THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



3°7 



There are doubtless advantages in a 

 system of severe competition for large 

 prizes under honorable conditions, as 

 well as in permanent tenure of office 

 with small salaries and a free life; 

 but confusion and harm result from 

 running with the hare and hunting 

 with the hounds. A university which 

 dismisses professors when the presi- 

 dent thinks that they are inefficient or 

 lack common sense is parasitic on the 

 great academic traditions of the past 

 and of other nations. A single univer- 

 sity which acts in this way will in the 

 end obtain a faculty consisting of a 

 few adventurers, a few sycophants and 

 a crowd of mediocrities. If all uni 

 versifies adopt such a policy, while 

 retaining their present meager salaries 

 and systems of autocratic control, then 

 able men will not embark on such rot- 

 ten ships. They will carry forward 

 scientific work in connection with in- 

 dustry and will attract as apprentices 

 those competent to learn the ways of 

 research. 



THE GRADUATE COLLEGE OF 

 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 



Princeton University has now no 

 president and could get on admirably 

 without one. It is true that the pro 

 fessors at Princeton who disagreed with 

 the president and opposed his policies 

 were not dismissed for lack of common 

 sense and common loyalty. On the 

 contrary, they won victories in a fair 

 field where each side contended for 

 principles. It is also true that at 

 Princeton one professor has been able, 

 first with and then without the favor 

 of the administration, to carry out the 

 plans which he formed. But the ques- 

 tion arises whether Princeton could 

 not to advantage place the control of 

 its policies formally in the hands of 

 its faculties. 



If the new graduate college should, 

 like the colleges of the English uni- 

 versities on which it is confessedly 

 modelled, be placed in charge of its 

 fellows and professors, letting them be 



j responsible both for appointments and 

 1 for finances, then there could and 

 would be gathered there a group of 

 scholars such as has not been seen in 

 this country since the early days o£ 

 the Johns Hopkins University. There 

 are but few of the younger men on 

 whom the future of scholarship ana 

 research depends who would not gladly 

 go to such a college, whether as teach- 

 ers or as students. 



The graduate college of which Pro- 

 fessor West has dreamed, for which he 

 has worked and which he has now 

 made an accomplished fact is described 

 by him in the last number of The Cen- 

 tury Magazine, with special reference 

 to the ideal of the scholar's life. 

 Thanks to the bequest of Mrs. Swan, 

 to the liberal gift of Mr. Proctor fol- 

 ! lowed by gifts from other alumni, to 

 the subscriptions to a memorial of 

 G rover Cleveland, who was the first 



chairman of the committee of the 



i 



graduate college, and to the large en- 

 dowment left by Mr. Wyman, the 

 graduate college has resources amount- 

 ing to between three and four million 

 dollars. Of this sum about six hun- 

 dred thousand dollars will be spent on 



! the buildings, including the Cleveland 

 memorial tower, the Proctor dining 

 hall and the Thomson residential 

 court. The greater part of Mr. Proc- 

 tor's gift and practically the whole of 

 the Wyman bequest will be devoted to 

 the endowment of professorships, fel- 

 lowships and opportunities for research 



'. and publication. With the library, the 

 laboratories and the academic build- 

 ings of the university, with the beauty 

 of its architecture, the charm of the 

 open country, the academic and na- 

 tional traditions of the place, the in- 

 fant college is surely endowed by the 

 fairies with all ideal gifts. 



Professor West has been charged 

 with exploiting the externals of cul- 

 ture, and it may be that he exhibits a 

 touch of the pedantry that he ridicules. 

 But his article in The Century is broad 

 and sympathetic; his plans and ideals 



