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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE PEOGEESS OF SCIENCE 



ACADEMIC AND INDUSTRIAL 

 EFFICIENCY 



The Carnegie Foundation is cer- 

 tainly doing what it can to disturb the 

 somnambulance which is supposed to 

 characterize academic circles. It 

 promises length of service pensions to 

 professors and then decides not to pay 

 them; its trustees pass resolutions and 

 quite different action is announced in 

 the annual report; it tells universities 

 to do this, that and the other, if they 

 want its pensions. There was recently 

 published a report informing us that 

 most of the medical schools in the 

 country should be suppressed, and we 

 now have a bulletin telling us how 

 universities should introduce the in- 

 dustrial efficiency which the author 

 optimistically assumes to characterize 

 our manufacturing concerns. 



This publication, like others from 

 the same source, is really interesting. 

 It is an advantage for academic prob- 

 lems to be discussed from all sides and 

 that complete publicity should be given 

 to financial management. It is, how- 

 ever undesirable for an institution 

 having largesses to bestow to assume 

 powers either inquisitorial or dicta- 

 torial. In the present case it is fair 

 to state that the president of the 

 foundation says that ne refrains from 

 discussing the merits of the report 

 made and published under its direc- 

 tion. 



The author, Mr. M. L. Cooke, is an 

 engineer who specializes in the organ- 

 ization and management of industrial 

 establishments. He takes himself and 

 his methods so seriously that it is dif- 

 ficult to treat them with the consid- 

 eration which they may deserve. It is 

 evident from the principle of the " cost 

 per unit hour " that a university in 

 which a thousand-dollar instructor is 

 teaching a hundred students is five 



hundred times as efficient as one in 

 which a five-thousand-dollar professor 

 is proposing a problem for research to 

 a single man; but it is not clear how 

 one can deduce from this principle that 

 " there is a distinct disadvantage to 

 undergraduate students to be near re- 

 search work." But perhaps this is 

 because research work does not set an 

 example of efficiency, the universities 

 not yet having adopted Mr. Cooke's 

 plan of a " general research board " 

 and " a director of research," " to pass 

 on the expediency of undertaking any 

 given project, and to keep constant 

 track of the progress of work and of 

 its cost." 



Mr. Cooke commends one professor 

 who told him " that if at a lecture the 

 students began to get drowsy, he gave 

 them a little more air," but it is not 

 clear that the cost per unit hour would 

 have been increased if the air had been 

 let in sooner. This particular pro- 

 fessor is also highly praised for keep- 

 ing his lecture-room extraordinarily 

 neat; but it appears elsewhere in the 

 report that under these circumstances 

 he required four assistants to help in 

 the preparation of a lecture. 



We are told by Mr. Cooke that only 

 at one university " was there anything 

 to impress me with the snap and vigor 

 of the business administration." If 

 the tables in the report are correct, 

 this university pays its teachers less 

 than Harvard, but spends more than 

 twice as much in its administration, 

 namely, $258,456.12 a year, about half 

 what it pays its teachers. This uni- 

 versity, the combined cost of whose 

 administration and teaching is greater 

 than at Harvard, has about half as 

 many scientific men of distinction on 

 its faculty. Indeed, in one case at 

 least Mr. Cooke's observation is not 

 bad, for he naively says : " At those 

 schools where there were the largest 



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