UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES GIFT OF Dr. ERNEST C. MOORE THE ORGANIZATION AND ADMINIS- TRATION OF A STATE'S INSTITU- TIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION BY ARTHUR LEFEVRE SOMETIME SECRETARY FOR RESEARCH OF ORGANIZATION FOR THE ENLARGEMENT BY THE STATE OF TEXAS OF ITS INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION AUSTIN, TEXAS VONiBoECKMANN-JONES Co., PRINTERS 1914 3024 6 THE ORGANIZATION AND ADMINIS- TRATION OF A STATE'S INSTITU- TIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION BY ARTHUR LEFEVRE SOMETIME SECRETARY FOR RESEARC OF ORGANIZATION FOR THE ENLARGEMENT BY THE STATE OF TEXAS OF ITS INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION AUSTIN, TEXAS VON BOECKMANN-JONES Co., PRINTERS 1914 All bulletins published by the Organization for the Enlargement by the State of Texas of its Institutions of Higher Education are intended to stimulate critical thought. In order that correct conclusions may be reached the Board of Control would welcome care- fully considered communications discussing the prob- lems treated in such publications, or any other ques- tions concerning the State's work of education. Copyright 1914 by Arthur Lefevre Education Library L6 L CONTENTS PART I X5 FEATURES OF ORGANIZATION FOR WHICH THE STATE LEGISLATURE is RESPONSIBLE (With Special Reference to the State of Texas) ^ I. Prerequisite Conceptions 1 ^3 II. Diverse Institutions. Two Remedies for the Evils of Rivalry Under Precarious Support The Question of 0& "Duplication" 5 CO III. Inexpediency of a Central Board of Control. Historical Summary The Standard System The _, Only Needed Adjustment of the Texas System 11 IV. State Normal Schools. Correlation with Colleges Schools for Defectives ... 24 V. Voluntary Co-operation. Timely Suggestions: The Necessary Tax; Appor- tionment of the Proposed Tax ; Co-operation by Fed- eral Government; with Colleges; with Theological Seminaries; by Individual Citizens 33 PART II INTERNAL ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION I. Preliminary. & Internal Effects of Precarious Support A Needed Service Method of Presentation 70 e? II. The Governing Board. Reasons for the Essential Features of the American System Proper Nature of the Board's Control Re- lation to the President Two Theories of University Management The Two Essential Responsibilities The Status of the Faculty Faculty Participation in University Government The Cornell Plan Prac- ticable Solutions The Final Responsibility 85 242090 IV CONTENTS III. Business Management. Bookkeeping The Budget Business Manager Grounds and Buildings Financial Beports and Audits Mistaken Analogies Suggestions Eegis- trar's Office Advertising 138 IV. The Executive Officer. Full Conception of the Presidential Office Essential Functions The Problem of Elimination The Atti- tude of Colleagueship with Faculty Secondary Ad- ministrators 196 V. The Faculty. The Deanship Faculty Secretaries Libraries and Museums Department Organization Eank-Ten- ure-Salaries Recruiting a Faculty Freedom of Teaching Ideals 234 VI. Administration of the Curriculum. Existing College Curricula The Elective System- Mistaken Devices Credit for Quality Grading Admission Eequirements Proper Eelation of the American University to the American High School. Note on Elementary Schools. Note on Industrial Training 312 VII. Student Life and Work. Undergraduates Graduate Division Extension Di- vision Athletics Dormitories and Fraternities Student Self-Government The Honor System 'Co- Education Concluding Eemarks 407 APPENDIX Note on the subject of Part 1 515 INDEX , . 517 THE ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF A STATE'S INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION PART I FEATURES OF ORGANIZATION FOR WHICH THE STATE LEGISLATURE IS RESPONSIBLE WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE STATE OF TEXAS I. PREREQUISITE CONCEPTIONS It is needful, to-day in America, to pause at the outset of any serious discussion either of organization or administration, by a man who does not share the prevalent notion that organization and administration mean the same thing, to explain the very ideas to be invoked by the words. It is the confusion of those ideas, and not "education" that is really "the great American super- stition." The misconception is manifested in almost every social or political movement. The desire to "do things" is seldom di- rected by knowledge of the importance of accomplishing them through proper agencies. Or, only some nearest relation or par- ticular consequence of a measure is regarded, and its distant con- nections or permanent tendencies are ignored. Associated with the main misconception, in educational affairs, has been the notion that "executive ability" is a thing apart from and independent of masterful knowledge of the business in. hand. Also, because financiering combinations have been successfully administered without being truly organized, it has been supposed that univer- sities (and school systems) could be prospered in like manner. In this error it has been forgotten that a dividend was the simple object and criterion of success in the financiering combination; whereas a university should be a true organism, not a mere combi- nation, and its parts can healthfully subsist only in an atmosphere of confidence and fellowship and through spontaneous mutual service. 2 PREREQUISITE CONCEPTIONS In an organism it is not sufficient that there should be a sepa- rate agency for discharging every essential function, nor is the right idea completed by adding the conception of the proper autonomy of each organ. Genuine organization requires, besides both of those characteristics, that every organ should sympathize and co-operate with every other organ. The administrative organ of the entire organism can not fully or rightly discharge its func- tion unless that condition exists. If disorganization has occurred at any other point, the admin- istrative function strives to restore the local responsibility and the general harmony; and in the wise order of nature administration is not conceived as established for the deranged part until both its local responsibility and the general harmony have been restored that is to say, until it has been organized again. On the other hand, if a university or college president acts as an autocrat usurping or inhibiting functions not his own, or if all within the sphere of his administration can not depend upon his competency and courage and on his absolute fidelity in transmitting the com- munications from part to part made through him and on the com- plete truthfulness of his statements to any part concerning an- other part, then such a university, however busily administered, is disorganized at its most vital point; and its condition is, in the strict sense of the word, insane, and comparable to the condition of a body administered by a brain whose reports, messages, and commands are faithless, conflicting, founded in vain conceits. Disorganization of a different sort, but equally injurious, ensues, if a governing board transgresses its proper legislative function. Supreme power of every kind, subject only to the law of the land, is vested in the governing board ; but nothing short of an incurable state of insurrection could justify the assumption of administrative functions normally committed to the executive officer of the board or belonging to the faculty. The condition is comparable to the suspension of a country's regular laws and the proclamation of PREREQUISITE CONCEPTIONS 3 martial law. Any overstepping of the bounds of its proper func- tion should be recognized as a last recourse by the governing board of an educational institution. Such a remedy is applicable only to a desperate disorder, because the remedy would be worse than the disease in any case less than desperate. Worst of all may be the disorganization superinduced by im- proper exercise of power by a state legislature. Such disorganiza- tion is absolute and permanent, and without remedy until the institution involved is, as it were, refounded by another legisla- ture. There is, indeed, truth in the Greek maxim, "No law is a good law unless it is has good executors"; but Commissioner Draper, of the State of ISTew York, speaks out of an abundance of experience and observation when he says: "Troubles in adminis- tration [of educational institutions] seldom come from the pres- ence of vicious characters; they arise from a confusion of powers and prerogatives, and from a disposition which men seem to have to direct matters the most about which they know the least. When powers are based upon principles the troubles will largely disap- pear." The fundamental principle for the case in question, is that the legislature ought never to infringe upon the sphere of admin- istration. It is the part of the legislature to create a governing bodv for the institution, in the way that is shown to be best calcu- lated to secure the most competent and faithful executors of the State's general purpose. Such an organ having been created, to it should be committed the government and control of the insti- tution. It is the function of the board of regents to govern the institution, and to supervise the administraion of all its enter- prises in accordance with a soundly organized procedure. The legislature, of course, retains a regulative power which, normally, ought to be exercised only in its decisions concerning appropria- tions of money in addition to the proceeds of an established tax, for new developments recommended by the governing board. PREREQUISITE CONCEPTIONS In a previous study, published March 28, 1912, the present writer offered the first results of his endeavors to fulfill the duties and opportunities of "Secretary for Research" for the Organiza- tion he had the honor of serving. That investigation, entitled "A Study of the Financial Basis of the State Universities and Agri- cultural Colleges in Fourteen States," contributed, as its main object, a reliable practical calculation of the amount of money that must be supplied annually by the State of Texas for the sup- port of its three institutions of higher education, if the people of this State desire to secure for themselves the average serviceable- ness of the corresponding institutions "in all the States that have seriously undertaken to secure efficient services from such institu- tions." Of course, efficiency depends more upon the wisdom of persons than upon the financial basis, but it was not possible in a statis- tical discussion to take the wisdom factor into account. The present study enters the domain of judgments based upon prin- ciples and practical experience, as distinguished from calculations based upon statistics, yet even here it is possible only to consider arrangements conducive to good results. In the ultimate execu- tion of any design it is the individual that counts. We are prone to put too much faith in systems, and look too little to men. Still, a bad system of organization demoralizes the co-operative spirit of the group and leads to the selection of weak or bad in- dividuals. II. BIVEKSE INSTITUTIONS The scope of the study presented in Part I of this book must be limited by an immediate reference to the existing state institutions of higher education in the State of Texas. It would go beyond its subject to include modifications of organization applicable only to the private corporations of endowed or denominational institu- tions. The individual permanence and autonomy of the three institu- tions already established by the State of Texas University of Texas, Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, State College for Women might, without rashness, be assumed; but it will be advantageous to consider the question thoroughly. Two Remedies for Evils of Rivalry Under Precarious Support All the arguments advanced in favor of combining two or more state institutions of higher education in one university, or in favor of one central board of control for separate institutions, reduce to two: (1) duplication of work, and (2) injurious rivalry before legislatures in ever-recurring scrambles for appropriations. The second argument refers to a serious evil in many States; and, if there were no remedy but consolidation, decisive weight would attach to this argument in spite of valid objections to re- stricting all educational work beyond secondary schools to one institution. But there is another remedy for the evil. A state tax for the institutions of higher education adequate to their regular support and definitely apportioned between them by the law levying the tax, would remove the ground of injurious rivalry. It is remarkable that this effective remedy for the evils of rivalry under precarious support seems not to suggest itself to advocates of concentration or of central boards. This subject is developed in Chapter V, treating of voluntary co-operation, where the tax 6 THE QUESTION OF DUPLICATION necessary for the maintenance and improvement of the Texas institutions and the proper method of apportioning it are discussed. The Question of "Duplication" There remains the argument founded on duplication of work. Perusal of many published discussions of the question has not dis- covered a single attempt to estimate the extra cost* of duplica- tion. Even as strong a man as President Van Hise contents himself with assuming that duplication causes such waste that separate institutions must be consolidated, or that the objectionable central boards "are inevitable." In my judgment the case is by no means so bad or so hopeless. Speaking of a separate univer- sity and agricultural college,, it is exclaimed, "Each of these in- stitutions must have a department of physics and a department of chemistry/" also that there must be "in each studies in English and economics, French and German." Such exclamations are not arguments. In cases where each institution has overcrowded labor- atories and insufficient teaching force, how would the cost be mate- rially reduced by removing to one of them the students at the *The report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education for 1912, issued six months after the publication of Part I of this study (here reprinted together with Part II), includes a report on this question by Dr. K. C.- Babcock, Chief of the Division of Higher Education. Xo estimate of the cost of duplication is made, but he states : "The waste due to duplication of faculty, equipment, and buildings is frequently overestimated. While it may be temporarily noticeable in weak, new commonwealths, which have distributed their institutions, the permanence of this defect in a given State system will depend largely upon the rapidity of the growth of popu- lation and the upward reach of the work undertaken. The work done at the present time by the three higher institutions supported by the State of Michigan, and the two supported by the State of Indiana, would not greatly gain in efficiency if it were all combined in each State in one place and under one management, while the economies would be confined to a few administrative salaries saved in the process of centralization." Never- theless, Dr. Babcock refers with apparent approval to an opinion favoring "combining in one institution the colleges of liberal arts and sciences and all the professional schools, including colleges of engineering and agricul- ture, for a given State." A list is given of institutions that have been THE QUESTION OF DUPLICATION 7 other? Certain administrative and overhead expenses are indeed duplicated; but they are not sufficient in amount to compel a reck- less ignoring of strong affirmative reasons, where such exist, for the continuance of deeply-rooted historical developments. Enor- mous size does not make an institution great, neither does it insure economy, or efficiency, or desirable progress. President Van Hise opened his address to the National Associa- tion of State Universities, at Minneapolis in October, 1911, by saying: "So far as I know, there is a general consensus of opin- ion among educators that it is advantageous to make a single uni- versity for a given State. The separation of a part of higher education into a university, another part into an agricultural and mechanical college, another into a school of mines necessarily re- sults in duplication." Everything implied in this statement, ex- cept the fact of "duplication," may be questioned, as was pointedly developed in the discussion that followed. One of the speakers (the president of a State university whose experience includes eight years' service as the president of an agricultural college) consolidated, but no item in it has the least bearing on the question before us. The item of the (sadly brief) catalog characterized as "the latest and most noteworthy merger," is the union of Scio College and Mount Union College, Ohio. The former had 64 college students and total income of $6550, the latter 127 students and income of about $23,000. The incident is recent, but why so "noteworthy"? The two little institu- tions were under the direction of the same church and less than fifty miles apart. There are in Ohio over forty private and denominational colleges, whereof the majority ought to be consolidated or abolished. Great good would result. But siich affairs have nothing to do with a State's policy concerning two firmly established institutions of standard rank. It ought not to be necessary to abolish either of such institutions to prevent useless duplication of expensive specialized work, or technologi- cal branches requiring costly equipment. Really wasteful duplication by two state institutions is immoral; but if real, it is provable. If proved, show the proof to the presidents and governing boards. They would prob- ably adjust the matter. If not they should be criticized until it is cor- rected. The important point would be to prove any waste or other injury in a given duplication. That would be a better way and certainly an easier way, than to attempt to abolish a large, flourishing college. 8 THB QUESTION OF DUPLICATION differed diametrically, holding: "It would be to the disadvantage of the agricultural interests of the country if all agricultural col- leges were made parts of the State universities." Eef erring to a particular institution, he was of the opinion that it did "more for the particular purpose for which it was instituted by very reason of its separate existence." But it might be granted that, abstractly, or as an original design, one comprehensive university should be preferred to more than one institution, yet it would not follow tnat several established institutions ought always to be re- duced to one. Texas may well determine that no "School of Mines," or any new department, shall henceforth be established as a separate in- stitution; but it may also rest contented with the historical de- velopments which have created its State University, Agricultural and Mechanical College, and State College for Women. The ques- tion of duplication would become serious for such institutions only at the stage of graduate departments, and in the case of certain technical branches that require very costly equipment. ]STo school of mines, for instance, ought to be duplicated in them. Graduate departments in the full sense have not yet come into existence in Texas. The necessary means for graduate work, such as would justify advanced students in seeking in this State the specialist's degree (the doctorate), have never yet been provided. When such developments are made possible for the University of Texas, there should be little danger of wasteful duplication in the other state institutions. If the scramble before each Legislature to continue a precarious existence is replaced by a sufficient tax apportioned in a fixed ratio, rational hopes may be cherished that the separate institutions will be administered so that the cost will not be se- riously increased by duplication, and that mutual stimulation will conduce to a steadily improving service. In the second part of ,this study (treating of internal organization and administration) will be indicated far more wasteful application of teaching force THE QUESTION OF DUPLICATION 9 than could be involved in duplicated undergraduate work of two institutions. There, also, will be considered the internal effects of rivalry under precarious support. Finally, while duplication beyond undergraduate work is gen- erally to be avoided by state institutions, in regard to others it should be understood that even total duplication is often consistent with true economy and with thoroughly wholesome conditions. The establishment of Leland Stanford undoubtedly helped the University of California immeasurably, and the University of Chi- cago still more definitely and effectively assisted the University of Illinois. The president of the University of Illinois himself testified last July in an address before the National Education Association, that the "foundation of the University of Chicago, by the bold and striking way in which it raised high aloft the standard of science, gave an impetus to the university idea which made the work of [all the surrounding universities] more ade- quate and more easy." It is a matter of high congratulation for the people of Texas that the Rice Institute of Literature, Science, and Art is going to "duplicate" many of the undertakings of our State institutions. The Johns Hopkins University with half the endowment of the Bice Institute caused a great uplift in every im- portant institution of learning in the United States. Although no such unique opportunity is open to the Rice lastitute, its untram- meled self-government, and the comprehensive views and lofty ideals and practical purposes already indicated by its manage- ment, constitute very valid grounds of hope that the parallel ac- tivities of this new institution will in due time prove to be most beneficial to all other enterprises for higher education in Texas. There is a matter that ought never to be confused with the question we have briefly discussed, which I shall not take up in this study at all. It is so special, and in some States so impor- tant, that it should be treated in a study devoted to it alone. I 10 THE QUESTION OF DUPLICATION refer to cases in which some "school''' of a university, such as its school of medicine, and the main body of the university are situ- ated in different localities. It may be remarked in passing, how- ever, that the idea and practice recently wrought out by the Uni- versity of Michigan offer to any one desirous of studying the or- ganization and conduct of university schools of medicine the most significant lessons to be found in this country. The existing facts about medical education and a discussion of the organiza- tion and administration of medical schools have been presented by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in two great bulletins. These reports by Abraham Flexner, Med- ical Education in the United States and Canada, 1910, and Med- ical Education in Europe, 1912, ought to be epoch making. III. INEXPEDIENCY OF A CENTRAL BOAED OF CONTROL Logically, the notion of a central board of control has been dis- posed of by showing that duplication of undergraduate studies in separate institutions is not injurious and may be advantageous, and by pointing to a better and surer remedy for the evil of in- cessant rivalries before legislatures. Nevertheless, it will be ad- vantageous to discuss directly the subject of a central board, if only because logic is generally ignored by persons who are ever ready to approve any legislation proposed as a cure for an evident disorder. Eespectable advocates of a central board of control all see great evil and greater risk in such a board, but they deem it a lesser evil than "duplication" and "rivalry before legislatures." Such is the attitude of President Van Hise, whose paper upon the sub- ject, already referred to, comprises everything that- could be found in less vigorous discussions favoring a central board of control. He considers the dangerous central board inevitable unless university and agricultural college are united in one university, or overlap- ping is kept at a minimum. Like everyone else, he has only two arguments. Those arguments, having been dealt with, the gloomy prophecies based upon them fall with their foundations. If the "rivalry" argument be removed by a sufficient and definitely appor- tioned state tax, it is difficult to conceive how a vague objection to "duplication" could be deemed more weighty than the downright objections to a central board which he himself indicates, to say nothing of others that exist. The following objections are acknowledged by President Van Hise: "If there be a central board which is to govern several institutions at different localities, it will be impossible to get the best men of a State 12 OBJECTIONS TO CENTRAL BOARDS to give sufficient time to master the details in reference to them. (They would be unwilling to take a position involving responsibility for several institutions at different localities.) Further, if compensation be offered, the fact that the service is not free will make men of the highest type reluctant to take positions on such boards. To illustrate: at the Uni- versity of Wisconsin, for many years, we had the services of Colonel William F. Vilas. No cash estimate of the value of this service can be made. The larger part of his estate will also finally go to the uni- versity. Nothing could have induced Colonel Vilas to accept the place of regent with compensation. If compensation of a board be small, it will be composed of inferior men; if it be large, places on the board will be sought by untit men, and it will be extremely difficult to fill the positions without political interference." "A difficulty with central boards, which has appeared as a result of experience, is that some of the men are interested in one institution and others in another; and this has led to trading back and forth in grants to the different institutions." "It is possible in such a board to have the special friends and cham- pions of each of the institutions, and then you have the same collisions and collusion of interest that you have in a city council or other bodies of similar character." "Another difficulty with central boards created at one time is that a break is thus made in the continuity of the government of an institution. The recognized aims and practices which have grown up through many years are likely to be ignored by a new board having no knowledge of or experience with the several institutions which they are to govern." "It is not wise to separate educational and financial control. . . . Iowa has attempted to meet difficulties by creating a non-paid central board, and outside of this board a finance committee of three, which in large measure administers the institutions under the general principles laid down by the board. Under this plan a finance committee may be advantageous where a central board is inevitable, but undoubtedly there are grave dangers in such a committee; for whenever there is a financial board giving full time to the administration of educational affairs there is a constant tendency for them to take the initiative in reference to policies, and to supervise and circumscribe the faculty in their educa- HISTORICAL SUMMARY 13 tional work in a manner which is wholly unwarranted, and is contrary to the best interests of higher education." "An additional difficulty, as shown by experience, is that there is a tendency in a central board to place the normal school in the same posi- tion of dignity as the university." [This refers to the practice in sev- eral States of putting totally disparate institutions under one board. The limit of that mistake is reached when university, agricultural col- lege, normal schools, schools for blind, deaf, and feeble-minded, and reform schools are put under one board.] Historical Summary The States that have had any experience with central boards of control are Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Missisippi, Montana, Okla- homa, Oregon, South Dakota, West Virginia. Their practices, in my judgment, represent the worst possible devices. The opinions o.f men dependent upon the central boards are conflicting, but the short histories reveal only warning examples. The vagaries of rash legislation in the respective States are summarized as follows : Florida. Bad conditions called for some remedy, and doubtless some of the institutions ought to have been abolished. All existing institutions were abolished, and a state university including normal school for men, a State College for Women, an A. and M. College for Negroes, a Normal Colored School, and an Institution for Blind, Deaf, and Dumb were established. The permanent arrangement for the government of these institutions is perhaps the worst that could be devised. One board of control was put over them all, of five members, none to be appointed from any county in which any of the institutions is located; but this board was made "at all times under and subject to the control and supervision of the State