284 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



measure been made what he is by the conditions in which he has been 

 placed and he has lacked the courage to insist on having these conditions 

 changed. But many men are conscious of the present, though not 

 inevitable, limitations of vision, and they would most gladly welcome 

 an opportunity to exchange opinions and experiences with others of the 

 guild. Faculty meetings that should be genuine discussions of the 

 large educational questions of the day would lengthen the range of 

 vision of the college professor, perhaps even that of the college presi- 

 dent ; they would deepen and broaden his educational foundations ; they 

 would make him more sympathetic with the difficulties of his colleagues 

 and more tolerant of opinions that differ from his own. " How can I 

 hate a man I know ? " asked the gentle Elia, and his own implied answer 

 would be that given by the vast majority of college professors could 

 friendly relationships be established among them. The great national 

 learned societies whose annual meetings are a source of profit and in- 

 spiration to all who attend them show that college professors, given 

 freedom of action, can conduct large meetings with decorum, and with- 

 out bickerings and petty jealousies. Can it not be assumed that these 

 same men in their own college faculties, were the opportunity offered 

 them, could and would discuss large educational questions in the same 

 tolerant, inquiring spirit? Is not the spirit of the seeker after truth 

 the same both at home and abroad, and should not his own college 

 receive the benefit of this spirit? Many men are heard year after 

 year at the sessions of these learned societies whose voices have never 

 been heard in their own colleges outside of their own class-rooms. Is 

 not the college the loser, whether the college be interpreted as meaning 

 board of trustees, president, faculty, students or alumni ? 



Members of college faculties want at least the opportunity of taking 

 a more active part in the smaller as well as in the larger affairs of the 

 college. Probably nearly every member of a college faculty belongs to 

 a club that has rooms or a building of its own, and he finds there, hung 

 in a conspicuous place, a " book of suggestions " wherein he is not only 

 invited but even urged to enter any ideas he may have for the improve- 

 ment of the club. He goes to the public library and he finds a box of 

 slips whereon he may record the title and author of any book he thinks 

 it advisable to add to the library. He works for a summer in the 

 British Museum and one of the first books he sees is a portly volume in 

 which he may register inquiries or make reports of conditions to be 

 changed, and to all inquiries he speedily finds an answer recorded in 

 the same volume, together with the thanks of the administration for 

 calling attention to matters to be remedied. He dines on a railway 

 train, and at the bottom of the menu card he finds an invitation to 

 report to the officer named any lack of attention on the part of the 

 waiters. He goes to a great railway restaurant and he finds there a 

 request to report at the desk any complaint in regard to food or service. 



