order to determine "just how much work each member of the educa- 

 tional staff is doing in the matter of instruction, what he is producing 

 in connection with his chosen line of specialization and — in short — to 

 determine his value to the institution as compared with that of his 

 colleagues." If a person without even the first college degree is called 

 to a college presidency, he may be solemnly asked in the first interview 

 granted the representatives of the press to enunciate his views in regard 

 to the graduate school. If a clergyman is transplanted from a city or 

 a country parish to the presidency of a great university, he may at once 

 begin planning for new schools of civil and mining engineering. If an 

 eminent physician is invited to become a college president he may imme- 

 diately promulgate fantastic schemes for strengthening the college by 

 the introduction of a plan to promote friendly rivalry among the 

 professors. 



It is safe to say that if positions were reversed the incongruities 

 would be apparent to all. ISTo professor of mathematics would be called 

 to the pastorate of a city church, no head of a department of modern 

 languages would ipso facto be deemed qualified for the headship of a 

 theological seminary, no professor of English could without special 

 medical training receive a license to practise medicine, no professor of 

 chemistry would be considered a qualified lawyer. 



One of the most unfortunate features of the official relationship 

 between president and faculty is that if a member of the faculty raises 

 a question in regard to a matter of college policy it is regarded as an 

 unjustifiable interference on his part. His question may seem to him 

 altogether devoid of harm — he may ask in regard to the probable site 

 of a new building, the nature of the campus hedge that is to be set out, 

 or whether the city fathers have ordered the campus drinking water 



