fessor who is obliged to pursue his calling under it, the measures which it enforces are often harsh measures. The system which is advocated to replace it may in like brevity be termed "government by coöperation," with the explicit interpretation that the government is by the faculty and the coöperation the function of the administrative officers, including the president and the board. The management of the university's material affairs advantageously falls to the board, and what shall be included under this head is not likely to be a serious point of contention, if once it be admitted that many material provisions directly influence the work of the faculty, and that for such the faculty shall have a voice in determining how these material affairs shall be administered. Assent must be gained for the view that the faculty is quite capable of determining whether the needs of the institution make it preferable to administer certain details themselves or have them otherwise regulated. So long as measures are not imposed but are the issue of deliberation of both bodies acting coöperatively, concord and progress are assured. For the most part the material administration may well remain where it is now placed; but the right of discussion, of opinion, and of protest should be freely exercised. Even with similar measures, the spirit of the administration and the dignity and security of the academic career, would be wholly different under the two systems. To what measure the present system of administration is due to the irrelevant transfer of methods suited to a business corporation, to institutions flourishing under conditions of wholly opposed character, I cannot stop to discuss. Many critics find in this perverse application of glorified business procedure the source of academic inadequacy; others count it as but one of several influences, and not the chief. What is unmistakable is the pernicious dominance of the business spirit both in the administration and in the academic interests. I prefer to speak of the internal influences as more closely allied to my theme. There is at work among American universities a spirit of intense rivalry, a desire for each to measure its own work by standards of tangible material success. College presidents like to be remembered by the buildings which were erected through their initiative, by the departments which have been added, and the enrollment which has been increased. It is by urging these needs and presenting these successes that funds are secured. If such were really the standard by which educational ends are to be appraised, then the business methods might well be adapted to the university affairs. It is against this false standard that the warfare must be actively directed. It would undoubtedly be the most beneficial fate that could happen to many of our universities to-day if for a considerable period they built no new buildings, added no new departments, found their enrollment gradually decreasing and centered all their energies upon the internal elevation of true university ends, upon providing for the student and professor alike the intellectual environmet in which those interests thrive for which the student and professor come together, by which the academic ideal is inspired. The same spirit is felt throughout every detail of university life, from athletics up or down as our standards may be. It tempts the professor to spend his energies in securing large classes; it sets departments to devising means to outrank in numbers the devotees of other departments; it makes the student feel that he is conferring a favor upon the university by coming, and then upon the professor by choosing his classes; it leads the administration to value the professor's service by his talents in these directions, to appraise executive work, at least financially, far more highly than professional service; and, worst of all, it contaminates the academic atmosphere so that all life and inspiration go out of it, or would, if the professor's ideals did not serve as a protecting ægis to resist, often with much personal sacrifice, these untoward influences. In bringing these considerations to a close I must first defend my position against certain objections that are apparent, and then focus. the discussion upon the remedial aspect of the situation. I am confident that I do not undervalue services that have been done for American education by the very types of administration against which I protest. A strong case may be made out for the opinion that for the work that had to be done and the conditions that obtained, it was the only method available and a good one. My face is turned to the future; and the recognition of past achievment and fitness is no token of increasing service under more developed conditions. The general advantages of the presidential form of government are equally obvious. The cause and the strength-I cannot bring myself to say the justification of the conditions which with so many others I deplore, are not far to seek. Those who defend present, academic arrangements bring forward pertinent considerations, to which any one approaching the issues in a practical temper will give due weight. The advantages of centralized power will not lightly be set aside; nor is there any reason for losing the most essential of them in such reconstruction as is needed to rehabilitate the academic career. We need not repeat the common educational mistake, so neatly pictured in the German phrase of tumbling out the child with the bath. Wisdom as well as sanity is the name for a certain perspective of values. In company with those who share the attitude of my protest, I am keenly sensitive to the obligations that our educational welfare has incurred to the very offices whose policy and activity I cite as but slightly commendable. I am calling attention to the fact that these pearls of price will have been too dearly bought, if they lead to the deterioration of the academic career through loss of dignity and attractiveness to those to whom they should make the worthiest appeal. The very qualities upon which emphasis is laid brings types of men into high office and into the academic chairs who have not within them the possibilities that contribute to the inspiration of the institution of which they become an organic part. Confining the issue to the administrative aspect only, I am content to repeat the comment of one of the speakers of this conference, whose point of view is hardly likely to be regarded as prejudiced. He tells us that "young men of power and ambition scorn what should be reckoned the noblest of professions, not because that profession condemns them to poverty, but because it dooms them to a sort of servitude." And as a forecast of the future in the light of the present, this: "Unless American college teachers can be assured * * * that they are no longer to be looked upon as mere employees paid to do the bidding of men who, however courteous or however eminent, have not the faculty's professional knowledge of the complicated problems of education, our universities will suffer increasingly from a dearth of strong men, and teaching will remain outside the pale of the really learned professions. * * * The problem is not one of wages; for no university can become rich enough to buy the independence of any man who is really worth purchasing." A situation that calls