272 THE POPULAR SCIENCE. MONTHLY 
matters of the formation of the curriculum, standardization, election 
and dismissal of instructors and the like, belong naturally to the fac- 
ulty, with board and student representatives, under normal conditions 
exercising advisory influence. It is as hazardous for boards of educa- 
tion to assume responsibility for the complicated institutional life of a 
university and exercise the fine shades of judgment needed for its suc- 
cess, as it would be for the ordinary university professor without the 
requisite years of preparation to run a bank or department store. The 
president should be chairman of the faculty. His proper function is 
primarily an executive one, and in no sense legislative or judicial. But 
the prerogatives of students—what are they? 1 recently asked a pro- 
fessor in a state university what power, in his judgment, students ought 
to have in an educational institution. He replied, “Power? Why, 
the power to work and work like thunder.” When I argued that they 
were already in possession of such freedom, he retorted emphatically, 
“ But they do not seem to know it!” No one has to urge a graduate 
student, interested in his problem and inspired by personal contact, 
to work. Usually, on the contrary, he must be restrained from too 
continuous application on account of his bodily health. His attitude 
toward instructors, tasks and institution is different. Student bodies 
have rarely come into possession of their own. Why should they not 
have full responsibility for student enterprises and social activities? 
How much power of the faculty, which is legally the responsible agent 
in such matters, should be in evidence, is an open question. Professor 
Payne, of the University of Virginia, where for more than a century 
students have successfully regulated questions of student honor, honesty 
and propriety, assures me that the plan is working well, just because the 
faculty keep their hands off entirely. Under such circumstances stu- 
dents are glad to regulate their own affairs, and they do it well. I know 
of no instance in which students have participated in the activities of 
an institution, wherein they have broken faith or usurped power. Still 
they are treated as underlings, while instructors keep school, hold exam- 
inations and administer grades. Under present conditions they are 
filled with ideals of military discipline rather than infused with social 
impulses. Why may not our universities be transformed into states in 
miniature or social communities, in which students are “ the people,” 
each of whom is tempted by the entire situation, to care, to lend a hand, 
to feel the thought currents of the time, to know men as well as books, 
to be efficient units in society? In this direction we must tend if our 
new ideals of social righteousness are to be woven into the texture of 
our common. life. 
The problem would be easy were we not tempted by the luscious 
sense of power and blinded by a highly developed institutionalism. The 
university exists for the students, and not the students for the university. 