Board of Education." The latter consists of Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, State Treasurer, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Although a sovereign State has committed this act, the mere statement of its provisions sufficiently exposes its errors. Satisfaction with the enlargement of the university resulting from the abolishment of several weak and low-grade colleges may blind some eyes to impending evils; but the strife, and the dead- lock over the election of the president of the university, already experi- 14 HISTORICAL SUMMARY enced> are but foretastes of worse evils yet to come. For details the reader ds referred to President Pritchett's fourth annual report to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Georgia. All institutions (white and negro) including normal schools are branches of the university, and under a board consisting of the trus- tees of the University of Georgia, the presidents of each institution con- cerned ( except the university ) , the Governor, and George Foster Pea- body. There is no need of the Chancellor's testimony that "the method of government involves many difficulties." Iowa-. In 1909 a law was enacted which put the University of Iowa, A. and M. College, and State Teachers' College under a board composed of nine members, to be appointed by the governor. It is provided that not more than one alumnus of any institution concerned shall be on the board. The board appoints a finance committee of three, not members of the board, nor more than two from one political party, at a salary of $3500 a year and expenses. President Van Hise's just criticism of the last mentioned feature has been quoted. It may be noted (without prej- udice) that, during the first year of the board's authority, the president of the university, the president of the agricultural college, and the dean of the law school resigned. Mississippi. In 1910 four institutions were put under one board of eight appointed by the Governor. Montana.. In 1909 all educational institutions, including orphans' home, school for deaf and blind, and a reform school, were put under a board of education of eleven members, eight appointed, three ex-officio. A subordinate local board of three members is provided at each institu- tion, one of whom is the president of the institution. The local board can not expend for a single purpose an amount exceeding $250. But there is a further complication: the ex-officio members of the board of control (Governor, Attorney General, Superintendent of Public Instruc- tion) constitute a separate and supreme board in all financial matters. President Van Hise judges that this Montana way shows "a larger num- ber of objectionable features than any other system." Recalling my own assignment of Florida to that bad eminence, I stand corrected. They are on a parity except that Montana adds the petty local boards, and also adds a penal school and orphans' home to the school for blind and deaf and the other institutions. Oklahoma. In 1911 the Legislature created a State Board of Education consisting of the Superintendent of Public Instruction and six other HISTORICAL SUMMARY 15 members serving without salary appointed by the Governor. The ex- officio member has his salary of $2500. Absurd as it may seem, this board is required to exercise exclusive supervision and control over the whole common school system (including duties of a State Text-Book Board, and a board of examiners for issuing teachers' certificates), and over eighteen different institutions, viz., state university, two prepara- tory schools, school of mines, college for girls, six normal schools, agri- cultural and normal university for negroes, school for blind, school for deaf, school fer feeble-minded, school for orpha-ns, reform school, and an orphanage and school for defectives for negroes. The agricultural col- leges were not put under this board because the Constitution placed them under the State Board of Agriculture. The short but stormy history of this application of the central-board-of-control idea may be read in Presi- dent Pritchett's sixth annual report. The heads of six of the institu- tions, including the university, and more than half of the members of their faculties were summarily removed. Some removals were made against the advice of both the removed and the new presidents. The new appointees were chosen by the Board, without nomination by responsible administrative officers, from "applications" made directly to the board. It would be irrelevant to consider the merits or demerits of individuals involved. If it were granted that all persons dismissed were either in- jurious or inefficient, it is certainly incredible that the majority of the new appointments, derived as stated, could have been made wisely. Good intentions on the part of members of the board does not ameliorate the situation. The method of procedure was fatally wrong. The condition of the patient may have been very bad, but the intended remedy must prove worse than the disease. President Pritchett says of the situation: "No real university can exist under such conditions." President Van Hise says, that, for the present, "it would be extraordinary if any man of ability who has a fa/ir place in another State should accept a position in any of the educational institutions in the State of Oklahoma." Oregon. A board of four, appointed by the Governor, known as the Board of Higher Curricula, passes on all the courses offered at the uni- versity and at the agricultural college. It is in the power of this board to determine absolutely what work shall be given at each institution. South Dakota. An appointed board of five mebers, salaries of $1000 a year, govern the University, A. and M. College, School of Mines, and three normal schools. A number of difficulties have been experienced. West Virginia. A board of regents, consisting of four appointed mem- 16 HISTORICAL SUMMARY IXTS with salaries of $1000 and the State Superintendent, was created in 1909 to govern the university, agricultural college, two preparatory schools, six normal schools, and two institutes for negroes. But the same act of the legislature created a board of control of three, appointed, salaries $5000, to have full control of charitable and penal institutions, and also "control of the financial and business affairs" of the educational institutions. This control goes to the extent of approving salaries of the teaching force, or naming a total amount to be paid for instruction. The board of regents is required to meet with the board of control when the latter so desires. Every feature of this law violates fundamental principles. Kansas. The Legislature of Kansas recently passed an act abolishing the boards of regents of the university, agricultural college, and normal schools, and creating one board of control of three members. The Gov- ernor vetoed the act. Chancellor Strong of the University of Kansas, writing in October, 1911, says: "Agitation over duplication led to the introduction into the last legislature of several bills. Some contained grotesque features. The bill [that was passed] provided for a board of control of three persons, to receive $2500 per year each, the board to elect, outside of its own number, an educational expert to act as its sec- Tetary, at the same salary. Each member was to give his entire time to the work of the board. . . . There were then serving upon the dif- ferent boards of regents some of the ablest men in the State, whose serv- ices could hardly have been secured at any price if one had attempted to hire them. The positions contemplated by the new bill were offered to several of these men and refused. The Governor was told that, while they would gladly serve the State for nothing on an honorary board, they could not under any circumstances accept a position like the one indi- cated. . . . The Governor took counsel by telegraph with many uni- versity administrators, who, almost without exception, advised against the bill. The grounds of objection were, in the main, first, that the provision for an educational expert as secretary would almost certainly interfere with the internal administration of the institutions, and pro- duce friction and inefficiency; secondly, that a salaried board, especially at the salaries indicated, would bring mediocre men . . . ; thirdly, that the method proposed would almost certainly invade the real person- ality of each institution, take away its fundamental and individual char- acteristics, and so deprive it of its real independence. ... As it was expressed by one college administrator, the University of Kansas HISTORICAL SUMMARY 17 needs to keep its own soul as much as Harvard does. . . . The bill was vetoed." Vice-President Carruth summarized the history for the National Association of State Universities as follows: "We were threat- ened last winter with what is known as the Keene bill. A board of control of three members at salaries of $2500, with an 'educational ex- pert' as secretary at the same salary, was to manage our state insti- tutions of higher education to be placed over the heads of these insti- tions, each of whom commands a salary of $6000. You can anticipate what the results would have been. But I want to say that the State of Kansas owes a debt to the members of this Association. Governor Stubbs sought advice from many of you; and the Governor deserves to be highly commended for seeking competent counsel and then following it. Your advice, together with the earnest protest of the chancellor of our State University, resulted in the vetoing of the bill and the saving of our State and university, for the present at least, from the threatened calamity."* The Governor, before vetoing the bill, asked the board of regents of each institution whether, if he vetoed the Keene bill, they would volun- tarily organize the three boards into a commission, to consult on the general welfare and make recommendations to each separate board as might seem wise, authority still to lie in the separate boards. There is, therefore, in Kansas an extra-legal commission, of which the Governor is chairman, made up of all the members of three boards of regents. Its counsels have resulted in a uniform system of accounting and business management. Committees are working on various internal problems. President Van Hise says : "The most serious danger of a commission such as that of Kansas, composed of an equal number of representatives from each board, is that several weaker institutions may unite against a stronger one and so prevent its growth. . . . Each having equal representation upon the commission, the representatives of the institu- tions other than the university may unite and unduly limit the scope of the university; not only so, but they may recommend more than propor- tional support for the weaker institutions, and aim to make them the equals of the university." This is certainly wise foresight, and many other evil contingencies are equally foreseeable. It is, therefore, sur- prising that the same writer should conclude his remarks by saying: "If it works out that the recommendations of the commission are rea- sonably respected by the different boards, the natural step would be to See Appendix Some Recent Events. 18 HISTORICAL SUMMARY legalize the commission and give its actions the sanction of law." I understand him to use "natural" in a commendatory sense; but, in my judgment, the statement that such a step is the natural course, is to assert that only folly is to be expected of state legislatures. Voluntary consultation and co-operation is always desirable. It is undoubtedly the proper course, especially upon certain occasions. But why, in the name of sober intelligence, if voluntary consultation works well, should it be "natural" to replace it by compulsory subjection to a joint commission, or any other sort of central control? Minnesota. There is only one comprehensive state institution of higher education in Minnesota, and the question of a central board of control could not arise. Yet that State has had an experience which is both interesting and encouraging, in its bearing on the question of a dual control of any one institution. In 1901 a board of control was put over the regents of the university in all financial transactions. The regents resisted for two years, but their attempt to relieve the univer- sity failing in 1903, they became subject to the board of control. "After two years' trial, conditions were such as to make further continuation of the arrangement wholly intolerable." In 1905 the legislature, by a nearly unanimous vote, gave the long sought relief. One bad consequence of the original mistake of 1901 remains. In the placing of insurance, purchase of fuel, and erection of buildings the board of regents still remains subject to another state board. The legal theory that the board of regents is incompetent or untrustworthy for buying insurance and fuel, is irritating; but those matters are so petty that they could not cause directly any serious misgovernment. New buildings, on the con- trary, are important affairs, and are so intimately connected with the educational work for which the institution is conducted that a separate government of that matter must have many injurious consequences. The preceding paragraphs have briefly summarized all experi- ence with central boards of control. President Van Hise admits that the experience has not been encouraging. I understand that his own preference, where consolidation in one institution is not practicable, is for co-operation through "a commission composed of representatives of each of the institutional boards." But his conclusion is that, where consolidation is not practicable, it is so "necessary to have sharp delimitation of scopes (to avoid over- HISTORICAL SUMMARY 19 lapping), and co-operation in financial requests to the legisla- ture/' that "if co-operation be not successful, central boards are inevitable." We are left to marvel why so bad an end is inevitable, even if living, thriving institutions refuse to give up their separate exist- ence and continue to duplicate or parallel some of the teachino- O that is done in a university. Is it to be supposed that everywhere men will see those evils of a central board of control which Presi- dent Van Hise himself mentions, not to mention many others, only to forget them? Will "duplication" or "overlapping" seem such a horrible idea to everyone, or a little extra expense appear so fearsome, that, to escape them, the known evils of a central board will be embraced? Of course, a temporary commission might be needed in some situations, such as that of the State of Virginia, in order to pre- pare legislation for defining the general nature and scope of several ill-adjusted institutions. Virginia has more (four), and prob- ably less advantageously correlated, state-supported colleges grant- ing academic and professional degrees than any other State. A commission for such a purpose is one thing, and a central board permanently controlling subordinated boards is another and very different affair. If duplication were truly an essentially bad and wasteful thing, the only wise course would be to abolish our A. and M. College and College for Girls and confine the State's higher educational work in one institution. Happily, no one need think so ill of "duplication" or even of "overlapping." In no event, it seems to me, would it be wise either to replace our properly independent boards of regents by a central board, or to subordinate them to a superior board of control. There is no need to add to the reasons already stated, to show the inexpediency of a central board, either with or without inferior boards; but concerning the latter I may add one important consideration, not yet mentioned, to wit: de- 20 THE STANDARD SYSTEM sirable men would, in general, refuse to serve on the subordinate boards. The Standard System. The independence of their governing boards characterizes the standard form of government for state universities, from which only discredited innovations have deviated; but there is great di- versity in the number of members and term of office, the latter varying from two years to life-tenure. The prevailing method of appointment is by the governor of the State, impaired in some cases by ex officio accessions. Appointment by popular election, as in Michigan and Illinois is the chief variation, and peculiar exceptions exist, such as (in Iowa) the election by the legislature of a trustee for each congressional district, and (in Indiana) elec- tion by the State Board of Education. The popular election of trustees has worked well only when political conventions have con- ceded the selection of university regents to disinterested friends of the institution and made the nominations regardless of politics. For instance, Mr. Peter White, a Democrat, was nominated for regent of the University of Michigan by a Eepublican conven- tion. Where nominations for popular election must be secured through primary elections, the laws governing such primaries generally confine to one party all candidates on one ticket; and it is practically impossible for the office to seek the man, the party voters merely choosing between self-constituted office seekers. Men who would accept the great responsibility from a governor, or from a state convention under favorable circumstances, would hardly seek nomination in a primary election. Ex-officio mem- bership is deemed by all thoughtful observers, without exception as far as I have found, "the worst of all" methods of appointment. The legislatures of a few States have adopted various devices to direct or restrict the executive authority in the appointment of governing boards. The contrivances have not operated beneficially. Many reasons have been suggested in this chapter for judging that THE STANDARD SYSTEM 21 any such policy would be a mistake. It is wiser to trust to the honesty of governors, and the force of public opinion. The private corporation of an endowed college or university may properly be required by its charter to have in its body repre- sentatives of certain close interests (such as the alumni, the lo- cality, etc.) ; but if representation of any special interest in the governing board of a state university were required by law, a wanton temptation would be extended to a horde of other interests to demand "recognition." If a representative farmer were re- quired, representation might soon be demanded by labor unions, mothers' congresses, and federations of various sorts. All inhabi- tants of the State have indeed an interest in education, but in the government of a university the interests of no classes ought to be distinguished by law. It is vastly better to leave the matter to the good sense and honesty of the governor. A term of office for the regents three or four times the length of the governor's term, is the intelligent precaution to be taken by the legislature against political abuses. Bi- or tri-partisan, of or not of the county of the institution, of or not of the alumni (to mention half a dozen extant specimens), or any such require- ment, is an abuse of power by the legislature likely to do harm. In the best practice the law merely directs the governor to ap- point qualified voters (sometimes adding that he shall select the members of the board from "different portions of the State"), and requires that the appointments be confirmed by the senate. We have reason to believe that the government of a state uni- versity by an independent board of regents is a form of govern- ment well adapted to the conditions that developed in the United States of America. The following statement by Chancellor Strong of the University of Kansas emphasizes an historical argument : "The American college, of which the state university, in spite of the differentiation of its functions into technical and professional schools, is an example, is two hundred and seventy-five years old. Allowing for a few modifications and exceptions, the method of government that has 22 THE STANDARD SYSTEM grown up through this long experience is the one now in use. It is, therefore, the product of the best experience of the New World in univer- sity administration. ... It would seem, therefore, that, to justify a change in method of government in any particular university, it ought to appear that the results in the institution are abnormal and in quality and quantity quite below those of colleges and universities in general. If there is this condition, evidently something is wrong, and it is to be found in one of two things: either in the method of government itself, or in the application of the method of government by the university in question. "If the method of government is faulty, its defects ought to appear in the one hundred and fifty or more universities and colleges in North America of sufficient standing and endowment to be listed in the great report of the Carnegie Foundation in 1908. A thorough examination into the facts would easily show whether this is the case. From all that can be determined, the universities and colleges of North America show no such defects. If the defect lies in the application by any given university of this method of government, it ought to appear that the institution in its growth and development, in the quality of its work, in its standing among standard institutions in North America, and in other essential respects does not conform to the average standard of American institu- tions. This also could easily be determined by a careful examination into the facts. "Of late there have been a few deviations from the usual method of university government, because of conditions arising in States where the agricultural college and the university are separate. . . . The chances are against their success." The deviations alluded to by Chancellor Strong have been de- scribed and briefly discussed in this chapter. The specific nature of and genuine remedies for the various troubles that are now man- ifest in many American universities are to be discussed in Part II of this study dealing with internal organization and administra- tion. Only such as arise from the structural foundation fixed by the legislature are clirectly considered in Part I. None of them, it may be believed, spring from the standard method of government. Commissioner Draper's general diagnosis (see page 3) is doubt- less correct. NEEDED ADJUSTMENT OF TEXAS SYSTEM 23 r President Van Hise summarizes the question thus: "The ad- vantage of each large educational institution having a separate board is obvious. The experience of hundreds of years in this country both with endowed and tax-supported institutions shows that a non-paid board of somewhere between seven and twenty in number is the best method of governing an educational institution. The position of trustee or regent is always one of high honor, and the best men in the state in all lines of endeavor are willing to serve. The unbought service of men of the highest character and greatest ability in the state as trustees and regents has been one of the important factors in the wise and rapid development of higher education in this country. Even when in highly remunerative professional work, they are willing to take sufficient time to do their part in the government of a university. If, however, the task assigned to any one board is as complex as it is likely to be where it must deal with two or more institutions at different lo- calities, it is not practicable for a first class man in active life to give the necessary time to this work." Only Needed Adjustment fen- the Texas System. The only needed adjustment of the established organization of the independent governing boards of the three Texas institutions concerns the present two-years term of office of regent and sim- ultaneous expiration of the terms of all the members of each board. A constitutional amendment permitting thorough correction of those defects has been already submitted to the people and will be voted on in the approaching general election. If the pending amendment to the Constitution is adopted, and if the legislature follows it by fixing the terms of office at six years, one-third of the members of each board to be appinted every two years, Texas may well rest satisfied with its present system of governing boards for its state institutions of higher education. IV. STATE NOKMAL SCHOOLS The importance of the enormous work of preparing, as well as may be, teachers for the common schools could hardly be over- estimated; but there is especial need at the present time to con- sider the question calmly and with discriminating knowledge. State normal schools have a peculiar purpose, which is carried out best under a distinct organization. In government they should not be combined with universities and advanced schools of tech- nology. Like all other institutions, they should never be gov- erned by ex-officio boards; but several state normal schools may, with some practical advantages, be put under one board of con- trol. Only those who do not understand educational work in its different spheres will confuse this case with that of universities and agricultural colleges. In the case of normal schools it is for the very reason that "duplication" is thoroughgoing, that one board of control for all of them may be advantageous. A wise board will never impose or admire exact uniformity; but will en- courage spontaneous variations suitable to local conditions or to different faculties. Yet the main purpose of the normal schools is so special and so identical for all, and the policy of the State to deal with them on a parity is so fixed, that the superior chances of improvement through free variation under separate boards, may properly be sacrificed to the simplicity and harmony attainable through one governing board. Until recently the state normal schools of Texas were governed by an ex-officio board of three members. In 1904 the present writer, in his biennial report as State Superintendent of Public Instruction, advised the Legislature : "It is unwise to burden the Governor, Comptroller, and Secretary of State with the detailed executive control of the state normal schools. The public inter- ests would be subserved by the enactment of a law directing the Governor to appoint a normal school board of five members to NORMAL SCHOOL REGENTS 25 manage and control the state normal schools, whose terms of office ought to be the maximum allowed by the Constitution." Six years passed before that progressive step was taken by the First Called Session of the Thirty-second Legislature. The present "State Normal School Board of Regents," however, consists of four appointed members and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. It would, of course, have been wiser to have pro- vided that all of the regents should be appointed; but the Texas boards are now freer from ex-officio members (the only other in- stance being the Commissioner of Agriculture on the Board of Directors of the A. and M. College) than is the case in many other States. In such matters it is usually advisable to "let well enough alone.' The pending amendment to the Constitution, already men- tioned, covers all the "educational, eleemosynary, and penal in- stitutions of the State." If that amendment is adopted, and the Legislature puts it into effect by lengthening the term of office of the regents or trustees of all the State institutions to six years, one-third of the members of each board to be appointed every two years, there will remain no serious defect in the organization of any of the governing boards. It has been the simultaneous expiration of the terms of all members of the boards which in theory have governed the schools for defectives and penal institutions, that has in fact, in the past, precipitated those institutions into the arena of political office- seeking, and put upon the governors of the State the burden of their patronage. Such complications would be obviated by the appointment every two years of only one-third of the members of the boards in question. Those boards would forthwith acquire the dignity and independent responsibility of the regents of the higher educational institutions, and succeeding governors of the State would be relieved of a burden hitherto imposed upon them by an evil custom. 