forth such earnest, disinterested protest cannot but be sombre in tone. Yet I am anxious to reveal the touch of optimism that makes the world akin, and record that the brighter colors have as legitimate a place in academic portraiture as my enforced selection for this occasion of the neutral and darker grays. The compensations of the academic life are real enough; they simply form, like much else that I have omitted, another story. I should be sorry to have it inferred that a happy academician must be sought by the despairing light of a Diogenes lantern; though I have implied that in one's less hopeful moods, the lamp of learning seems a precarious illumination amid the blinding incandescence of the rival interests of our intensely modern life. The devotion to the purer, more sensitive flame is in fact endangered; and those whose responsibility and consolation it is to hand it on to others with undiminished ardor, have cause to feel that their vocation is shorn of favoring fortune, is beset by lack of power to order their lives by appropriate standards, is embarrassed by needless and remediable adversities. I must also forestall the deduction which would be quite wide of my purpose, that I am in any sense advocating the abolition of presidencies and boards, and am proposing measures far too radical to be practicable. On the contrary, I concede that the present mode of administration if it can be freed - as there is good reason to believe it can from the spirit of its practice that now seems dominant, is a very efficient and commendable method of accomplishing a purpose which from the outset has been set forth as a subsidiary means to an end. If it furthers that end, it would in my judgment hardly be worth while to change it even if that were readily possible. If the present spirit of administration is the inevitable result of the present method, then the method cannot be commended, however modified. Here the ways divide; and the judgment of expediency has a more commanding voice, which it should not raise, however, in defiance of principle. It would be possible to frame an academic decalogue, the obedience to which, though it would not ensure the realization of all the ideals would guard against the more obvious transgressions. I shall content myself with suggesting but two of the provisions. The first is the introduction of a definite system of salaries with such liberality as may be possible, that provides for promotions and increases, and establishes the academic applicant upon a definite footing. This measure is not proposed as a panacea, and can at best be but negatively effective. Yet it has great positive value under present circumstances, for the reason that only when this phase of the matter is disposed of, is it possible satisfactorily to consider other weighty issues. It is most unfortunate that this financial aspect must be placed so prominently in present discussions; for such prominence but enforces the inadequacy of the academic situation. It would however be foolish to disregard this irritating stumbling-block, which must be removed if academic freedom is to be maintained. The professor desires money. in order that money considerations may not enter disturbingly into his life; and universities should once for all determine matters of salary, in order that their energies may be more profitably expended. The second provision is that no measure shall be decided by the president or the board without giving the faculty an opportunity to decide whether it cares to express itself upon that measure or not. Such provision inevitably carries with it the right to have a share in deciding in the first place what division of questions shall be made between faculty and board. To accomplish this end, an advisory committee. of the faculty seems an efficient means. Such committee should decide in each case whether and how far questions should be considered by the faculty; and naturally the president, as a member of such committee, will bring before it first and for approval all measures that he regards as worthy of the attention of the board. An arrangement of this type is in force in Leland Stanford University. With slight change in the apportionment of the present authority, such a measure will be adequate to bring to the faculty a voice on all questions upon which, in its own judgment, its expression of opinion would be for the best interests of the university. Such committee would attend the meetings of the board and participate in its discussions, though without right of vote. The president would serve as the formal spokesman of faculty influence, and could then be what it should be his highest ambition to be, the leader, not the governor. of the faculty and a defender of the academic life. I have no desire to lay minute stress upon particular remedies, which must always take their shape from local conditions, though in still larger measure must they be framed by ideals and purposes, that are much the same wherever the academic spirit is cherished. I desire only to remove the objection that practical measures to remove difficulties cannot be readily devised. I know very well that changes of ideals and purposes must first inspire confidence and enthusiasm before they reach practical possibilities; but I am encouraged by the example of so many other educational and national evils, that once clearly recognized, have in astonishingly brief time been swept away by the strenuous purpose of the national temper. It is in such a movement that the present discussion would find the most desirable consummation. I am fully aware that no such administrative reform is to be looked for until the ambitions that universities and particularly their presidents cherish, are considerably altered. When internal culture. measures are acknowledged to be the leading issues of the academic life, it will fall more and more to the faculty to carry them out; there will be less and less need of the present type of president, less temptation to develop the office primarily for those functions which it now serves. The type of individual that will then be sought for the position will be selected by a different perspective of considerations; and the academic career will have greater promise of reaching a worthier status than it now occupies. First, as last, it is directly through ideals and indirectly through administrative provisions that further ideals, that the welfare of academic concerns is determined. DISCUSSION By PRESIDENT J. W. MAUCK, LL.D. It has never been my privilege to be associated actively as professor or as president of a large institution. I have never known the type of president that has been described here, yesterday and the day before, and to some extent, this morning. This is not a criticism upon the paper read this morning, because I am in thorough sympathy with it, so far as I understand it. It is a clear paper, but it is prepared from the standpoint of a large university, and I cannot present views upon the justice of the statements. A president such as described in one of the papers on Tuesday is one that I did not know existed. He would be the personification of that beautiful injunction of the Scriptures "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father, which is in Heaven, is perfect." I do not believe that type of man is to be found. There will be weaknesses in all men, |