26 CORRELATION WITH COLLEGES Correlation With Colleges It is not within the scope of this study to deal with the in- ternal organization or work of normal schools; but there is one question concerning their correlation with universities, which needs to be made clear. The question is of great importance every- where, and, from it, at the present juncture in Texas, might arise a crisis involving the whole future of the State's educational en- terprises. A strong movement is afoot among us for the uplift- ing and expansion of educational institutions of every sort. It behooves all upon whom responsibility rests, or who assume re- sponsibility for the definite measures that must finally express the vision and enthusiasm of the movement, to attain clear views of both means and ends. A tendency has appeared in several states (e. g., Illinois, Kan- sas, Colorado) to turn their normal schools into colleges grant- ing degrees. Simultaneously many universities, including nearly all flourishing state universities, have established departments or schools of education. The University of Texas organized its "De- partment of Education"* in 1907, and it has been standardized by its present admission requirement of two years (ten courses) in the College of Arts. If the state normal schools were to be transformed into col- leges, there would ensue a repeated duplication between each of the normal colleges and the university which would truly be ex- travagant if the work were honestly performed, or be a dishonest travesty if the transformation were only 'on paper/ There is almost unanimity of expert opinion that any attempt to transform state normal schools into colleges is "most unfortunate." In discus- sions of the question by the National Association I find only one dissenting voice, and that dissent arose, apparently, through the confusion of two questions, the second being whether high school *The nomenclature adopted by the National Association of State Uni- versities would employ the term School of Education. CORRELATION WITH COLLEGES 27 teachers ought always to be college graduates. It came, more- over, from one of the state universities of Ohio, a state in which conditions are confusing for any comparison with other states. Ohio maintains three state universities, Ohio University, Miami University, and the Ohio State University. About ten years ago it was deemed expedient to largely specialize two of those insti- tutions by establishing a high class "normal college" at Ohio University and another at Miami University, in addition to sev- eral ordinary state normal schools. Evidently these normal col- leges in Ohio are analogous rather to the School of Education of the usual state university than to the usual type of state normal schools. The third year of college teaching demands for its various departments a large staff of men of high rank. There begins the work of the college that advances to the expensive stage. The accordant correlation of the normal school and the university seems clear. Under favorable circumstances (primarily dependent upon fully adequate appropriations) the state normal schools might be advantageously expanded so as to cover the first two years of the college. If that expansion is established, the courses in professional training should be made optional in the normal schools, so that students might transfer from the state normals to the university, and obtain a degree in the latter in two more years. The number of students in the normals would be increased, and the faculties of those schools would need to be greatly strength- ened. The work of the first two college years might thus be suit- ably performed by the State at several points. The expense would probably be less than if all such instruction were concentrated in the university, certainly less to the students concerned, if not to the State. There may be, also, some freshmen and sophomore students who might, for other than economic reasons, properly prefer to get the first two years of the college course in the smaller schools, than in the university. As far as I have been able to learn, only one State has expressed 28 CORRELATION WITH COLLEGES this principle in a law. Wisconsin's legislature last year enacted the following law : "The board of normal school regents may ex- tend the course of instruction in any normal school so that any course, the admission to which is based upon graduation from an accredited high school or its equivalent, may include the substan- tial equivalent of the instruction given in the first two years of a college course. Such course of instruction shall not be extended further than the substantial equivalent of the instruction given in the first two years of such college course without the consent of the legislature." That act of the legislature was accompanied by a large increase of appropriations for the normal schools, in order that they might have the necessary means to do effectively the first two years of college work. The regents of the Wisconsin normal schools have announced that "professional studies" will no longer be required of all students, and that they will hereafter conduct two full years of college work, as well as the professional curriculum. It should ever be borne in mind that any provision for, or per- mission of such expansion of the state normal schools, ought to be coupled with an absolute delimitation at the same point. If the question ever arises in Texas, the permissive act of the Wis- consin legislature is a good model. Of course, the question ought never to arise until the normal schools can require high school graduation for admission to the new two-years curriculum, and until their financial basis enables them to get proper faculties for such work. At present, the Texas state normal school merely qualifies its graduates for entrance to the university with a credit of one course of freshman work. Their teachers are paid no more than the better sort of high school teachers. Both the normal schools and the universities are confronted today bv an acute need for energetic and wise endeavors on their part to provide a greatly improved preparation of teachers for all stages of the public schools. For the secondary or high school PREPARATION OF TEACHERS 29 stage the work must for a long time be shared by normal school and university. The best high schools are already demanding a full college course as a minimum of preparation in their teachers. Books on the subject like Professor Luckey's and reports of com- mittees of the National Education Association indicate but a small part of a public demand that is growing threatening. On the other hand, the weaker schools must not be neglected. Also, there is a critical need for teachers especially prepared for the high schools and semi-high schools of the villages and rural districts. That need ought to have been felt and seen by normal school authorities sooner and more clearly than by anyone else; but speaking of the entire country they still seem even deaf to a veritable outcry from all other quarters. Petty courses in "agri- culture" have been offered, but a far better response than that is required. Entirely reformed programs of school studies, vitally organized for their purpose, are demanded for our vast expanses of rural life. Such programs should be provided by thinkers of large ability and ripe experience, and the normal schools should then prepare legions of teachers to make the new order of rural schools a beneficent reality. The existing conditions in every field call for earnest and unselfish efforts to establish an effective corre- lation that will make the best use of all resources. To meet the needs and the demands successfully, more than internal arrangements for improved work in the normal schools and universities will be necessary. The enterprise is so enormous and so complex that the local authorities in charge of public school systems, and States through their legislatures must co- operate with the institutions preparing the teachers. On the part of the local school systems, organization and administration must be reformed upon sound principles, to the end that the best available teachers shall be elected and retained. There are (and there will be an increasing number of them) men and women who will not scramble for such positions, but who could fill them capably. Local governing boards must act within their proper 30 PREPARATION OF TEACHERS sphere. The necessan^ authority must be conferred upon super- intendents and the corresponding responsibility be imposed. If the superintendent do.'s not meet his responsibility faithfully and successfully, he shouM be removed, but the board should never assume his function of administration. On the part of the state legislatures, the essential need is for laws providing adequate sup- port without special appropriations, except for some large, oc- casional need, such as grounds or buildings. Beyond this, the Wisconsin law, quoted above, represents the only other legislative co-operation that is needed when it is also timely. This nation has stoked almost its existence on public educa- tion. The following words of Commissioner Draper are not ex- aggerated : "The great aim of the public school system is to hold us together, to secure the safety of a wide-open suffrage, and to assure the progress of the whole population. The public school system is our protection. In the light of the world's experience our experiment in government is a vast undertaking. History does not record a similar experiment which has been permanently successful. The public school system is the one institution which is more completely representative of the American plan, spirit, and purpose than any other. It can continue to be the instrument of our security and the star of our hope only so long as it holds the interest and confidence of all the people by assuring the rights of every one to the best teaching." As for the institutions of higher education, they are as indispensable for the preparation of teachers, as for many other fundamentally necessary services. This vast question can not be treated here in any detail. The suggestions that are offered must be concluded by quoting a pas- sage from an address by President W. L. Bryan of Indiana Uni- versity on the preparation of teachers for the high schools: "The high school has been called the people's college. In the Ameri- can high school nearly the whole range of learning and many of the arts and handicrafts are represented. Here society sets for the young people tasks of many sorts which should lead them toward society at TEACHERS OF HIGH SCHOOLS 31 its best. The tasks, the standards, the spirit in every department of the high school should be such as shall stand approved in the judgment of those men who represent the several departments of art and of learning at their best. Second-best standards and spirit in a school are a calam- ity. They mistrain. They build up within the mind of the youth, bar- riers of misinformation, and of incorrect habits. A generation of high school teachers, educated in second-rate schools and seldom in touch with productive scholars, means a high school insulated from the upper cur- rents of civilized life. It is not enough that high school teachers should be taught respectably upon a collegiate level. They require the quick- ening effect of daily life with men who are themselves scholars, who know the inner meaning and spirit of learning as it can be known only by those who are productive men. "Whatever the other schools may do in this matter, it is obvious that part of the work must rest with the universities. This proposition scarcely requires discussion. It would be the last degree of absurdity to establish universities, each with its group of masters, and then by some legerdemain of legislation to provide that these masters shall not through their students become the teachers of the whole people. "The universities must provide adequately, as they have seldom done in the past, for the professional training of high school teachers. There are university men who fail to realize this necessity, to whom it seems that a university training in the subject to be taught is sufficient, and that so-called professional training is for the most part a deceptive hocus-pocus. This view is supported by the fact that much of the peda- gogy disseminated is hocus-pocus, having the appearance but not the reality of sound learning, or in other cases an array of generalities and truisms barren of practical utility. "If, however, a university man of practical intelligence will spend some time in visiting high schools, he will presently be led to see that a knowledge of his subject is by no means a sufficient preparation for teaching it satisfactorily in a high school. He can not avoid seeing in some cases that the work is very largely a failure, that the students are baffled, out-of-heart, ready at the first opportunity to leave school altogether. The more one is obliged to face this difficulty, the greater it appears and the harder its solution seems to be. The university pro- fessor who has given no attention to secondary education is not an adequate adviser. How a high school boy should be led toward and into his field of learning is a problem which he can not answer ex tempore. The professor of education, with whatever equipment of learning in the 32 SCHOOLS FOR DEFECTIVES principles of education, but who is unacquainted with the substance and spirit of the subject to be taught, is likewise an inadequate adviser. He knows very vaguely the end and how can he know the way? In point of fact the teaching of a high school subject presents a problem which must be solved by men who are masters of that subject and who then devote themselves to finding out how to deal with it in a high school. I venture to say here that the study of such a problem may be original and productive work as truly as any other research, and may be a piece of first-rate practical statesmanship. If one can make sound learning of any kind do its proper work with a larger percentage of boys, he is conserving the most valuable assets of society." State Schools for Defectives There is a fundamental difference between higher educational institutions, and schools for defectives, or charitable and penal in- stitutions. The latter are mentioned in this discussion only to distinguish them from the former. The institutions of higher education are the best investment of society for the conservation and utilization of its most valuable product. Nothing is of greater importance to society than the right development of the potential powers of the best and ablest of its young men and women. The expenditure for guarding defectives is, aside from its charity, a protective measure for avoiding worse loss and damage. Compe- tent opinion is unanimous, that "the government of the two classes of institutions is absolutely antithetical." The government of sev- eral charitable or several penal institutions by one board of con- trol, has proved successful in several States. Of course, institu- tions thus segregated for governmental control should never be of disparate kinds. For instance all state asylums for the insane might be properly governed by one board, or all penitentiaries by another; but a school for the blind should never be so combined with orphan asylums, or either with a reformatory school. V. VOLUNTARY CO-OPERATION Voluntary consultation between the administrative heads of a State's institutions of higher education should be frequent, and so thorough that each is always apprised of the work and plans of all. On occasions, a plain necessity for voluntary agreement be- tween the governing boards arises. The present juncture of pub- lic affairs in Texas marks a signal occasion, in which there is ex- traordinary and paramount need for deliberate and magnanimous co-operation. The situation demands high intelligence, correct knowledge, energetic courage, and unselfish harmony. It is a fateful crisis for the educational development of Texas. A con- stitutional amendment, which the legislature might follow by either wise or unwise reorganization of all governing boards, will probably be adopted at an approaching election. Democratic plat- form demands call for various important measures among them a just and equitable division of endowment funds between the university and agricultural college. A well sustained movement will endeavor to secure a state tax adequate to the regular sup- port of the institutions and definitely apportioned by the law establishing it. These and other matters will be precipitated into a confused wrangle before a legislature distracted by a multitude of other affairs, unless the governing boards unite in advocating a clear and convincing proposal for each important measure. Preceding chapters have presented the fundamental principles respecting the constitution of governing boards, illustrated by a summary of pertinent experience. If the platform demand for "the complete divorcement of the University and Agricultural and Mechanical College," and for "a. just and equitable division" of their joint endowment, is to re- ceive legislative attention, disastrous consequences might follow a report by the governing boards of their inability to agree upon a 34 VOLUNTARY CO-OPERATION division. Surely they have more knowledge of both historical and present conditions, and more time for discussion and deliberation than the legislature. Opinions may differ as to what would be "a just and equitable division," but, in a situation where some decision is required, a joint session of the two boards ought to be the best arbiter between conflicting views or desires. If the two institutions were one state university, as is the case in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Nebraska, Missouri, California, the endow- ment by the State of Texas and the endowment received from the United States would be administered as one fund. In order to divide endowment resources for completely separated administra- tions, it is simply necessary to agree upon a ratio of partition- ment. To do that would not be as difficult as it may seem to some jealous hearts who have not yet faced the question intellectu- ally. The productive endowment yielded for the year 1910-11, from investments in bonds and from leases of land received from the State $165,419, and from the U. S. Government $63,750, mak- ing a total of $229,169. For the same year the A. & M. College received thereof $71,984, which is $4,406 less than one-third, and $14,692 more than one-fourth. So far as current income from endowment is concerned, it might be easy to agree to one- third for the agricultural college. The partitionment of land, much of it never yet productive of revenue, is a more difficult question ; but the governing boards ought to reach an amicable agreement by nmtual concessions. They are the most competent agency for the proper accomplishment of that task of statesmanship, if they will rise to the occasion. The Necessary Tax A measure of vital importance ought to be framed to secure a state tax for the regular support of the three state institutions of higher education and the four state normal schools. Some of the main benefits of such a measure would be lost if the law establish- ing the tax did not apportion the proceeds in three fixed parts to the three higher institutions, and a distinct part for the support of NECESSARY TAX 35 the four state normal schools. The latter ought to be adminis- tered as one fund by the State Normal School Board of Regents, according to the varying needs of the respective normal schools. The problem thus presented can not be properly solved unless the four governing boards concerned accept some well deliberated plan, formulated in a carefully prepared bill, and unite in har- monious support of that bill. Or, if it be decided that an amend- ment to the Constitution is necessary, a corresponding joint reso- lution to submit the constitutional amendment should be prepared and supported. The total amount that must be supplied from the revenues of the State in order that Texas may take a place among the States that, have undertaken to secure efficient services from their insti- tutions of higher education, has been reliably ascertained from a study of the financial basis of such institutions in all of those States.* It is also shown in that study that the proceeds of a tax of eight-tenths of a mill, or 8 cents on $100, on the assess- ment of 1911 for Texas, would not fall far short of the requisite sum $2,000,000. Such a tax, with wise administration, would enable the State of Texas to secure the present average services enjoyed in the other States. There may be many Texans who would not be permanently satisfied by securing only average educational and scientific services from their institutions; but it would be prudent to postpone any undertaking looking toward leadership, until appropriate meas- ures for so high an enterprise can be adopted in the light of ex- perience with an average status. The rate 8 cents on $100, if Texas candidly proposes to attend to the business of securing efficient services from its state insti- tutions of higher education, will seem high only to those not in- formed of the actual practice in other States. The average of the States considered in the study referred to is 6 cents (without *"A Study of the Financial Basis of the State Universities and Agri- cultural Colleges in Fourteen States," issued by the Organization for the Enlargement by the State of Texas of its Institutions of Higher Education. 36 NECESSARY TAX allowance for cost of collection), and that has already been raised by the recently established 10-cents tax for the University of Illinois. The reader is also reminded again that in California, Illinois, and Ohio great universities were excluded from consid- eration whose resources exceed the support provided for state uni- versities. The co-operation of the people to secure for themselves the services of a comprehensive and efficient university, requires* in Wisconsin 8 cents, in Minnesota 8| cents, in Michigan 6 cents, in Iowa 7 cents, in Colorado 7 cents, without allowance for cost of collection. These being the States of the whole list with which Texas would be most justly and most willingly compared, the 8 cents suggested for Texas should not startle anybody. One of the great advantages of an established tax for educa- tional institutions is the fact that the increase of property value keeps pace, at the same tax rate, with the increase of students and with the increasing needs of a growing population for many direct public services. The addition of one cent for the normal schools would yield at the outset about $250,000 for those four schools an average of $62,500 a year for each State Normal School. Under the cur- rent appropriations by the legislature for the two years ending August 31, 1913, each normal school receives on the average $58,710 a year. If the standards of those schools are to be raised and their forces strengthened, it will be necessary to add more than one cent for the normal schools, to the eight cents for the three higher institutions. The addition of two cents for the nor- mal schools would yield $500,000, or an average of $125,000 a year for each of those schools. A tax of one mill (10 cents on $100) is the levy necessary to put and keep all the institutions referred to on a basis of average efficiency. If the people of Texas desire to enlarge and strengthen *A11 tax rates mentioned have been reduced to the same basis of assess- ment valuations, according to estimates by state tax commissions, comp- trollers, etc. APPORTIONMENT OF THE TAX 37 their educational institutions, so as to secure for themselves such services as are enjoyed in the States whose social and industrial interests are now profiting hy those advantages, they must un- doubtedly expend at least the amount here indicated. Apportionment of the Proposed Tax. The obligation upon the governing boards to agree to a fixed partitionment of the tax, is peremptory. There is no other way to avoid annual struggles that are wretchedly injurious. On the other hand, no vital mistake could be made in fixing the division. Inasmuch as the total amount is the minimum sufficient to accom- plish its purpose, it is certain that no division would apportion to any one of the three institutions more than it could use to the public advantage. If to any one should be allotted a portion that proved insufficient for enterprises which the legislature desired to be continued or developed, an additional appropriation would be made for that institution. It is certain that every institution will from time to time have to present some special need to the legislature. The tax proposed would provide for ordinary expenditures for build- ing, but times must come when some large necessity for additional ground, or for some extraordinary building, would require re- course to the legislature. Such is the proper theory of a tax for regular maintenance and support. The legislature ought to retain a regulative power, to be exercised in decisions concerning appro- priations additional to the proceeds of an established tax sufficient to meet foreseeable necessities. It would be rash in any individual to suggest any precise appor- tionment as one which ought to be agreed to. I am merely argu- ing that the governing boards should agree on some definite ap- portionment to be made by the law establishing the tax. The fol- lowing statement of what a certain apportionment of a 10-cents tax would yield each of the institutions, is intended simply as an example. It will be a convenience to the thoughtful reader, as either a point of rest or a point of departure for his own judgment. 38 APPORTIONMENT OF THE TAX A ID-cents tax for the maintenance and development of the State's educational institutions would yield next year about $2,- 500,000. The 10 cents must be apportioned somehow; for example University of Texas u must be really independent, and must be governed from within in accord- ance with the unity of the institution."* John Stuart Mill has well said, whatever crushes individuality is despotism by whatever name it be called. It is not a valid objection to allege in any particular case, that the members of the faculty are personally unfit to participate on co-ordinate terms in counsels for the government of a university. For if it were true, it would be equally true of the persons who had selected and disorganized the faculty, and all concerned would need the more to begin a procedure which protects both sides from misunderstandings and tends to uplift and steady every partici- pant. "Be noble and the nobleness that lies in other men, sleep- *This was said in a different connection, but is equally true as here cited. Chancellor Strong had been arguing against a central board of control, and drew from the principles quoted the valid conclusion that a university or college requires "a governing board whose eye is single to the welfare of that institution and no other." PRACTICABLE SOLUTIONS 133 ing but never dead, will rise in majesty to meet thine own." It should be candidly acknowledged that many astonishingly foolish regulations for the government of students do seem to reveal some faculties as incompetent legislators. But men who have an inti- mate knowledge of these matters know that such contemptible abuses usually originate with some dean appointed by the presi- dent or some ill-chosen committee appointed by the president or the president's dean. They know how the measures are pressed or slip through an adopting vote over the faint protests of mem- bers who, though thoroughly discouraged by present methods in faculty meetings, would exercise their natural influence under a different regime. It will seem to some that the president's necessary and most es- sential authority might be endangered if his nominations to the board of regents for advancements and new faculty appointments were submitted to the council of the faculty, and the council's approval or dissent reported to the board. I do not believe any reservation needs to be made for that particular business. The president's nominations, duly explained in council, would gener- ally be cordially approved. In exceptional instances the advice of members of the council might lead to some change in the presi- dent's own opinion. Only in very rare cases would the council's dissent have to be reported. If that happened, the board of re- gents must uphold the president.* But it is far better that the council's rarely occurring difference in opinion should be known in an open and orderly way, than that frequent misunderstand- ings of acts that take the faculty by surprise should be whis- pered or growled about. Yet such is the alternative, even though the president honestly seeks the private advice of individuals about his recommendations for advancements and for rilling or making vacancies. If the faculty knew that every nomination had been explained to a council chosen by themselves., they would feel that 'See page 204. 331 PRACTICABLE SOLUTIONS the president's proposals had been justified before their own rep- resentatives. This would be sufficient to cause the reasonable ma- jority to feel confident and satisfied with the action taken in these delicate affairs. It would be better for the faculty to take no ac- tion itself, but to make the matter of approving presidential nomi- nations a privileged order of business in the council, conclusions being reported to but not subject to approval by its faculty. There are too many instructors and assistant professors in a faculty for votes on advancements to be appropriately taken in that body, whereas the council would consist only of full and associate pro- fessors. In like manner, the preliminary data for the annual budget should be elaborated by the president in consultation with the council for each faculty considering the reports and requests of all the deportments in that division. The final adjustments nec- essary to prepare the entire budget, as it will be presented by the president to the governing board, should be made in consultation with the council for the general faculty. Since each of the special councils would have one of its members sitting in the gen- eral council, its views and desires would be known and under- stood in the general council through two channels, not only through the president's mind. Continuity of information in the general council being thus secured, there would usually be no oc- casion for communications from the separate councils to the board of regents concerning the budget. If the president rightly com- prehended the manifold needs and held clearly before himself and his counsellors the total amount available, he could put his views so convincingly that approval would naturally follow, or his own first judgment on some point would be corrected by helpful dis- cussion. Sometimes the general council would decide to recom- mend the modification of some particular in the president's final decisions for the budget, upon which it could not agree with him; but it is probable that complete agreement would usually be reached. At all events, a general confidence and satisfaction THE FINAL RESPONSIBILITY 135 would prevail, which is simply impossible when the president merely receives departmental petitions and consults with indi- viduals whom he may call to him. These special functions of the proposed councils would safe- guard the president against deplorable misunderstandings more than any other arrangement that could be devised. It should be feared only by presidents who make unjustifiable nominations or budgets. The plan I have proposed seems to me to be a good and ade- quate one. It would be truly remedial, and it would be safe. Other good arrangements., if need for more should be experienced, might be left to grow from it. It has the merit of simplicity. It has the merit, that either or both of its two parts could be insti- tuted. Its first part could be put into immediate operation by any board of regents disposed to recognize the faculty as a body hav- ing an essential independent responsibility to the university, not merely the responsibility of its members to their employer. Its second part could be put into operation by any president who would rather be a trusted leader than an alienated commander. The system proposed would soon make the test: do his opinions receive favorable consideration for their merit, or must they be backed by his authority? No worthy president need fear the test. The Final Responsibility It is not necessary that members of the governing board should judge or know much about educational processes, or the technical sides of teaching work. The analogy between the board of re- gents for a university and a board of directors for a business en- terprise is very slight. The proper relation between the former and the faculty is totally different from that between the latter and their employes. The advice of industrial experts about uni- versity organization is often thoroughly vitiated by misconcep- tions of this fundamental point. But it is incumbent on every member of the governing board of a college or university to know 13(> THE FINAL RESPONSIBILITY as much as he can learn about organizing such an institution in accordance with its true and proper nature, and about the main tests of success or failure in the administration of the institution as organized. His final responsibility is to learn the truth about those matters and to act wisely and resolutely in accordance there- with. It is astonishing how often the weightier matters have been neglected or violated by regents and presidents entirely absorbed in securing funds for buildings. There is no good reason why the one should have been left undone in the doing of the other. If there were any conflict, the weightier matters ought to be first attended to; but the development of the physical plant would al- ways be greatly assisted by a sound organization and due regard for the vital interests of the faculty, both personal and profes- sional. It is, therefore, not an excuse but only an explanation to plead, as did Dr. Richard Jones, Trustee of Iowa College, in con- gratulating the University of Illinois on the apparent completion of its "magnificent plant" : "The erection of the plant was a work of such paramount im- portance that the teaching professor, even though there were scores of him, occupied for the time a place of comparative unimportance. But now that the plant is established, and due honor for the great work worthily bestowed, there will be leisure for observing that a plant is of small value without the best possible instruction. And thus it will come about naturally and easily that the individual professor will come into his own. The administration, no longer under the necessity of securing funds for new buildings, can now devote its energies to making attractive to the professor the aca- demic career, to the professor who finds his joy in life in his work as a professor rather than in a deanship or any form of ad- ministrative work especially affording him opportunity and leis- ure, that is freedom from mere drudgery, for doing some re- search work of his own, which is to the university professor the breath of life. . . . And as the development of the University of Illinois is typical of that of many other American universities, THE FINAL RESPONSIBILITY 137 except in the unusual rapidity of its development, we may per- haps conclude that the pains endured by the university professor generally are 'growing pains' and await the day of deliverance. But let us not deny the pain, even on this happy occasion, when evidences of wonderful growth meet the eye and statistics greet the ear and the atmosphere is filled with the halo of the greater glory yet to dawn. . . . There is probably not an institution in all this great Mississippi Valley that could offer a professorship which would induce a professor, a full professor, of Oxford, for example, to resign, even leaving out of consideration any question of home and native land. Much yet remains to be done to make the aca- demic career as attractive and useful as it is possible for it to be." But let us take heart of grace from an inspiring sentence with which Dr. Jones concluded his salutation. It would make a fitting motto to be put in letters of gold on the walls of the counsel chambers of university regencies: "Happy they who live under an administration which knows, which combines sweetness and light." And over against that saying of yesterday, I would put in the place of first honor the immortal proverb of Solomon : "Through wisdom is an house builded ; And by understanding it is established: And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled With all precious and pleasant riches." III. BUSINESS MANAGEMENT. Although a college or university cannot be administered in the spirit or in the manner of a business concern without ceasing to be a college or university, intelligent and careful management of its business affairs is an imperative responsibility. Past neg- lect of that responsibility has precipitated throughout the whole country a startled and over-accentuated zeal for business manage- ment. Legislatures are beginning to take a hand, enacting re- formatory measures well intended but with ill-considered provi- sions. It is therefore peculiarly important for every state insti- tution that its governing board and chief executive should take counsel for establishing without delay a business management properly adapted to the work and purposes of the institution. If this is not done with careful deliberation and wisely, it is probable that some imitation of methods employed in manufactories will be imposed by external law, or be hurriedly adopted without proper understanding of what "efficiency" in a college or univer- sity is. Articles have been published criticizing the trustees of some privately endowed colleges for carelessness in making investments, and for unwarranted encroachments upon endowment funds to meet current expenses; but those points need no mention (as far as the writer knows) in reference to state institutions. For them, the law generally confines the investment of permanent funds to specified securities, and prohibits any expenditure from the prin- cipal of such funds for any other purpose whatsoever. The treas- urer is generally the State Treasurer. The investment of endowment funds call for financial expe- rience and expert judgment; and the management of productive properties is a special branch of business. Those matters are not considered here. The writer probably knows less of them than the committees who have them in charge; there is less neglect of BUSINESS MANAGEMENT 139 them, in spite of knowledge, than of any other responsibility of trustees; and state institutions have comparatively little of such business. The business management of a tax-supported institu- tion concerns the proper and effective expenditure of given re- sources, accounting conducive thereto, and the design and use and care of physical structures. In the truest sense, the main things in the business management of a college or university are not re- ferred to in the ordinary use of the term "business management." The business of a university being teaching and research, choice of the objects of those activities, the selection of the men who are to perform the work, the fixing of salaries, etc., are the main things. In that vital sense this entire study treats of the business management of institutions of higher education. Unless the weightier matters are rightly managed, it is of very secondary im- portance how the accounts are kept or the buildings preserved. In the narrow sense of the term, thus distinguished, the business management of a college or university is not a thing to make much of a fuss about. Any man of good sense and a modicum of general business experience who understands even slightly what a university ought to be doing and knows what its business affairs consist of, could (with the help of a competent accountant) es- tablish a proper business management as soon as he gives attention to the matter and is given the requisite authority. Bookkeeping The first thing to do is to install a real set of books, in place of the mere cash book and collection of registers usually found. In some States methods employed in the State Comptroller's office would require, in addition to the useful books, the continued re- porting to that office of the jumbled list of vouchers, worthless except for its indication that a total amount was lawfully ex- pended. Also, the state officer may have and may occasionally ex- ercise an authority to refuse or reduce some warrant, and thereby require the making of compensating entries. But what of it? It 140 BOOKKEEPING is "wasted motion," yet so insignificant in comparison with the se- rious waste caused by a weak or foolish member of the faculty, or by some mistaken interference on the part of a dean or president with the real work of faculty and students, that the trouble is not worth groaning about. University officers have allowed themselves to be unduly dis- couraged by this trouble with the state government's methods of accounting. Mr. J. C. Christensen, after his appointment about two years ago to be Financial Secretary of Kansas State Agricul- tural College, visited many institutions in other States, and made a useful and generally very sound report on University Business Administration before a Conference of Business Officers of the Stete Universities and Colleges of the Middle West, held at Chi- coga in January, 1912. He correctly reported: "My inspection has shown that there are very few States in which the business of educational institutions is not hampered by obsolete and cum- bersome methods of state accounting." But he added : "It is im- possible for a state institution to install a satisfactory system of accounting unless modem methods prevail at the State House." T beg to differ. It is not impossible only a little more laborious. If your business manager and his bookkeepers do not know how to open and keep the needed system of books, and at the same time keep on the side whatever may be demanded by the prac- tice at the State House, simply employ a competent accountant to teach them how to do it. But be sure that the expert accountant is not left free to choose the accounts that are to be opened. It is for the president and business manager to tell the accountant, after due mutual consultation, what they want to know from the books of the institution, and then, it is for the expert to show the book- keepers how to open and keep a system of books that wilf always yield the desired information. If left to himself the expert account- ant might install a system that would be very helpful to an automo- bile factory, but positively injurious to a university. Without going into any technical details of bookkeeping, I may BOOKKEEPING 141 mention some of the things that the books of a university ought to be ready to yield at a moment's notice : 1. A balance sheet giving assets and liabilities, with support- ing schedules. 2. A statement of revenue and expense for every classification, and their relation to the corresponding month or period of the previous year. 3. A statement of receipts and disbursements, properly analyzed. It depends on the promptness with which bills for merchandise received or for service rendered are 0. K.'d and paid, and on the punctuality with which accrued resources are collected, how far a statement of revenue and expense will differ from a statement of receipts and disbursements. After explaining at a National Con- ference of College and University Trustees the need of monthly statements of revenue and expense, Mr. Ernest Reckitt, Certified Public Accountant, Chicago, 111., remarked : "Please note that I do not use the term receipts and disbursements. Many colleges have no other book of original entry than their cash book, and under this system no intelligent comparison can be made. Every lia- bility, either for goods purchased or for services received, should be entered in the month it was incurred, and the same argument holds as to your revenue." Not only must the bookkeeper furnish such data, but they must be intelligently used. Each month the expenses, as analyzed by the system of accounts kept, should be scrutinized by the president and the business manager. Copies should be sent also to the regents, and to the council for each faculty (where the councils proposed in the preceding chapter are instituted, otherwise to the dean of each faculty), and the chairman of each department should receive every month an itemized statement for his depart- ment. If the pecuniary affairs of the institution are to be under- stood and held in hand, there must be continual comparison with 142 THE BUDGET the corresponding data for previous years, especially for the last year. If the system of bookkeeping is what it should be, all needed information will be given quickly and with ease. No competent managers of any large business would dream of trying to get along without this. Scrupulous promptness should be exacted of every- one authorized to incur expense, to 0. K. and deliver to the book- keepers every bill instantly upon receipt of the goods or the com- pletion of the service for which the bill was rendered. If all of these reasonable precautions are not taken, disorder and deficits are to be expected. The classified statement of revenue and expense for each fiscal year is the only safe basis upon which to frame the budget for the following year. Some remarks upon the proper nature of that im- portant document are in place here. The Budget The budget for an ensuing year seems to be adopted by the governing boards of many state universities as a rigid appropriation of its items., just as appropriation bills are enacted by legisla- tuies; and the bookkeepers enter the respective appropriations as credits and enter charges against them, just as the state comp- troller treats the appropriations for each year made by the legis- lature. There is no help for this procedure in the case of the leg- islature which meets, attempts to foresee all future necessities, makes rigid appropriations, and adjourns sine die. But why need the board of regents of a university or college undertake to prophesy so rigidly a year in advance, the expenditure for every department ? The practice in this matter, especially by state insti- tutions, would be different from what it is, if business methods were as much thought of as they are talked about. Of course, even the procedure of the legislature is tempered by a limited authority in governors to authorize deficiencies; and boards of regents in emergencies revise their "appropriations." But I be- THE BUDGET 143 lieve a changed conception of and attitude toward the budget adopted for an ensuing year would conduce to better business management. The budget is an estimate. Why not treat it as such ? Genuine business methods would simply require that the person authorized to make the expenditures for each department of faculty and busi- ness affairs treated in the budget should not exceed the amount adopted as the estimate for that department unless an excess be approved by the president, and that the president should be bound by the spirit of the original estimate. If desirable, the joint approval of some member of a finance committee of the board could be re- quired; but there should be no need of that. The right way is to give the president ample authority and hold him responsible for a wise use of discretionary powers. It is impossible to foresee all necessities, and the proper cost of some undertakings cannot be fixed in advance. The important point is the careful considera- tion of every monthly statement of revenues and expenses by all who are responsible for them. It is they who need to compare with the budget the statements furnished by the bookkeeper. The book- keeper is the last person in the university who needs to have any knowledge of the budget. The estimates of the budget have, indeed, no logical place in the accounts. There are various injurious consequences of regarding budgets as rigid appropriation bills. Each department is led to make its demand as high as possible to guard against unforseen needs. In order to prevent the lapsing of any part of an "appropriation", things are sometimes purchased for a purpose which is afterwards abandoned. If an estimate proves to be insufficient, some work of teachers and students may be crippled for a year, which could have been made effective by a small addition to the amount set down in the budget. The waste measured by money is not the greatest damage. The reasons sometimes given for waiting until next year to correct an estimate of the budget, indicate a subtle 144 BUSINESS MANAGEB but deeper injury. Presidents have explained that though the means were available and the need clear, yet the "appropriation" could not be modified for one department without causing jealousy in all other departments. If that were true, the moral atmosphere of the institution would be corrupting to the youth who enter it, and it ought to be renovated or abolished. But that could not be true, if the institution were riehtly organized, and governed and administered sensibly. It would be impossible to conceive anything more unbusinesslike than the attitude last alluded to, and it is idle to talk about business management until such ideas are re- nounced. Business Manager The proper general ideas and attitudes toward pecuniary and property affairs of the institution are not alone sufficient for the right management of such affairs. Expert care must be taken of them through a well organized department. The danger here is that business departments may be established and conducted as ends in themselves not rightly subordinated to and in harmony with the educational work. A business manager should have his needed authority, but it would be better to let money be wasted than to set him up as coordinate with the president. The details of all business affairs should be within the province of the business manager, but he should not have unchecked authority to impose arrangements for his convenience or to suit his ideas of system and uniformity. The business management should conform with and subserve the real work for which alone all parts of the institution exist. For instance, all material for a laboratory should not be procured through the business manager's store or purchasing office, if it be advantageous to the laboratory for its director to buy some things. Such matters should be adjusted by due consultation with each department, the business manager yielding his judgment to that of the chairman of the department, unless some principle, or considerable amount of money, seemed to him to be involved BUSINESS MANAGER 145 in which case the question should be referred to the president. There would be no difficulty in handling these petty affairs if right attitudes are assumed. The business manager of a university could not demonstrate incapacity more clearly than by desiring a stupid uniformity for disparate conditions. Because his office can advantageously pur- chase and store coal, brooms, and blackboard crayons, is no reason for wishing to buy the frogs for a physiology laboratory, or a crystal or piece of special wire for a physics laboratory. Men who cannot make such distinctions, and want a "purchasing agent" to buy everything, after a wasteful process of requisition and countersign- ing,* understand neither a university nor business. Such things should be sensibly arranged by the business manager. There need be no purchasing agent; but some office in the business manager's department ought to buy what it can buy and store what it can store with clear advantage to the work of the institution, leav- ing many things with the departments of instruction and research. The librarian, for instance, should buy the books lor the library. Of course, a prompt presentation of all bills at the accounting office should be required of everyone authorized to incur any expense. There are purchasing agents who save less in buying advantageously coal, lawn mowers, stenographers' note books, lead pencils, etc., than they waste in making thousands of petty purchases under regula- tions that consume ten dollars' worth of high priced time for every dollar spent on such special items taking no account of the strain upon the patience of the instructors or of the losses suffered by defenseless students. The reasonable adjustments to differing conditions, thus sug- gested, do not impair a proper centralization of business manage- *E. g., at the University of Wisconsin, every requisition for the purchase of supplies must, it is said, be approved by the executive committee of the board of regents, the president, the secretary, the dean, and the head of the department. 146 BUSINESS MANAGER ment ; on the contrary they would safeguard it against its besetting danger. There should be a responsible manager with due authority over all business offices ; but it behooves him to avoid all formalities and rigidity that interfere with usefulness. Mr. Christensen, in the report mentioned above, explained and advised, in part, as follows: i "College and imiversity authorities are apparently lacking in appre- ciation of the necessity for the proper organization of the business offices. This accounts for a great deal of the looseness in the business adminis- tration which has been found in several institutions. . . . With the growth of a university and with the constant increase of business matters, the business offices have sometimes been organized into several distinct departments, but without a head over all of the departments. One uni- versity recently put in a purchasing department, but made the fatal error of not making that department a part of the business organization of the university. . . . This university has now made the university treas- urer the business manager, and the president acts through him. All busi- ness offices are under control of the business manager. "An objectionable manner of conducting business in several universities has been shown in the tendency to scatter through a number of offices what should be done in one office and under one authority. . . . This scattering has frequently been caused by powerful deans or heads of de- partments assuming powers and duties which properly belong to the execu- tive offices of the university. In some institutions the powers and duties of a dean are not clearly defined, and this lack of definite authority has caused confusion in the business offices. Without doubt much of the detail work which is now being done in the offices of deans and heads of depart- ments, in many institutions, could be better done in central offices under central authority. . . . "The business manager should be of sufficient caliber to assume entire control of all business matters, and all officers who deal with business matters should report to him. The business manager would also be the logical secretary of the Board of .Regents, or Trustees. It is highly im- portant that the business manager be present at all meetings of the Board so that he may see that all matters relating to the business side of the university are properly looked after. It is seldom satisfactory to delegate such matters to persons who do not have a first-hand knowledge of the things to be presented." BUSINESS MANAGER 147 The important points are that the business manager, whether he be the secretary of the board or not, be present when business affairs are considered, and that he be of "sufficient caliber." Mr. Christensen gave an "outline of business organization," based on "observations of some of the best organization discovered on my recent trip," differing little from the following: BUSINESS MANAGES The Business Manager is the head of business affairs. The Board of Regents and the President act through him in the details of business matters. 1. Business Office a. Accounting Department: Chief clerk, cashier, voucher clerk, bookkeeper, inventory clerk, etc. It is assumed that all payments are made by voucher-checks of good form with stub record. There should be strict checking with the registrar's office of all bills issued for matriculation fees, etc., properly classified. The cashier should give receipt for every cent taken by him, and keep carbon duplicate of the receipt. This will facilitate checking when the office is audited. b. Purchasing and Storeroom Department: Order clerk, stenographer, receiving clerk, storekeeper, etc. 2. Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds In charge of physical plant, and superintendent of construction. Clerk, draftsman, inspector, etc. a. Heat, Power, Light, Water: Superintendent, engineers, laborers. b. Repair Shops: Carpenters, painters, plumbers, electricians, repair gangs, etc. c. Janitors: Head janitor, assistants, cleaners, caretakers. d. Police and Fire Protection: Watchmen. e. Grounds, Roads, and Walks: Head gardener, laborers. 148 GROUNDS AND BUILDINGS 3. Consulting Engineers and Architects For all original planning, and for considerable alterations of buildings or grounds. Grounds and Buildings. State universities have suffered much from a lack of provident attention to future need for ground, and to the designing, location, and quality of buildings. One of the causes of this neglect has probably been the short term of the regent's office. In Texas, the two-years' term of the past has just been changed by constitutional amendment to six years.* It was perfectly evident many years ago that the meager campus of the University of Texas could not contain the institution much longer. Strikingly suitable ground lay to the east, unoccupied and purchasable at low prices. When the site of the University was originally fixed, the cost to the State of providing a campus of proper size would have been comparatively nothing. The legislature at that time acted as it did from sheer lack of competent advice. Had they understood that forty acres would certainly prove to be insufficient, they would have set aside a suitable area. The time has now come when the ground to the east must be bought at high prices, wasting also many houses that have been built upon it; or the University must be scattered in non-contigious localities; or the entire institution must be moved to a new suburban site, sacrificing its own present buildings, and, far worse, many other establishments, public and private, that have been founded in reliance upon the permanence of the Univer- sity's location. Speaking of the grouping of buildings, the laying-out and deco- ration of a university's unoccupied grounds, and the provision of an amount of land sufficient for future needs, President Eliot gives wise and needed counsel: *See page 23. GROUNDS AND BUILDINGS 149 "The beauty of university buildings, of their site, and of the grounds about them, makes an important part of its teaching. On this account urban universities whose buildings are situated in compactly built streets can never exert on their students all the beneficial influences which sub- urban or rural universities can exert. Every large university should own and maintain in good order decorated open spaces about its buildings, interior quadrangles between groups of buildings, gardens, and groves. Shabbiness and untidiness should never be permitted on university grounds. If the site provides wide prospects or beautiful vistas, these landscape beauties should be carefully utilized, and preserved from impairment by the growing up of trees, or the planting of buildings across the lines of view. In order to discharge well this function of university trustees, the board should obtain the best professional advice which the country affords, and is never justified in employing for local or political reasons, or in deference to the wishes of benefactors, any advisers about the designs of buildings, their sites, and the lay-out of grounds, who are not of the first class. In accepting the gift of a building, prudent trustees will always make the condition that the design and site of the building shall be acceptable to the expert advisers of the board. Since architecture and landscape architecture have now become well recognized professions for highly trained men in the United States, it has become inexcusable in university trustees to erect buildings without the most careful possible consideration of their designs and of the relation of each building to its neighbors, or to plant buildings about their grounds without reference to the future buildings which the university is sure to need. . . . "They have too much neglected the study of order and beauty in the lay-out of university grounds, and have incurred great losses through the erection of buildings which were not fireproof. They needed spacious shelters so urgently, that they ran the risk of building large combustible structures instead of smaller fireproof ones. These conditions of poverty are now passing away, and it is emphatically the duty of university trustees to erect buildings, lay out their open grounds, and plant them with reference to the sure centuries of affectionate use. University grounds and buildings can now be arranged to last, which seems to be more than can be said for any other buildings in the United States, with the possible exception of some government buildings and some country churches. It may not be very important to study carefully the design of a house, fac- tory, shop, office building, or church, which is likely to be burnt, torn down, or converted to new uses within seventy years; but grounds and buildings 150 FINANCIAL REPORTS which really have a chance to prove permanent ought to be studied in the most careful manner possible. Because of the importance of this function of university trustees, it is highly desirable, whenever the conditions permit, that trustees should be selected who feel a real affection for the university which they are to govern, and for its surroundings. Strangers will, as a rule, not make so good trustees as children of the house. "The trustees have a somewhat difficult duty in regard to the acceptance of gifts. There are gifts which it is highly inexpedient to accept, as, for instance, a gift for a specified object which is not of a surely durable nature, and yet comes without discretion for the trustees as to other applications of the gift when its specified use shall be no longer possible, or a gift which would impair religious toleration or academic freedom, or a gift which cannot be utilized without bringing new charges on the university itself. The trustees must endeavor to divert benefactors away from any such gifts as these and towards safe objects, or must procure modification of the terms of proposed gifts, so that these dangers may be avoided. . . . "A university should not be carried on, like a business corporation, with any policy of laying up undivided profits, or of setting aside unused income for emergencies or future needs. On the contrary, it should endeavor to expend all its available income. While it should never live beyond its means, it has no call to accumulate for the benefit of future generations. For enlargements, new equipments, and the occupation of new fields of usefulness, it should rely on new endowments or new annual receipts; or, if it be a State university, on new appropriations. In en- deavoring to use all its proper income, it may sometimes incur a deficit; but it should forthwith take measures to prevent the recurrence of such a deficit, since habitual deficits, however incurred, must be charged either to past endowments which ought to be held unimpaired, or to future resources which are only hoped for. Each of these methods is objection- able in itself, and each sets a bad example to educational, charitable, and religious institutions." Financial Reports and Audits Tax-supported institutions are required by law to print annually a detailed statement of receipts and disbursements. These state- ments in many cases are merely a, list of vouchers, serving few of the proper purposes of a financial report. Of endowed institu- FINANCIAL REPORTS 151 tions President Pritchett says: "The great mass of institutions of higher learning in the United States bearing the name college or university make no public accounting of the disposition of the moneys which they receive." Educational sincerity and power are connected in many ways with a clear and open acknowledgment of financial responsibilities and limitations. From every point of view it is good policy to publish full and clear reports, in which revenues and expenses are grouped under truly significant head- ings. Mr. William A. Dyche, Business Manager of Northwestern University, pointed out some years ago a very practical advantage secured to Harvard University by the character of its financial reports. The praise is merited by the feature expressly referred * . -.,-: rfS*,V,.f.. tl .? to, if not for everything one should "wish to know" : "President Eliot of Harvard was, I am told, the first educator who gave attention to the business office of his university. Under his direction the reports of Harvard University are models. You can learn anything you wish to know about the finances of Harvard by reading the annual report of its treasurer. Such a report, showing a long list of investments of endowment funds, with the interest earning of this year compared with that of the preceding year, inspires confidence. The prospective donor who reads one of Harvard's reports will never be afraid to trust it with his money." Are the accounts of your endowment funds so kept that the rev- enue from each is shown? Is the uninvested portion of each fund shown and reported so that it may be made interest bearing with- out delay? Is the rate of interest of each investment shown, so that it may be a guide for future investments ? If you hold bonds bought above par, are you writing off each year the part of the premium corresponding to the number of years until their matur- ity? If you have an eye to "prospective donors,'' not to mention other reasons, these questions should have affirmative answers. There is no need for detailed uniformity in the bookkeeping and published reports of different institutions; but it would be very advantageous for comparisons much needed by every institution, if 152 FINANCIAL REPORTS all of them would make the report forms recommended by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching* a genera] basis for their reports and the corresponding accounts in their bookkeeping. Some reformers will go to injurious extremes, aping industrial costs accounting, but there are certain things in which all would naturally agree. The comparisons with other institu- tions that could be thus made available would be very serviceable. Speaking of such classifications of expenses, President Pritchett says: "What are the significant items of expense of a college? What group- ing of the numerous items of expenditure will give some fair estimate of the character of the college's method of expending its money? "It is clear that the answer to this inquiry is fundamental, and that it cannot be given wholly from the standpoint of an accountant. There is no gain to be had by presenting a series of statistics unless they warrant some conclusion concerning the operations which the expenditures rep- resent. "It seems clear, however, that a group of men composed in part of college officers and teachers, in part of the financial trustees responsible for administration, could agree upon such items as are significant. For example, a trustee of the college, as well as a student of education, would alike desire to know what part of the income of the college is spent in the payment of teachers' salaries, and what salaries the various grades of teachers receive. "Again, each of these would desire to know what the expense of a given department is and how much of this expense went into the employment of teachers, how much into laboratory or library maintenance." President Pritchett mentioned "another question" which he be- lieved could and should be answered by the accounts kept, to-wit, "the relative cost of that part of the university's work which goes to teaching and that part of it which goes to research." I do not believe that question could be truly answered by accounts. "Standard Forms for Financial Reports of Colleges, Universities, and Technical Schools" Bulletin Number Three. FINANCIAL REPORTS 153 It is impossible to draw lines between teaching and research, and it seems to me that it would not be desirable to do so if it were possible. Even those researches undertaken primarily by the teacher on his own account have much to do with his teaching, and almost always draw into them either graduate or undergraduate students. It is sufficient if the salaries, and the expenditure for equipment,* and the expense for supplies, etc., are distinctly given for each department. In a different connection, and a year later, President Pritchett himself points out that, "in the field of re- search, no consistent correlation between work and expense is feasi- ble" : "There is apparently a realm to which the industrial point of view is obviously inapplicable. The manufacturer must know in terms of dollars and cents the actual cost of every step he takes and of every product he turns out; and even when he carries on some particular form of activity at a loss, it is on the basis of a calculation that he will create ultimately a market sufficiently large to convert the loss into final gain. In the upper regions of academic activity, namely, in the field of research, no such close or consistent correlation between work and expense is feasible. . . . The ultimate outcome of an expensive research may be slight, just as the ultimate outcome of an inexpensive research may be extremely precious or profitable. . . . There is, then, one area within which the industrial organizer may have much to tell our college administrator. There is at the far end another within which he may achieve nothing." The "realm to which the industrial point of view is inapplicable" is, indeed, apparent; but it seems to me that it is not confined to any area at one far end. A realm that cannot be rightly subjected to the industrial point of view extends into every sphere of the interests of an educational institution. The truer metaphor would compare the reality with overlapping jurisdictions: nowhere is the business management without some jurisdiction, everywhere the supreme jurisdiction inheres in the spiritual aim. *The usual confusion of equipment and supplies in one account is unskill- ful and very unsatisfactory. 154 AUDITS It is not enough to publish clear financial reports. The reports should be certified by a public accountant after thorough examina- tion of the books and checking of all vouchers. For such an audit only a competent and reliable and independent auditor should be engaged. Universities ought to set the example of calling in for this periodical service preferably men holding the degree of Certi- fied Public Accountant. The Chartered Accountant has been a recognized and indispensable profession in Europe for centuries, but it was not until 1896 that the State of New York enacted the firet law in the United States creating the title of Certified Public Accountant and authorizing its universities to grant the degree of C. P. A. Such laws do not forbid those who are not certified public accountants to practice as accountants, but they do, as far as possible, enable the public to choose men of reliable character and sufficient knowedge, if they wish to do so, when financial records and statements need to be audited and certified. California, Illi- nois, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington and other States have enacted similar laws. "In May, 1903," says Mr. Eeck- itt, "the Illinois legislature passed the C. P. A. law for this State, and conferred upon the University of Illinois the privilege of granting the degree of C. P. A. to those who could qualify. The University has taken up this fresh duty with its usual energy/"' Mistaken Analogies The volume entitled "Academic and Industrial Efficiency/' pre- pared by Mr. Morris Llewellyn Cooke, member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, issued* by the Carnegie Founda- tion, mingles with some good suggestions, advice, that, if followed, would lead a university into deleterious practices. It is very evi- dent, as President Pritchett explains in a preface, that Mr. Cooke's "study is offered from the viewpoint of one outside college work." He also explains that the "study is commended, without 'Bulletin Number Five. MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 155 discussion as to its merits, to the thoughtful examination of college officers, trustees, and teachers, as a friendly at- tempt to contribute to the solution of college problems from the standpoint of one who has to do with industrial efficiency, and with- out any preconceived opinion as to how far the analogy which its title suggests may be pushed. The college is partly a business and partly something very different from a business." Any criticism of existing mismanagement may lead to good, by directing atten- tion to the need of some reform; but advice should be critically considered. There are practical dangers in this case that the well-intended advice of an industrial-efficiency expert may be fol- lowed, in thoughtless haste to be 'doing things/ to the undoing 'of a university. Lack of space forbids comprehensive criticism of Mr. Cooke's observations from his "standpoint of industrial efficiency." S-everal points are mentioned as warning examples. He insists that all overhead expense should be apportioned among the respective de- partments of instruction, the charge against each being proportional to the amount of salaries paid in it; that the cost of heating be charged to the departments in proportion to the area of floor space, respectively occupied by them; that water, gas, and electricity be metered for each building and charged to the departments in proportion to their use of the building; that each department be Kf F(*, / H i"J"|*"' -vr/r ; !;> f|v-. charged with four per centum of the value of land and buildings (or parts thereof) and fixtures and equipment used by it, as inter- est on investment; and that four per centum of the value of lands and buildings held for the common good, and all cost of maintain- ing libraries, gymnasiums, etc., and deficits caused by commons, dormitories, etc., be prorated and charged against the teaching departments as overhead expenses are charged. The prime purpose of ascertaining from such accounts the "cost" of each department seems to be to learn the excess of receipts over the cost. The thoughtful reader here pulls himself together. Eeceipts ? Ah, 156 MISTAKEN ANALOGIES friends, a little difficulty like that is nothing to an industrial organ- izer of a university. Mr. Cooke animadverts : "Anyone investing money in a business has an opportunity of judging the management by the profits earned. In the same way, a man who is at the head of a business can devote much or little time to the supervision of any one department with the thought that at a given date the books will be closed and the management of that department will be fairly accurately reflected in the excess of receipts over costs." He 'looks in vain" in the accounts and records of colleges and univer- sities for any receipts to balance against the costs. Horrors ! We must find "some gauge or measure." ''Before any progress is pos- sible some selection must be made." Let us take, he says, "as per- haps the most immediately available unit the student-hour." Now. we may keep books that are books. N"ow the business manager can tell what his receipts are. For be it understood, Mr. Cooke deems this matter an affair of the "bursar, comptroller, or business mana- ger the latter title seems to describe what I believe should be his general functions better than any other." And he opines: "If the student-hour were adopted and an effort made to keep track, not only of the details of cost per student-hour in each of the depart- ments, but of the receipts as well, this officer would have a large field of usefulness open to him." Simply divide the net cost, thus obtained, by the number of student-hours, and we shall be able to judge what we are getting for our money. The business manager i? put in a position to give the needed advice for adjusting the number of courses offered, the number of instructors, and the salaries_ in every department. Invaluable student-hour! Mr. Cooke protests at several points, en passant, that he knows that "the cost per student-hour has absolutely no value in distin- guishing educational values," nevertheless it seems to him that the student-hour (or some other yet to be invented unit) must be used as a gauge or measure of efficiency, in the manner and for the pur- MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 157 poses described, "before any progress is possible." In my judg- ment, on the contrary, that way disaster lies. I submit that it is sufficient for good business management and proper financial reporting, to classify the expenses of general man- agement in suitable accounts; and to keep accounts with each de- partment showing the expenditure for its maintainance under suit- able headings, such as salaries, equipment, supplies, expense analyzing the last as desirable, for instance, the printing and dis- tribution of bulletins in some departments should be a distinct item of expense. The prorating of overhead expenses, interest on the cost of buildings, etc., would serve no good purpose, and the re- sults would probably be misused. The chief use Mr. Cooke would make of student-hours is the most dangerous of his proposals. It is equally mistaken to use the student-hour to measure the labor and diligence of teachers; but the false assumption that the number of student-hours measures results and that the cost per student-hour, therefore, measures "efficiency," menaces more serious practical consequences. The former error is so palpably absurd that it could hardly be applied except as an adjunct to the latter, to add insult to injury. For instance, if overseers and critics imagined that a teacher who was conducting four courses, each attended by ten students three hours a week (120 student hours), was doing only half as much work as another who taught four courses., each attended by twenty stu- dents three hours a week (240 student-hours), that foolish opin- ion could hardly, by itself, lead to more than jealous and unjust thoughts and feelings. But if the same facts should be made a basis for the belief that (at the same salary) the first teacher was costing the institution twice as much as the second, and that the results or the receipts for human society were in the same propor- tion, then many injurious acts would follow. If a college or uni- versity calculated and published, as an established practice, the 158 MISTAKEN ANALOGIES cost per student-hour for each department, practical abuses would inevitably follow. The fear of just such misconceptions (especially on the part of regents and legislators), has led the majority of universities to withhold facts that ought to be known. One cannot learn from catalogs (often not by special inquiry) even the number of stu- dents enrolled in a department. The danger feared by administra- tors is real, but in my judgment the concealment usually practiced is a mistake. The number of students attending each course in each department ought to be published. I do not believe that jus- tifiable departments or courses would often be abolished. Ill-con- BM- Si. : sidered attacks might be made, and sometimes ignorance might pre- BBI-' .E ; <; . I vail; but in general, intelligent defense would win, and even fail- ure would mean no moral defeat, no inner catastrophe. The num- ber of students attending each course is a simple fact that should be considered directly in each case. Incongruous numerical opera- tions producing numbers miscalled salary per student-hour, cost per student-hour, efficiency, etc., will never be emploved bv those who understand what ought to be considered in determining whether a course or a department should be maintained or not. If it be decided on proper grounds that the course should be offered, then it follows in the right management of the business of a university, regardless of the number of student-hours, that the cost of the work should be whatever is necessary to do it well. In some courses the number of students affects the cost, in others (within limits) it does not affect the cost, and for no course is the cost proportional to the number 01 students. And never is the number of students (or student-hours) a "gauge or measure" of the value of the results. If two universities approximate the same size and maintain approximately the same colleges and schools, the quotient ob- tained by dividing total expenditure by number of students affords a legitimate basis for a rough comparison of their standards of MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 159 maintenance.* That quotient is a fact, and has some significance; but it is thoughtless to name it "COST per student." It is astonish- ing that university authorities who conceal the enrollments in their departments, lest the facts should be misused, commonly dessemi- nate the very misconception they fear, by publishing arguments for increased support in which they use the misleading term "cost per student" to name the fact Income Divided by Number of Students. The reader needs only to be reminded that every univer- sity and everv asrricultural college must expend considerable sums on scientific research, experiment stations, surveys, museums, bulle- tins, and "extension" services of great variety. In some cases thousand of persons not included in the number of students are taught by correspondence. Many other services to the State and to individuals, besides teaching students during the regular term of enrollment, might be mentioned. Let the number of students in each course be published in catalogs ; let the cost of maintaining each department be published in financial reports. That is suffi- cient. The cost "per student" rarely needs to be considered, and then only in a true sense by experts who know to what extent the cost of the department in question would be affected by a given increase or decrease in the number of its students. For general pub- lication, or for the uses advised in the imposing monograph we are discussing, the very idea is pernicious. And the figures as there derived are either erroneous or meaningless. The certified accountant, Mr. Eeckitt, in his discussion of Busi- ness Methods in Universities, also "from the viewpoint of one out- side college work," proves the possibility of understanding these matters whether viewed from without or from within. He mentions that the total cost of operation per capita may be useful for some *The average for a number of institutions of the same class gives a better basis. See "A Study of the Financial Basis of the State Univer- sities and Agricultural Colleges in Fourteen States," by Arthur Lefevre, issued by the Organization for the Enlargement by the State of Texas of Its Institutions of Higher Education. 160 MISTAKEN ANALOGIES comparisons "if carried out understandingly," and then explains: "Unlike the ordinary factory or construction company whose sole end is to manufacture and construct at the lowest cost, we may compare the college or university to the manufacture of some spe- cially fine piece of machinery or tool, where the cost of the material or workmanship upon it is not a consideration, or to the construc- tion of a palace or temple where the cost of marble is only a consid- eration in so far as the amount of money raised for its erection must not be exceeded. The output of the college or university is the most wonderful piece of machinery known the brain ; and what is more important still, the temple it constructs, the character it builds, is fashioned after the likeness of God. Therefore the cost of tuition per capita cannot be a consideration in the same manner as other operation expenses, except in so far that the total amount expended must be in conformity with your revenues." Mr. Cooke prints a table giving "Expense per Student" and "Receipts per Student" for nine schools or colleges of Yale Univer- sity. Those units, he says, are too large, and claims that the smaller units, department and student-hour, would enable one "to separate those items of expense which should be the same for all departments from those which necessarily vary in the different departments." Would they? Consider: Two departments "pro- ducing" the same number of student-hours show a different cost per student-hour. If you make the unwarranted assumption that this fact proves that the difference is due to "necessary" fac- tors, how are you enlightened as to what items of expense ought to be the same? If you do not make that assumption, how are you told what items ought to be different ? Accounts tell the authorities whether the salary of a law professor or a professor of medicine exceeds that of some academic instructor; they could tell on Mr. Cooke's plan, the charge against each department for grounds and buildings et cetera; they can tell that cadavers and dissecting in- struments or chemical apparatus and reagents, have cost more than MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 161 the departmental library for economics; but neither the accounts nor the business manager (officially) can tell whether these facts ought to be as they are or otherwise. The data for Yale shows that the least "expense per student" is in the Law School ($177.14), and the greatest in medicine ($396.90), forestry ($469.39), and theology ($641.03) with "re- ceipts per student," of $122.86 in law, $130.22 in medicine; $119.17 in forestry; none in theology. Mr. Cooke says: "Earn- ings should be handled in the same way [as expenses]. Tuition fees should be prorated to the various departments in proportion to the amount of tuition furnished. If special fees are charged JL _as in laboratory work, the department receiving them should be given credit for this amount of earnings. In this way the gross and net expenses of each department can be figured out. If this is done, it will probably result in a material readjustment of the scale of charges now in force." If it is done, the probability is, indeed, as he states : that is the point I would have the reader ponder. If the excess of expense over receipts for tuition in each department be regarded as the net cost per student for that department, Yale University, according to Mr. Cooke, ought to be guided in its under- takings and policies by its business manager's report that the net cost per annum per student was $54.28 in law, $266.68 in medicine., $350.22 in forestry, $641.03 in theology. There is, it is asserted, somehow a "gauge or measure" of "efficiency" in these figures, or would be if we reduced the cost per student to cost per student- hour, which would probably suggest a still more shocking ineffi- ciency for medicine and forestry and theology. The revenue accounts should classify receipts from fees for tui- tion according to the terms* in which they are levied, and the facts *E. g., laboratory fees would show the departments in which they orig- inated, but a general fee for tuition in a college of arts and sciences, or school of engineering, would not be prorated to departments according to the courses taken by each student. 162 MISTAKEN ANALOGIES should bo reported in the statement of revenues. That is enough. The facts would be at hand if an occasion for examining any policy in view of them should arise. The account with each department would be simply the properly classified expenditures for its main- tenance. It would serve no good purpose to prorate all other ex- penses of the institution in charges against the teaching depart- ments, and credit their accounts by prorated tuition fees. An insidiously disorganizing spirit might spring from the false em- phasis and affirmative errors of such a practice. I say affirmative errors, because, in reality, the departments for which the fees are lowest have a large part (from the general attendance and prestige acquired by the institution through them) in earning the fees charged in other departments. The different fees charged for tuition in different departments, and free tuition in some, are questions of policy in the sphere of general administration. The differences do not, or should not, affect the work or the salaries in any department. I am constrained to point out one more misconception through which Mr. Cooke has darkened counsel. After measuring the prod- ucts of a university by the student-hour, he insists that the produc- ers must be estimated by means of time cards. We must get a unit for the working as well as for the work of these professors. The time spent with students, he avers, is "the equivalent of what is called the 'productive' time of other workers/ 3 With apologic- for the term "productive time." he continues: "In any study of the college teacher as a producer, his productive time, i. e.. the time he spends with his students, must be determined. ... In studying the efficiency of any worker one must determine, first, what the worker is employed to do ; second, it must be ascertained how much time he puts in on this work; and, third, it must be determined how relatively efficient he is while so engaged." The third conundrum has been disposed of by means of the student- hour. The first and second must be solved, else we sit in darkness. MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 163 With the usual kindly protestation!? of his recognition that there is "a background" of quality everywhere, and that laboratory hours should perhaps be weighted three to one in comparison with lecture hours, the industrial organizer blithely proceeds to investigate and estimate eighty-two university teachers in a model fashion : He decides that the time considered should be between eight a. m. and six p. m. for thirty teaching weeks. He explains : "Many of the professors desired to make a report on what they did with their time after six p. m., and others desired an opportunity to show what they did with their time in the summer months on research and in preparation for the next school year. ... It did not seem desirable to go outside of the hours between eight and six, which for the business and professional man is considered a working day." So? Is there here a lapsus linguae in saying "professional man" when the speaker was thi-nking 'factory hand' ? And aside from the '^working day" question, would Mr. Cooke (still recog- nizing quality in the "background'') consider it illuminating and important to ascertain the time spent on a physician's diagnosis, a surgeon's operation, a lawyer's opinion, a musician's symphony, a preacher's sermon ? But if university teachers are to be estimated by +ime cards, it makes little difference whether their superintend- ents consider the truth, or limit scrutiny to the hours between 8 a. m. and 6 p. m, they will get statistics, and business managers can "keep track" and advise, as easily one way as the other. The records, we are advised, should give analysis of the working day for every teacher as follows : HOUBS PER WEEK BETWEEN 8 A. M. AND 6 p. M. 1. Time Spent with Students. Laboratory Exercises only absolute appointments. Lectures. Recitations hours usually so devoted may be used for lectures. Consultations only regularly kept office hours. 164 MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 2. Time Spent on Research. Only hours followed with approximately the same regularity as the other heads. 3. Miscellaneous. Preparation for Lectures only time given regularly at same hour and same place each week. Preparation for Recitations. Preparation for Laboratory. Meetings faculty, committee, etc. Administrative. Correcting Papers, etc. Study. Bookwriting, etc. Such a table is made out for eighty-two subjects, who were warned : "Unless a high degree of accuracy is aimed at, the com- parison will lose much of its value." The data is reduced in a second table, which, it is affirmed, will "give an idea of the value of a 'productive' hour for each grade [of teachers]." The second table gives the salaries, and the "money value of time spent with students," etc. In the illustrative case the average annual salary for 20 full professors was $3800.00, giving average salary per teaching week $126.66; average salary per hour, $3.66; average salary per hour with students, $9.57. For assistant professors the figures $1954.00, $65.13, $1.83, $4.46; and for instructors $1236.00, $41.20, $1.20, $2.33, were obtained. If a reader having any knowledge of what college teaching is or ought to be, or of how it is done or ought to be done, sees, in spite of that knowledge, any propriety in such records, I do not know how to argue with him. Most of the items are absurdly untrue in their titles, for instance "preparation for lectures" is nowise ascer- tained by counting time spent thereon between 8 a. m. and 6 p. m. at the same hour and same place each week. That is utterly ab- surd. But even if all the time spent at different hours and places MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 165 could be known, nothing of any importance would be known about the teacher's preparation. A sense of humor would be helpful to save our universities from misapplied business methods. Gentle ridicule might be a better prophylactic against the adoption of inapplicable methods, than in- dignant argument. Mr. Cooke gives, unconsciously, a fine example of the genial wisdom of Dr. Eliot. At several points he mentions the difficulties he experienced at Harvard in finding out what he wanted to know in order to prorate to the teaching departments charges for interest on the value of lands and buildings, etc. At one point he reports a rejoinder by the president : "Dr. Eliot, then president of Harvard University, said: 'We try to come as near forgetting the value of our lands and buildings as possible.' ' : The humor of this, in the circumstances, was lost on the industrial engineer, but the story is a contribution to the sanity as well as to the gaiety of nations. It would have been better had the eighty- two college teachers laughed a little, instead of pleading to be allowed to tell what they did after 6 p. m., if respect for the high credentials carried by the inquisitor constrained them to fill out the time cards. The same request from any official of their own institutions should have been treated as all self-reliant men treated it at Harvard University, when some one in the business offices took it into his head last January to adopt some of the meas- ures recommended in the bulletin of the great Foundation, in which Mr. Cooke's advice is published. The present writer happened to be visiting at Harvard just after time cards had been sent to the faculty from the comptroller's office, with a request that "all time spent in the interest of the university" be recorded under certain headings. As far as I know the men smiled or frowned and threw the schedule blanks away, or put them aside as a curios- ity. The next day in New York I read the editorial in the Evening Post for Jan. 7, 1913, which was reprinted in Science for Jan. 17, 1913. I heard of no threats such as the paper alludes to, the 166 MISTAKEN ANALOGIES thing seemed to be regarded as too absurd and impossible not to be a mistake. Of course, some one, less cool and discrete, must have given the facts to the newspapers before the president had time to revoke the action of the business office. The editorial in the Evening Post was headed "The Efficiency Xostrum at Harvard." It is wise counsel, fitly spoken : " 'Harvard professors and instructors,' so goes a newspaper account, 'are thoughtfully rubbing troubled brows today while they ponder over an intricate network of blanks and spaces whereon Assistant Controller Taylor has requested them to record the exact disposition which they make of all time spent in the interests of the university.' The assistant controller states that he desires these data for the purpose of using them 'as a basis for prorating salaries to the various classified functions.' The assistant controller recognizes that the variations in such data due to the personal equation 'would make impracticable the direct use of these figures for the purpose of distributing salaries,' but nevertheless he is apparently of the opinion that they would be a comfortable thing to have, and so he asks for them. . . . "In sober truth, this news from Harvard is a very serious matter. . . . It ought to bring out from the Harvard faculty, and especially from the men of light and leading in that faculty, an impressive protest; and the most impressive form the protest could take would be that of a dignified but firm refusal to comply with the demand made upon them. . . . "To be a university professor has hitherto meant, in this country, as in all the world, to give to the university yourself your personality, your talent, your capacity to interest, to instruct, to inspire. Many pro- fessors have, to be sure, fallen short of fulfilling this ideal; . . . but the recognition of the personal nature of the professor's work, of a dis- tinctively personal measurement of his value, has never been abandoned. It is Agassiz, or Child, or Martin, or Gibbs, or Norton, or Gildersleeve not so many hours of their labor that Harvard, or Yale, or Johns Hop- kins has had the good fortune to possess; and every faithful and com- petent professor has a right to feel that the same is true of him in his degree. . . . "It is easy to accuse those who object to the introduction of this effi- ciency nostrum of being reactionaries upholders of the doctrine that what- MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 167 ever is is right. But it is still easier to reply to the accusation. Not because our universities and colleges are all that they ought to be, but because the proposed remedy is a crude and barbarous one, do we reject that remedy. "We ought to have more competent teachers, we ought to have more inspiring leaders of research; but we shall not get them by means of time checks or card catalogues. . . . When you have got all your time-card and efficiency-measure mechanism going, you may be able to compel every professor to come up to a certain standard; but you cannot compel the men whom you ought to have as professors to enter the calling. You may get the same amount of 'results' out of the faculties for less money, or a greater amount for the same money, so far as 'results' can be meas- ured by your mechanical methods; but what you have lost you will never be able to measure. And what shall it profit the university to have gained countless student-hours and experiment-units and to have lost what is highest and best in it?" And later: "President Lowell has sent to the members of the Harvard faculty a statement which amounts to something like a repudiation of the prepos- terous circular of inquiry issued several days ago in the name of the assistant controller of the university. A more complete repudiation would have been more welcome, but it should be safe to assume that Dr. Lowell's statement that 'answers were intended to be wholly voluntary' and that 'the recent circular was issued under a misunderstanding' means the end of this folly. The episode is one that Harvard should be glad to forget, except in so far as it drew out as it did, though we are not informed as to what extent threats of resignation on the part of men who had a proper conception of the professor's calling. It is humiliating to think that such a protest should have been made necessary at our country's most distinguished seat of learning; but as it has happened, we trust that the feeling of self-respecting professors has been made so manifest as to pre- clude the possibility of any resurrection of the foolish scheme." It has been duly explained that Mr. Cooke frequently pauses to assure the reader of his "sympathy with the spiritual significance of university life/' etc., and I do not fail to appreciate his good feeling and intention; but a physician's prescription is not sane- 168 MISTAKEN ANALOGIES tioned by affectionate regard for the patient. The question for this discussion has been simply whether or not the recommended practices would be good business methods for a university. It is not a question between no business methods at all, and the methods he proposes. I insist on the need of a correct management of the business of a college or university, as much as he does. But masterful knowledge of the business to be managed is an indis- pensable qualification for judging the propriety and usefulness of any procedure. Analogies are dangerous ground for judgments. It is true (to give one more instance), as Mr. Cooke says: "In the in- dustrial world it is considered essential to give a man some drill before he is allowed to sell books or a cash register;" but he errs in basing on that fact his suggestion of a "bureau of inspection" and an agency for "coaching in class-room methods" the younger instructors in a university. The analogy for a process or method could not hold, in any case, unless we wanted analogous results. We are familiar with the style of the "drilled" salesman of books and cash registers. An "academic-industrial" adviser must permit us to judge whether a style at all analogous would improve the efficiency of teachers. The style of the drilled and managed man is stamped on him. It should be understood, also, that the coached salesmen would be more efficient if they had learned to know their books or their cash registers and their public more gradually. The sales managers merely do the best they can to supply a substitute for a superior knowledge, and the "talking points" they give the sales- men are analogous, not to anything that could be done for univer- sity instructors by a class-room inspector, but to the studies of those instructors before they began to teach. The youngest university instructors have usually had at least six years of university life, studying under many different teachers and knowing student work and life at first hand. I recognize and deplore far more poignantly than Mr. Cooke seems to do the shortcomings of many college MISTAKEN ANALOGIES 169 '"lU*-!* teachers, but I know that a bureau of inspection and drilling would make matters worse. As to the time-cards, even if they were not positively injurious, they would have no bearing upon the actual fc- . - shortcomings. On the contrary, college teachers generally drudge too incessantly. Mr. Cooke himself observed this fact, and re- marks in another connection: "It is impossible to believe that men with so little relaxation do not suffer from excessive concen- tration." Lack of application, such as it may be, is not a considera" ble fault of college teachers. The real shortcomings of those who are at fault are of an entirely different order lack of scholarship, lack of vigor, native weakness of the mind's analytical powers, and the moral obliquities manifested by careless law-making and by violations of concrete justice or propriety in applying to in- dividuals overweening general rules for the government of stu- dents.* Time-cards, or any form of surveillance, would aggra- vate the real troubles. The true administrative remedies lie in (1) proper organization of the whole institution, (2) correct principles and proper care in making first appointments, and (3) a better discrimination of true worth in advancing indi- viduals to higher positions pr otherwise conferring prominence and influence. Distressing as it may be to industrial engineers, it is impossible to measure the products of colleges and universities by any "units" whatsoever, nor is there any definite relation be- tween product and cost. President Pritchett wisely warns: "There is no gain to be had by presenting a series of statistics unless they warrant some conclasion concerning the operations which they represent." *In almost every faculty there are some individuals who in their de- meanor toward students, even more than in the formal measures they advocate, manifest a total ignorance of the respect due to the proper privacies of personality upon which manly responsibility and self-reliance must be founded. Upon such respect of personality all that mankind has deemed good manners and reliability of character, whether in prince or peasant, has hitherto been founded and maintained. 170 SUGGESTIONS Suggestions It ought to be borne in mind that if a proper business manage- ment had not been neglected by many colleges and universities, there would be no occasion for the outcry that has been raised against their obvious omission, or for the mistaken advice of some who have been called to counsel. The blame if blame need be spoken of rests upon neglectful regents and presidents and fac- ulties. It is to the sick man that prescriptions and diagnoses are offered by friends and acquaintances. The splendid series of bul- letins and annual reports issued by the Foundation for the Ad- vancement of Teaching have given a great deal of truly expert ad- vice, and have been very serviceable. Even this bulletin publishing Mr. Cooke's study of "Academic and Industrial Efficiency" offers many criticisms that should be heeded. His ideas aJbout measuring and securing efficiency, and methods of cost-analysis are doubtless mistaken for a university based on false analogies ; but the follow- ing running references show that Mr. Cooke observed and under- stood some things to which college authorities need to give intelli- gent attention : "The proper functions of the board of directors would be, for instance, to select, after having proper evidence presented to it the broad and general type of management. . . . They should not mess into the detail of the personnel. . . . Nor should they vote a reduction of wages or an increase of wages contrary to the leadership of the president. . . . The president should lead his board rather than be a tool to be guided by them in detail; and when it becomes impossible for the president to lead in the carrying out of the general policy of the board, another man should be selected for the head of the business who is competent to lead them. . . . "At Princeton, while as a matter of practice the departments were allowed to attend to the details and only occasionally were they upset the most unintelligent counsel prevailed at times on matters of real moment. In other words, there were no bounds to the authority of those 'higher up' when they cared to use it. One or two committees of the SUGGESTIONS 171 board of trustees had the power to enter almost every nook and corner of the educational structure. This inspection of course would be all right excellent if it were made for the purpose of seeing that the general policies were being carried out; but too frequently there is no permanent general policy and these acts are the promptings of personal whims or prejudices. Everyone from the president down told me that committee management was adopted because it was a democratic form of government. The result struck me as being a far cry from real democracy." "The world's experience in all directions has demonstrated the utter impracticability of doing successfully executive work under the manage- ment of a body of men either large or small. A committee of one is the best committee to have in charge of executive work. . . . Almost invariably under committee management there is the spectacle of three or more men wasting precious time in deciding questions outside their own fields, which could be better and far more quickly decided by a single expert, whose time might be worth less than that of any one of the three or six men on the committee. . . . "After having seen both the military type of management and committee management, apparently each at its best, the writer is convinced that, in the educational world as in the industrial world, neither of them will give the best results. The way out lies through functional management." "If there is one thing that stands out as an example of inefficiency, it is the degree of use to which college buildings are put. ... I found one magnificent lecture hall on the second floor of a building, standing on land worth approximately twenty-five dollars a square foot, in use six hours a week and this is an institution which is undoubtedly handicapped for [by] lack of room. . . . "The management of all buildings should be in the hands of some central authority.* ... A professor in one department has not the information about the conditions in another department that would make it possible for him to lend the rooms or borrow them to advantage. This is what they are supposed to do now, and there is little of it done. . . . "One measure that will make possible a larger use of rooms is the ahift- *Mr. Cooke would put rooms up to auction to the departments at charges scaled to desirability, in his system of charging to the teaching depart- ments all expenses and interest on all grounds and buildings; but I am now quoting only his good ideas. 172 SUGGESTIONS ing of the hours at which certain lectures and recitations occur. It used to be accepted that all recitations must occur in the morning and labora- tory practice in the afternoon. Gradually this old order has been more or less modified, but if a central authority had to pass on all schedules and would study each with regard to its relations to all the others and to the buildings, much further progress could be made." "At the University of Toronto, after every laboratory exercise the appa- ratus which has been in use by the students is put away. If it is bulky and the table large, the apparatus is placed at the far end of the table and lined up with it. A neat unbleached muslin covering is then placed over it. In other words each section leaves the laboratory free for the use of any section that comes after it and the remarkable part of this is that in this particular laboratory there is so much space that there is no necessity for its conservation. It is done I was informed largely out of consideration for the development of the characters of the students and to teach them habits of neatness. I have never seen such a well- ordered building anywhere. Any industrial establishment with which I am familiar can learn from the Physics Department of the University of Toronto in the matter of housekeeping. Every other laboratory I visited had more or less to criticise in this respect." "Nearly every department has a policy it is working on or some field peculiar to itself that it is trying to cover. And yet in studying their literature it is very difficult oftentimes to discover this. ... At no two of the colleges visited was the same system for designating courses in use. Several of these systems were almost impossible for an outsider to understand. ... It was suggested to me that in some of these matters it will be better to design an entirely new system than to attempt to build even on the best of those now in use. . . . The editors of college catalogues must learn that it is not enough to state a thing correctly, but it must be stated so that the average person who reads it can under- stand it." "At Columbia University they have adopted the plan of trying to emphasize the importance of dealing with each student individually . . . rather than dealing with the students in masses. . . . "At the last college which I visited, almost the opposite policy was in operation. Every time the students were mentioned there were evidences that the teachers had in mind the students' scholarly inferiority and way- SUGGESTIONS 173 wardnese. The difference in these two attitudes was as concrete- as any- thing I encountered." "Increase in the efficiency of the teaching staff will he obtained through such specializing as will come as the result of functional management. Without a more careful analysis, it is impossible to predict the extent to which this can be carried. There are some things, however, that are clear. During the interviews which the writer had with college pro- fessors, he found them spending time in taking inventories, keeping track of appropriations, mimeographing examination papers, and handling routine correspondence. These things are clerical work, and should be handled outside of the teaching field, and not as a part of the teacher's duties. In addition, there are many other things, including management of the buildings and departments, which might easily be centralized and done by officials who can devote their time exclusively to them. Such changes would leave the professor more time for the work for which he is espe- cially fitted." It has been a matter for wonderment by many critics, that any sort of acquaintance with college work should not have made it plain to governing boards, to say nothing of presidents, that a professor's time is too valuable to be spent on mechanical details of administrative and clerical work for which suitable arrangements could be made so easily at less expense. It is extravagant pecun- iarly and wasteful of the essential resources of the institution to compel its most highly paid and most important workers to con- sume a large part of their time in doing things that would be better done by other workers. It is the plain demand of common business sense, dependent upon no false analogy, that the teaching departments be given such clerks as would release the teachers from time-consuming tasks that a young office assistant could do as well as a member of the faculty. Also, under proper functional division and management of the affairs common to all or many departments, much clerical work that now wastes the time and strength of a hundred members of the faculty would be attended to in several central offices. By a slight increase of clerical force 174 SUGGESTIONS the work would be performed more effectively, and hitherto wasted time and energy of teachers would be added to the truly effective forces of the institution. Of course, all arrangements should be instituted and conducted so as to relieve and help the teaching departments without hindering or interfering with their proper work and freedom. If the business management of such an institution as a university is rightly understood, it will always be possible to make arrange- ments satisfactory both to the workers in the teaching depart- ments and the offices of administration. The latter should exist only to serve the former. There is no open dispute about the theory of the last statement, but it has been too long assumed that practice comports with the theory. As a matter of fact, the very whims of administrative departments commonly override interests which administration ought to subserve. Many a time the real or fancied convenience, or ill-conceived idea, of some clerk has been the true origin of an executive order, inconsiderately issued by regents, president, or dean, imposing upon the professoriate some onerous and exasperating requirement. It is time that the truth about such things should no longer be suppressed by feelings of loyalty or charity. It is, indeed, more pointedly to the interest of university presidents than university professors, that the risrht function and spirit of administration should be fully recognized by all concerned. There is perhaps no more distinguished efficiency engineer than Mr. Harrington Emerson. I am not aware that he has ever con- sidered the organization and administration of colleges and univer- sities; but one who knows how to discern the spirit and caliber of a man from his discursive literary expression upon any subject, may infer from Mr. Emerson's v/ritings on industrial efficiency that he would not fail to keep in mind the nature and purposes and proper conditions of educational work and scholarly research, if he were consulted about institutions of higher education. SUGGESTIONS 175 "Ideals must precede selective action," is his fundamental predica- tion, and "Know the spirit rather than the externals of your busi- ness/' is one of his maxims. In his most recent hook, Twelve Principles of Efficiency (1913). he makes "Clearly Denned Ideals" the first of the twelve principles. He understands too: "It is not either the right or the privilege of the Efficiency Engineer to set up ideals of morality, goodness, or beauty . . . but he has a right to expect that some definite ideal will be set up so that at the start its possible incompatability with one or more of the efficiency principles may be pointed out." An ideal to which profits are made subsidiary may be, he says, "an admirable foun- dation on which to build a highly efficient organization, for, in corporations as in individuals, what is the profit of gaining the whole world if the soul is lost ?" The following running quotations from the book will suggest how one expert student of organiza- tion and efficiency in general, might criticise the management of universities: "There have always been two types of organization, types that Mr. F. W. Taylor characterizes as functional and military. . . . [Yet] it is von Moltke's tremendous gift to the world that, although a soldier hampered by tradition, he applied to the army the functional type of organization." "Having two forms of organization to choose from only two, the destructively offensive and the constructively defensive we chose for our industrial organization the destructively offensive type, and it does not work out, never can and never will." "The defective wolf-pack type of organization which still controls Ameri- can railroads, American industrial plants, is one in which a chief issues arbitrary orders to his subordinates expecting them somehow or other to execute them. The perfected organization for industrial upbuilding and efficiency is one in which specialists formulate the underlying principles, instruct as to their application, and relentlessly reveal both their observ- ance and neglect." "It is all one and the same thing, as they are all victims of a common type of organization resting on the same principles individual arbitrari- 176 SUGGESTIONS ness at the top, and delegated power down the line, anarchy everywhere. . . . We who know could fill volumes with modern illustrations of the ever outcropping evils due to the destructive type of organization." "The president was not to blame. He had to make a decision, and he did not have an organization around him, over him, under him, that auto- matically prevented this mistake, equally disastrous to his company, to his employes, and to himself." "The tonnage mania has wrought havoc when applied by lesser geniuses who, instead of thinking and planning and organizing, clamor for more equipment. . . . Most plants are over-equipped." "Industrial arbitrariness by the superintendent, delegated and usurped power in the foreman, anarchy all along the line." "The chief efficiency counselor would initially advise as to type of organization, he would ascertain what the ideals were and strive for their realization." "Many of the older executives must today not only fulfil their own duties, but in addition see that the inexperienced one-sided specialists do not cause more trouble than they cure." "The first study of any organization is to find out to what extent the other prinicples have been applied to the first prinicple, Ideals.' . . . No efficiency principle stands alone, each supports and strengthens all the rest." "Efficiency, like hygiene, is a state, an ideal, not a method; but in America we have sought our salvation in methods." "The spirit of a place is intangible, but counts for more for evil or good than all rules and punishments combined. . . . Under the best management there are scarcely any rules and there are fewer punishments." "There is at least one large business aggregation in the United States in which a strike is unthinkable because it is a coveted privilege to be admitted to it as a worker, a catastrophe to be cast out, and so high is the morale that the workers themselves make and maintain standards of conduct far stricter than any usual employer would dare to enforce, although he may print and post rule after rule." "The way to guard against trouble is to make the position desired by a superior man, to allow it to be filled only by a superior man, to maintain the position at a high level." "It is really very much easier to apply a few principles than to remedy several million defects. The easiest way is to forget these defects in the SUGGESTIONS 177 past, ignore them for the present, but constantly obviate them for the future." "We must reverse the administrative cycle. . . . The employer exists solely to make effective the totally different function of the em- ploye. . . . An incompetent head, if supplemented by a perfect organ- ization, will often do little harm. . . . An inferior leader, relying on defective organization, without ideals, is bound to go down in defeat and to drag down with him all that he controls." "It has often happened that in industrial plants where high efficiencies were being obtained, visitors confounding system with efficiency have come, have collected devices, cards and forms, have gone away supposing they had the secret of efficiency. It is as if a man should appropriate a lawyer's library and think this made him proficient in the law. There are millions of devices, forms, cards; no one can grasp them all, understand them all, and the chances are that not one of them will exactly fit in an untried place." "Strenuousness and efficiency are not only not the same, but are antag- onistic. To be strenuous is to put forth greater effort, to be efficient is to put forth less effort. . . . All around us, everywhere nature has been showing us that increased result comes from lessened effort, not from greater effort, but we have been too stupid to understand. . . . We have non-reasoned back from results to effort, and concluded that effort should be gauged by result, which is in accord with one set of experiences but wholly contrary to the larger experience." "In striving for industrial efficiency of operation, we have made pleas for a different type of organization the defensive, constructive organiza- tion instead of the offensive, destructive organization; we have made a plea for definite high ideals instead of indefinite low ideals; we have made a plea for supernal common sense instead of near common sense." "To select an upbuilding constructive organization, carefully to deter- mine and adhere to ideals, constantly to survey every problem from a lofty instead of near point of view, to seek special knowledge and advice wher- ever they can be found, to maintain from top to bottom a noble discipline, to build on the rock of the golden rule, of the fair deal these are the general problems which supernal common sense must immediately solve. . . . It is impossible to lay down rules or to give sp?cic directions as to how we shall convert prejudice and ignorance from without, near common sense within, into supernal common sense." 178 REGISTRAR'S OFFICE "Twelve principles of efficiency! We began with ideals, we end with ideals. Men must have ideals or they cannot do good work; there must be possibility of highest efficiency reward or neither senses, nor spirit, nor mind is stimulated. He who would take ideals from the world's workers, he who would deprive them of the lure of individual reward for individual efficiency, would indeed make them brother to the ox." Registrar's Office If the real business of a college or university were rightly con- ceived, the proper function of a registrar's office would be regarded as the most important record-keeping department of the institu- tion. As far as records can guide a wise administration, those that ought to be provided by the registrar would supply greater assistance than the financial reports. The latter are indispensable in order to keep enterprises within the bounds of pecuniary re- sources, but the purpose of a university is not to make money, and its work as undertaken is not directly helped by financial reports; whereas the registrar's reports should tell the central authorities, as far as reports can tell, what work is being done, and the regis- trar's records should give to teachers and disciplinary officers the information about each student that is often needed for rightly dealing with his studies or his conduct. It is significant of the perversions manifested in much of the advice given by industrial organizers, that the main use of records concerning students, in their opinion, is to enable a business manager to figure "cost per student-hour," etc. This, in truth, is worse than a perversion, it is a veritable subversion. Minute analyses of costs, such as have been considered in a previous section of this chapter, are an injurious mistake in the business management of a university. But the legitimate and necessary accounts recording expenditures, are of secondary importance compared with the records that should be kept by the registrar. That the office of registrar is so vaguely conceived and so care- lessly unsystematized, is one of the grave indictments against col- REGISTRAR'S OFFICE 179 lege faculties and presidents exhibited in existing conditions. We need not consider those weaker colleges which have no registrar, in which the president or dean or some professorial hack keeps some lists chiefly for making reports to parents. Consider only the institutions that pay for the officer and the office, and yet cannot tell the numher of regular students, the number of condi- tioned students, the number of special students, or the number enrolled in any department. What is the moral purport of the fact that so many universities, including some of the largest and best supported, publish deceitful statements about the number of their students? In such statements it is often impossible to diiferentiate from regular students girls taking piano lessons, or farmers' boys taking a several-weeks course in cheese making. I have written and telegraphed to the registrars of state universities begging to be told the number of students enrolled in a certain department, and have been answered that the registrar did not have at hand and could not readily discover the information re- quested. The first thing to be determined about the registrar is his proper function and place in the organization. Prevalent faults of omis- sion and commission spring from thoughtless or illogical decisions of that question. With it rightly decided, many troubles would cease, and procedures would naturally flow in appropriate and more serviceable channels. In existing practice the most various re- sponsibilities and powers are imposed on registrars, and the office is often fundamentally misplaced in the organization. The funda- mental principle is correctly stated by President Eliot in his work on University Administration: "Every faculty should keep care ful records of the academic career and attainments of every student under its charge, and should found on these records its recommen- dations for the conferring of degrees, and of all other academic distinctions; and it should provide for the preservation of these records, and their secure transmission from century to century.' 7 180 REGISTRAR'S OFFICE President Eliot is regarded as the chief champion of what is called the strong presidential administration; but he is too clear minded not to place the registrar's office under its proper jurisdiction. It is inherently faculty business. The registrar's direct chief should be the dean of the general faculty, just as the accounting office should look directly to the business manager. If the registrar's office is made an appanage of the president's office, it is dislocated at the outset. If the president should conceive some improvement to be instituted in the registrar's office, he ought to recommend it to the dean, or in the faculty according to the nature of the de- sired orders. The registrar should receive his orders from the dean of the general faculty. It is advantageous to locate the offices of all the deans in prox- imity to the registrar's office, so as to avoid any need of duplicating records. But it is better to duplicate his part of the records for the conveniece of an isolated dean, than to break the completeness of the files in the registrar's office. If any branch of the institution is located apart from its main seat, a branch registrar's office should be there maintained, reporting to the main office its general statis- tics in accordance with the system adopted. It would carry us too far into details to discuss the particular facts that should be recorded in a satisfactory registrar's office. In his annual report for 1909 President Pritchett makes a brief com- ment on the college registration office, and offers a good suggestion concerning concert of action among the offices of college regis- trars : "It is not easy to steer midway between too much machinery and too little. The facts are, however, that while in some of the larger institu- tions the registration office deals in too many blanks and collects some useless information, in the main this work in both large and small institu- tions is done in an indifferent and unsystematic way. . . . There is no very general agreement as to just what facts a well conducted college should gather concerning its students and in what way these can be most simply recorded. ... In many colleges the simpler forms of regis- REGISTRAR'S OFFICE 181 tration and filing have not been introduced, and much labor is wasted in caring for material which, under modern methods, can be handled in a very simple and effective manner. "It seems clear that while the registration office and the registrar ought not to be burdened with unnecessary details, there are certain facts con- cerning all matriculated students which ought to be kept on file and accessible to any inquirer entitled to know them. It goes without saying that every college should keep in a simple and accessible form such facts as show the basis upon which a student is admitted and upon which he is promoted. ... I venture to suggest that colleges which have been lacking in this matter can profitably examine some of the simple and more effective forms of registration in use in many colleges, and a dis- tinct gain in uniformity and comparability of registration statistics could be had by some concert of action among registration offices as to the information which ought to be kept on file and as to the simplest and easiest way of doing this." The essentials are plain enough, and it is far better to keep a minimum clearly and effectively, than to attempt the vagaries that are often demanded by a certain sort of specialists as grist for their statistics mills. It would be a vast gain if the colleges would keep and rightly use the records for which they are directly responsible. They may pretermit dubious investigations of life-histories from ancestry and birth and continued beyond graduation, etc. Facili- ties of the registrar's office might be put at the disposal of some member of a department of sociology who wished to conduct such researches; but they are not a part of the business management for which the faculty is responsible, and which it is the function of the registrar to discharge under the faculty's orders and regula- tions. I believe that the incongruous functions and powers often com- mitted to registrars are a fruitful cause of mismanagement. In some universities the registrar is a sort of president's factotum, and is delegated to perform or to control almost anything that may come into the head of a president who regards himself as "the whole works" and is readv to assume instanter direct control of 182 ADVERTISING any function whatsoever. Some registrars are thus commissioned by presidents to make the schedule of lecture hours, to take entire charge of entrance requirements, etc. The things mentioned he- long to the faculty's jurisdiction, and in the procedures referred to the faculty is either wantonly overridden, or seduced into volun- tary dereliction. The faculty may properly instruct the registrar to deal with entrance requirements in so far as they are a matter of plain routine; but it is little short of unseemly to commit the professional responsibility and discretion involved in irregular admissions to a clerical office. That function distinctly belongs to the duties of the faculty's dean its chief executive officer. In the University of Wisconsin (three years ago, and probably still) the registrar passes on all admissions and his decisions are not subject to revision by the faculty. It is, of course, possible that the Wis- consin registrar is personally competent to exercise that professional discretion ; but, if so, it would seem wasteful of human material to use him mainly as a record keeper of enrollments and grade marks. Only exceptional conditions could justify such confusions of normal functions. In general the registrar's office should be a seat of cler- ical work, extended beyond its special function as convenient, but never made a seat of administrative authority or professorial dis- cretion. Advertising Any candid survey of the business management of colleges and universities must consider the methods of advertising that have been developed in recent years to such large proportions and im- moral propensities. A university's bureau of publicity is, and ought to be, an immediate adjunct to the president's office. The policies and conduct of the institution's direct appeals to the pub- lic are rightly placed under the hand of its chief executive officer. Nothing exposes to outside observers more intimately and clearly the real spirit and standards of the administration, than the style and matter of its deliberately framed and paid-for advertising. ADVERTISING 183 It is evident that in addition to catalogs and bulletins of infor- mation and financial reports, there is also a need of worthy publi- cations maintained by the university or its alumni, and of occasional contributions to the public press by responsible writers. After ex- plaining the need and value of such means for securing public knowledge of a university's activities and achievements, President Eliot expresses the opinion: "It is extremely doubtful if any of the ordinary forms of advertising do a university any good." The vices of college advertising inhere in competitive advertising, whether injected into proper publications, or issued as naked bids for students. It is not possible to ascertain from financial reports the amount of money spent on advertising. Distinctive advertising for the purpose of luring students is not distinguished from printing of every sort and necessary public notices of examination dates, etc. The founder of Leland Stanford Junior University directed that no part of his gift should be spent in advertising. The restric- tion was not improperly imposed on that definite source of the insti- tion's income, and it may exert a good moral influence; but it would be a mistake to attempt to prohibit advertising by any law or sweeping rule. Arbitrary prohibition would be inherently de- moralizing and would be circumvented. There are better and more effective incentives to right conduct. Forcible restraint may hold wretches in order, but cannot lead men to virtue. The Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has made extensive and prolonged study of college advertising. Its annual reports for 1909 and 1912 devote chapters to the subject. In the present study we need pay no attention to the excesses of the thoroughly fraudulent institutions that live by advertising, prom- ising every advantage of university education with no semblance of means to fulfill the promise. Some of these have recently been closed by the imprisonment of their presidents, following prosecu- tions by the federal postal authorities. We shall consider only repu- 184 ADVERTISING table institutions ; but it should be understood that his historical in- vestigations led President Pritchett to the conclusion that the weaker and younger took their advertising cue from the older and stronger institutions. Some conception of the practice and conse- quences of competitive advertising by colleges, and universities may be formed from the following very temperate discussion condensed from the two reports mentioned above : "One of the factors of American college and university management of rapid growth in recent years is the practice of systematic advertising. . . . The practice has assumed proportions which no one could have anticipated. . . . "Paid advertising by old and famous institutions of higher learning is t- apparently distinctively an American practice. One can scarcely imagine Balliol or Pembroke or the Universities of Berlin or Paris sending out the sort of advertising literature which Harvard and Chicago dis- tribute. . . . "Harvard College appears to have led in this matter, as in many others. The first advertisement of Harvard in the Atlantic Monthly was printed in February, 1870, and at that time occasioned much discussion as being a departure from old-time ideals of academic dignity. Since that day the habit has spread, the smaller and younger colleges taking their cue from the older institutions and painting the advantages of the college training in colors more and more glowing. A college which cannot equal Harvard's equipment finds it quite possible to outdo the university in its advertise- ments. . . . "One of the most common educational advertisements to catch the eye is that of the University of Chicago in connection with its correspondence department, which reads as follows: 'Home Study. The University of Chicago offers Correspondence Courses in over 30 subjects for Teachers, Writers, Social Workers, Ministers, Physicians, Bankers, and students desiring to finish either a High School or College course. One-half the work for a Bachelor's degree may thus be done. The University of Chicago, Div. W., Chicago, 111.' The suggestion contained in the last two lines concerning a degree earned in large measure by correspondence is rather more of a bid for candidates for degrees than is made by other institutions of corresponding dignity and scholarly standing. . . . ADVERTISING 185 "In the present crowded condition of the state universities of the central west one reads with some degree of wonder in a single edition of a New York paper formal advertisements of the Universities of Wisconsin, Mich- igan, and Illinois. . . . "Even a superficial examination of the practice of advertising shows that it has consequences of no mean order for the college and for education, "One of these has just been alluded to, namely, that in the competition by advertising the weakest college can outshine the strongest university. Thus, the Valparaiso University, which has recently begun to put adveri tisements into the magazines, having apparently been corrupted by the example of the older institutions, has a more alluring advertisement than some of the greatest universities. It boasts a larger enrollment and offers to meet the student at any stage of his education for less money than any other bidder. And yet this institution, notwithstanding the fact that it has given educational help to many who otherwise might never have got outside their home facilities, is not a university at all. It exists on the inequalities of our present educational organization. Unfortunately it is undertaking to do many things which it can only do badly; but in the advertising competition it has every advantage, for it keeps a depart' ment store. . . . "Another objection to formal advertising lies in the tendency to em- phasize and advertise the weakest part of an institution. This is the natural function of direct advertising whose purpose is to draw students to the courses which are not full. For example, after the Lawrence Scien- tific School changed from a school of science under its original teachers to a distinctive engineering school, it remained for a number of years a weak school, but during all this period it was the most advertised part of the university. When one sees a Harvard advertisement today he is not likely to find mentioned in it the strong and well established parts of the university, but the newly inaugurated school of business adminis- tration which has not yet found itself, but which attracts possible students with the inviting claim that 'training is specialized to prepare for the lines of commerce and manufacturing,' an advertisement strongly sug- gestive of the correspondence schools. "University publications under the advertising stimulus tend to assume more and more the nature of advertising reminders, not dignified or scholarly statements of the work and resources of a particular institution. Let any alumnus go over the literature he has received in the last year 186 ADVERTISING from his alma mater and see how much of it brings back the serious and scholarly side of university life and how much of it belongs to the side of promotion. "Still more far-reaching and influential is the advertising habit in affecting the organization of the university and its attitude to its own alumni and to the put c. Most advertising is indirect. Representatives of the university travel over the country and meet the pupils in secondary schools. University professors are sent on long journeys to meet possible students. The alumni are organized into groups which in large measure drop the natural and desirable social relations of alumni and become what are known in the west as 'booster' clubs. "Again, an employment bureau is organized and the student is urged to come to a given university on the ground that a position will be found for him upon graduation. . . . "The question of advertising comes down in the end to one not alone of good taste, but of far-sighted policy. . . . Most institutions have taken it up, if they have gone into it at all, without very much thought of the extent to which it may be carried, and often in response to the solicitations of advertising agents. It is when one comes to view the practice at large and notes the effect of the development of the advertising habit in the institutions themselves that he begins to have doubts as to its wisdom. There can be no question that it has lured into the colleges many men who were unfit. . . . Advertising so far as the student is concerned has been almost wholly bad. . . . No youth seeking a college educa- tion and no man looking toward the profession of law or of medicine ought to allow himself to be influenced in any measure by paid advertise- ments. ... To select the college or the medical school which one proposes to attend on the basis of paid advertisements is like selecting a wife through a correspondence bureau. . . . "On the whole I am inclined to doubt whether any advertising of a true university pays in the large sense other than that which comes from the presence of great scholars and teachers, the possession of adequate equip- ment, and the attendance of a homogeneous, alert, earnest student body. This conviction is reflected today in the attitude of the more thoughtful and far-sighted university presidents." Three years later the matter is taken up at still greater length in the last annual report, for the saddening reason that, "observa- ADVERTISING 187 tion in the interval seems to indicate that the objectionable use of advertising in education has grown steadily" : "To state in a few words what is the right function of advertising, so far as education is concerned, is not simple. Thisi is evident when one considers the conception of the term as currently used, that is, the publi- cation in the printed page, by the authorities of ti o university, of informa- tion with regard to it. Such a definition includes in advertising such publications as the annual catalogue, the circulars of information con- cerning work, announcements of the opening and closing of terms, state- ments of the equipment and facilities of the institution, reports of its financial condition, and all other publications pertaining to its work and to the opportunities that it offers to students. Such statements appear partly in publications issued by the institution, partly in magazines and newspapers, and at times, in articles prepared under the authority of the institution and furnished to newspapers. "It is clear enough that there is a legitimate use for the printed an- nouncements of a university and of the work that the institution does. The difficulty comes in drawing a line between that which is wise and right and that which is unwise and misleading. "A few principles may, I think, be laid down which should govern a college or university in dealing with this matter. An institution exercises a moral as well as an intellectual power, and the conditions that determine the nature of its use of advertising are founded partly upon moral con- siderations and partly upon those of academic good taste. "The first of these considerations I believe to be the determination that printed matter concerning an institution of learning shall be given out only for the purpose of enabling a possible inquirer to find what he seeks, never with the idea of attracting students in the competitive sense. "Secondly, in stating the facilities which the institution offers, every effort should be made to be clear, brief, and accurate, so that the inquirer may really gain from the printed statement some conception of the actual situation described. "Finally, in announcing the facilities which the college offers, the claims put forward should be sincere, honest, and modest. Modesty is an old- fashioned virtue, but there is none which becomes a college better, or which ought more truly to characterize the academic spirit. "One who examines with care the publications of even our best and 188 ADVERTISING strongest institutions will realize that these elementary conditions are seldom fulfilled. "For example, the catalogues and other printed circulars issued by the stronger universities are, in many cases, so intricate and so technically worded that the general reader can learn little from them. There are very few catalogues which would not gain enormously in clearness and availability by the mere process of exclusion and condensation. When, for example, catalogues approach the two and one-half pound bulk of that of the University of Minnesota, they become almost impossible. . . . "On the other hand, a brief yet adequate summary of the equipment and endowment, of the income and expenditures, such as has been recently included in their catalogues by the University of Virginia and the Catholic University of America, is most suggestive information for the parent and the student. Such statements usually appear only in the annual report of a university, if at all, and yet there is scarcely any other information which is more generally indicative of the real character of the institution. If the more pretentious colleges and universities which announce long assortments of courses should print side by side with these announcements the financial resources upon which they rely to carry out the work offered, few would be deceived by their exaggerated claims. Unfortunately, the parent or the boy who examines the high-sounding and attractive courses offered in the catalogues seldom inquires as to the actual means in hand for making good the promises. All colleges appear equally honest to him. "Perhaps there are few other places where the catalogues of all Ameri- can and Canadian colleges are studied more systematically than in the office of the Foundation, and with the purpose of obtaining information as to the actual work offered. It is through this experience that the Foundation speaks from the standpoint of one using the catalogues for the ends that they are supposed to serve. One cannot go through this work without considering whether the primary purpose of many of these publications is to afford correct information. Certainly there are few catalogues that would not be the better if rewritten from this point of view. Whose need is the publication to serve? Once this is consciously recognized, clearness, brevity, and accuracy are apt to follow. . . . "An . example of what ought to be shunned may be found in a recent circular of Reed College, at Portland, Oregon, which includes in its biographies of professors, editorships of college annuals, class votes on popularity, degrees that are expected, academic biographies of professors' ADVERTISING 189 wives, the number of their children, and, finally, portraits, which last are ever unsatisfactory intellectual documents. All of this savors of that form of professorial self-advertising which punishes itself by calling forth not admiration, but ridicule. This new and progressive institution might well have set a better example. . . . "A fair consideration of the tendencies now evident in our American colleges, and of the enormous number who are drawn into the colleges without preparation, will convince any candid inquirer that advertising has no legitimate use today in education in the United States beyond such straightforward, clear statements of the work offered as I have indicated. Advertising beyond that point is nearly always wrong, and in nearly every instance does harm. Any college advertising which aims to attract students to an institution or to a department because that institu- tion or department desires more students, is almost sure to be harmful. College advertising, on the other hand, ought to endeavor to make such an honest display of the institution's qualifications as will aid the student in a wise choice of the department or the institution best suited to meet his needs. The unfair side of such advertising is clearly shown by the almost universal tendency to advertise the newest and weakest part of an institution. A fair statement of an institution's equipment, endowment, expenditure; the cost to the student; the number, training, and scholarly accomplishment of its staff; its requirements for admission and grad- uation, these things are illuminating and helpful. Anything beyond this aims at institutional aggrandizement rather than student information. "Besides these direct methods of advertising, there are numerous others which are indirect, of which the most common have come to be the pub- licity bureau, the alumni organization, the honorary degree, and the free scholarship. "To deal with these agencies in full would require too great a space and go beyond the purpose of this statement, which has for its object not so much a complete account of the various methods of advertising as an endeavor to point out the spirit and tendency that are involved, and the necessity for the honest college to stand fairly toward it. "The publicity bureau may be helpful or harmful according to the spirit of its conduct. An honest, interesting, and clear account of work done in an institution can do only good, and the wider its circulation the better. On the other hand, a publication which purports to be scholarly can be made as sensational as the most advanced yellow journal could 190 ADVERTISING desire. Discoveries may be hinted at which arouse public expectation. Ordinary routine work may be described so as to appear the latest scientific research. A mediocre book may be exploited as of extraordinary merit. The entire effect and value of such an agency depends upon the spirit in which it is conducted. "The attitude of alumni associations toward the institution with which they are connected may be characterized in the same way. Such asso- ciations may become most helpful and stimulating to the scholarly and moral life of the college, or they may be transformed, and unfortunately too often are transformed into agencies for soliciting students and money. . . . "The conferring of honorary degrees may be justified upon many grounds, so long as these degrees are conferred with discrimination and justice, as they are in many of our institutions, but it would be difficult to understand the academic ground upon which some of the large and some of the small institutions confer these supposed honors. . . . "The use of fellowships and scholarships as a bait to draw students is a story too long to tell in a single paragraph. It is known of all college men, but the public does not realize the extent to which this trade has gone, for in many institutions it has become little better than a means of competition with neighbors. While in most cases the older institu- tions have been more careful in this matter in their undergraduate depart- ments, the distribution of fellowships in their graduate schools has gen- erally gone on merrily. Without these bids, very many graduate schools would be entirely bereft of students. Every institution should state, in its financial report, the exact number of students to whom it gives free tuition, and in each case some sort of accounting should be made to the trustees of the institution as to the reasons for such action. It has been almost impossible to collect accurate statistics showing the extent to which this practice has grown, but any examination of the treasurer's report of most institutions will show a large discrepancy between the number of students enrolled and the receipts from tuition which naturally would result from such a body. No practice has done more to demoralize educational conditions than this competitive use of free scholarships, or of those partially free. It is one of the forms of competition which has done most to bring students, who should have remained in their high schools, into the weaker colleges, and to weaken the intellectual ten- dencies of even the better colleges by the presence of more students than they can deal with wisely. The man who is seeking a good college for his ADVERTISING 191 son or his daughter should distrust the college which solicits his child's attendance, and most of all when the inducement takes the form of a bonus such as a free or partially free scholarship. ... A scholar- ship supported by endowment and conferred on right grounds may be a good thing for your son (though even here there are dangers), but a scholarship tendered by a college in order to get your son's attendance is of the same nature as a rebate at your grocery store, it is an imposi- tion on those who pay in full. "Those who have been most successful in the use of advertising methods in education are wont to reply to such criticism by pointing to their results. In the minds of most persons the bringing together of three thousand students however immature and ill-taught is an answer to all arguments. This is success. It is exactly the same success that the patent medicine advertiser achieves when through advertising methods he educates a whole region to buy and drink his nostrum. When his con- stituency has grown to many thousands he has achieved success and the end justifies the means. The process by which some of our largest col- leges have been built up is very like that. "The answer to the advocacy of the patent medicine process of adver- tising in education is not entirely simple; not only because the slow process of sincerity and good taste is less often appreciated, but also because in all educational upbuilding, faith is a necessary factor. If a college never took a step till the financial outcome were absolutely secure, our progress would be slow indeed. It still remains true, however, that in education there is every reason why faith and devotion should join hands with sincerity and honesty rather than with pretense and super- ficiality. After all, is not this question of growing less rapidly and more soundly the question which faces our democracy in all the fields of endeavor industry, education, politics? . . . Is it a success educationally when, by such methods as have been employed, three thousand immature youths are gathered into one institution that calls itself a university? Does not this process foster just those national ten- dencies which the university is meant to counteract, not to quicken? I do not think one can set out to answer these questions fairly without coming to the conclusion that the university and the college have lost intellectually and morally in proportion as they have given themselves up to the adver- tising) spirit, and that in the process a false ideal has been set up as to what constitutes educational success. Whatever may have been true thirty years ago, it is clear that today we need not more colleges, but 192 ADVERTISING fewer colleges, not more students, but better prepared students, and that the opportunity both of the college and of the university to contribute to national progress lies not in bigness, but in greater simplicity and thor- oughness; not in advertising, but in modest performance. Advertising in education is not so much a disease as a symptom. "In a word, competitive advertising clearly has no place in education. Independent advertising has its place only when it is informational and thoroughly honest. Co-operative advertising should not be too fine a thing to hope for. We may yet see a group of our best universities issue in co-operation a comparative statement of their offerings. It would be gratifying if the Association of American Universities and the National Association of State Universities should unite their efforts toward some such end. The matter was aptly put by the principal of McGill University in an address on 'Inter-University Arrangements for Post-Graduate and Research Students,' at a recent Conference of British Universities in London: 'There is a growing conviction that competition in post-graduate work is at present unduly expensive, sacrifices the student, and hinders scholarship in order to further personal, institutional, and regional emula- tion. When our graduate students have some accredited method of learn- ing that if they want to study a certain subject they will find that sub- ject best taught in a certain university, we shall be in much better and more highly organized condition than at present. The problem is not free from difficulties, but it will be found as time goes on that increased co-operation shows the direction in which a solution ought to be sought.' "While it may not be easy in the conditions which surround our edu- cational institutions at this day to indicate with exactness what the limitations are which a conscientious and scholarly college should impose in its advertising, it is possible to point out some of the things which clearly ought not to be done. I venture, therefore, to refer to a few directions in which it seems clear that the advertising spirit has got the tipper hand of the scholarly ideal. "It is a common practice, particularly among the smaller institutions, to advertise themselves as the equals of the best. . . . "An even more common practice is the reckless use of superlatives. . . . Such a competition in the irresponsible use of language defeats its own end. . . . The school advertising pages of our magazines are constantly enveloped in an iridescent spray of such adjectives. Each institution has a location that is either magnificent, glorious, unrivaled, or ideal; its equipment is thoroughly or completely modern, remarkable, ADVERTISING 193 excellent, or superb; its faculty is composed of experienced, cultured, superior, distinguished, leading, and inspiring teachers. The advantages and opportunities of each institution are unusual, exceptional, rare, unsur- passed, matchless, and pre-eminent. Each possesses either the finest col- lege spirit with the highest ideals, or a delightful, dominant, romantic tone of culture. In short, every institution has every college activity. They are all unsurpassed, unique, pre-eminent, and ideal. "What is the effect of all this upon the reader? The well-informed man sighs and turns away. The earnest inquirer endures the economic waste of the cost of verification added to the cost of competition. The merely credulous reader, and his name is legion, eagerly sends ill-prepared students to institutions that are educationally futile, or worse, and the intellectual end of these students is oftentimes full of bitterness. For so far as the student is concerned, such advertising is almost wholly bad, and so long as people trust it, the weakest institutions can outshine the strongest, and the unworthy will continue to live by advertising. "It is simple fairness to the public that the nature of this sort of bidding should be brought into the light. This is the only reason for describing here the most ingeniously offensive piece of college advertising that it has been my fortune to meet. This is a series of weekly full-page notices which appeared in the United Presbyterian, published at Pitts- burgh, from October 12 to December 14, 1911, inclusive, as part of a 'campaign' to collect $250,000 for [a certain college in Ohio]. ... It is astonishing that advertisements bearing such evident marks of insin- cerity and vulgarity should be admitted to the columns of a reputable religious journal. . . . "There are two phases of the question which I venture to commend to the consideration of the colleges themselves. "The first is the disappointment of the boy who has been deceived. It would astonish many to know how many men there are in the United States today who feel bitterly toward institutions which tempted them into their walls on reports which later have been discovered to be untruth- ful. This resentment will in future years become stronger. . . . "Finally the present situation in American education in this matter imposes special obligations upon the conscientious institutions. Just so long as the old and well-established college lends itself to a sensational and misleading exploitation of its own advantages, just so long as it departs from the fair standards of academic sincerity and good taste, it furnishes example and inspiration for the reckless and irresponsible col- 194 ADVERTISING lege to go far beyond it, and it makes an excuse which the commercial vendor of professional education is only too eager to seize. There is here for the honest college a duty to the public which touches its moral leader- ship very closely. It is part of such leadership to make clear to individual citizens the limitations which go with freedom no less than the privileges and the rights of freedom. It does this in the only effective way when it conducts its own business not only within the law, but also within the limits of academic sincerity, honesty, and good taste." I have already remarked that nothing exposes to outside observers more intimately and clearly the real spirit and standards of the administrative head of a university, and of his chosen lieutenants in such business, than the style and manner of its deliberately framed and paid for advertising. And it may be added that no revelation in such pronouncements is more significant than the tone and degree in which protestations* about "democracy" are dragged into incon- gruous connections. Of course, a genuine and sympathetic under- standing of democracy in a legitimate sense, may be an import- ant characteristic of a university; but manners, intelligence, and sincerity are all sinisterly implicated if scurrying and sputtering avowals provoke the retort "Methinks thou dost protest too much." A curious document could be made by collating from catalogs and circulars, issued by state universities, quotations in which the words *Dr. Edwin E. Slosson, in his book "Great American Universities" (1910), alludes in two passages to the manner and habit of proclaiming its "democracy" met with by him at every university he visited. At one point he checks himself at an inadvertent tendency to describe "a notice- able atmosphere of informality and congeniality about the place," as an atmosphere of "democracy," because in view of university usage the word would have no meaning. "Every university," he says, "boasts the purest brand." . . . "When I started out on my quizzing tour, I had at the head of the list of questions which I proposed to ask, 'Does the spirit of democracy prevail in this University?' But I soon dropped that question as fruitless, because it was answered everywhere before I asked it, and always in the same way. There were two things about which each univer- sity visited agreed . . . the purity of their democracy and the beauty of their campus. In admitting deficiencies in other respects they were usually frank enough . . . but on these two they would acknowledge no superiors." ADVEETISING 195 "democracy" and "democratic" occur in uses either logically absurd or grammatically incorrect. An appendix might deal with igno- rant uses of "citizenship." If the more substantive assertions about courses of study and equipment approach the level of false labels on food products or fraudulent claims for patent medicines, diatribes from the same sources against the latter will be as unavailing as inconsistent. It is an evil pass when a university forgets that there yet remains a goodly portion of the "people" who appreciate sincerity and decorum and are still conversant with the English language. IV. THE EXECUTIVE OFFICER Many of the vexed questions concerning the place and power and functions of the president of an American university have been discussed in preceding cha.pters especially in the latter sections of the chapter treating of the governing (i. e., legislative) board. With such a board an executive officer is a necessity, unless the most fundamental principle of organization is to be violated bodies should legislate, individuals execute. The chief organic disorder, which has led some to wish to abolish the presidential office, has inhered in a maladjustment of the proper relation be- tween the board of regents and the faculty. The main troubles with and of the board's executive officer have been natural conse- quences of that disorganizing maladjustment. The needed read- justment of that fundamental relation has been discussed at length, and very practicable ordinances have been proposed which would ' ' ^ ""pc - ! vfjj?! accomplish it in a simple yet effective way. I have ever pointuf out, however, that the good organization would only make good administration more natural and easier, and that a right spirit and true enlightment in individuals would correct direct administra- tive abuses, whatever the form of organization. President Schur- man, while recommending organic arrangements for faculty parti- cipation in the government of the university (because a bad organ- ization will in the long run lead to the survival of bad or weak individuals), reminded that it was possible to accomplish the end in view "even without institutional reorganization" : "Respect for personality, the spirit of brotherhood, devotion to scholarship and science, and zealous cooperation will ensure har- mony, efficiency, and progress even under the present form of university organization and administration. ... If stress is laid on duty and service and not on rights and prerogatives, if the university is conceived not as a monarchy or aristocracy or 'mob- THE EXECUTIVE OFFICER 197 ocracy' but as a genuine brotherhood in which the president is merely the first servant of the institution, there would seem to be little difficulty, given a reasonable amount of tact and forbear- ance, of administering the American university as at present organ- ized to the satisfaction of all parties. One danger indeed lurks in the disposition of some presidents to identify themselves with the board of trustees, to adopt an exclusively administrative attitude, to become merely men of business and men of affairs, and to lose touch with the work and sympathy with the aims and ideals of the faculty, which, of course, constitute the supreme object of the insti- tution. If by any kind of reorganization this danger can be averted, the reorganization should be cordially welcomed. A university whose president does not embody and faithfully inter- pret the spirit of the scholars and scientists who essentially con- stitute the institution, is to all intents and purposes without a head. It is doubtful, however, whether any kind of organization will save our universities from occasional disasters of this sort. The one remedy is cultivation by the faculty of a sense of responsibility for the welfare and advancement of the institution and a readiness to advise on all matters directly or indirectly connected with the essential functions of the university of which they are the con- stituted organs and guardians."* We may confidently assume that a university needs not merely a head but a permanent head, in order to secure good work, needed cooperation, and attainable progress. "We may. therefore, devote all critical thought to forming the best conception of the president's office and to discovering the dangers against which he may guard or be guarded. In so far as formal organization can safeguard the president and the institution from administrative abuses, I have proposed and expounded (pages 125-137) what seems to me the needed arrangements. *Some of President Schurman's suggestions about such voluntary atti- tudes, which more especially concern the faculty, are given in the next ehapter. 198 CONCEPTION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE Full Conception of the Presidential Office In the first place, it should be clearly conceived that the presr dent has pome legitimate and responsible relation to every sphere and part of the institution and to every person connected with it. It ought to be equally clear that his proper relation can very sel- dom, if ever, be dictatorial control. A correct general statement of the elements of a proper conception is given by President Schur- man: "This head, while of course he need not control, must par- ticipate in all phases of the life and activity of the university, not only because the university as a whole is entitled to his service but also in order that he may have the knowledge and experience qualifying him to be a faithful exponent and representative of the institution both in the academic community and in the larger world bevond." There should never bo any question whether the presi- dent ought to concern himself with the state or activities of any part of the institution. He should know, as far as possible, the state and understand the interests and wants of every part. A proper functional organization would leave him with all the authority or influence (as the case might be) belonging to his proper responsibility, without interfering with the responsibility and corresponding authority of any other person. "The conception of a president as an autocrat on the bridge is an error," said President Alderman in an address on assuming the duties of President of the University of Virginia. "Between the president and faculty," he continued, "a loval, hearty, helpful relation should exist. If he depends on himself alone he will do but little and that little not very well. His opinions must gain their weight from their wisdom rather than from their source. His truest strength lies in the power to divine the value of others rather than in any power of his own of action or of speech. For him there must be the open mind, the sympathetic spirit, the patient temper, the sleepless eye; and his power should be commensurate with his responsibility." These are magnanimous words. No at- CONCEPTION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 199 tentive reader will misunderstand the nature of the "power" or of the "responsibility/' as conceived by President Alderman; but, as additional light upon his mind and character for those who do not know him personally, I cannot forbear quoting what I re- gard as a superlative tribute to a university president. The testi- mony was borne by Professor William Benjamin Smith of The Tu- lane University of Alabama after President Alderman's departure from Tulane to Virginia : "His relations with the members of the faculty were open and friendly, his temper generous and apprecia- tive; he valued zealous support, but no way discouraged conscien- tious opposition." It has been said of some other university presi- dents that they endured opposition with candor or with charity; but of this man it is said, he no way discouraged conscientious opposition. No stronger or more crucial evidence of true greatness of mind and character could be given. What, then, is the nature of the power and responsibility which President Alderman says should be commensurate? The presi- dent's opinions "must gain their weight from their wisdom," says, and indicates that a main responsibility is to "divine the value of others." The president is also responsible for "well-con- ceived plans," he states in the same context. The power and lib- erty to carry out such plans rests on trust and confidence. He does not mean that the president needs legislative power. The regents and the faculty should legislate: the president is the chief adviser of both bodies, and the executive officer of the former. In the matter of appointments to and promotions in the faculty the president's responsibility should be absolute, and therefore his nominations should always be confirmed by the governing board; but even here, as has been explained, orderly consultation with a council representing the faculty and the report to the board of regents and to the faculty of that council's concurrence or difference of opinion, is the faculty's right and the president's best safe- guard against mistakes and misunderstandings. 200 CONCEPTION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE "His power should be commensurate with his responsibility," is a valid principle always and everywhere for every one commissioned to perform discretionary acts. It is as true for the professor ae for the president. Of course, the terms of the proposition are convertible his responsibility should be commensurate with his power. Nothing could be more foolishly rash than to give power without imposing commensurate responsibility; and nothing could J be more unjustly impractical than to impose responsibility with- out giving commensurate power. Yet, strange to say, each of these mistakes is made by many governing boards and administra- tive officers. Boards of school trustees often impose responsibility upon school superintendents and withhold the commensurate power, and some university presidents seem disposed to treat fac- ulties (both corporately and in their individual members) in the same way. University regencies, also, have commonly usurped the proper authority of faculties (a mistake which we have con- sidered at length), and some such boards have rashly assumed administrative functions that had been or should be committed to presidents. As no respectable apologv for the last mentioned folly is ever attempted, it need only be mentioned as a discountenanced affront to civilization. University regents and school boards of large cities more characteristically make the opposite mistake giving power to administrative officers without imposing com- mensurate responsibility. There have been university presidents and city school superintendents, in the United States, whose known policy, besides being arbitrary, was one of indirection, who by nature and by design dealt faithlessly with all parties, misrep- resenting positively and negatively, by distortion and by suppres- sion to the public, to the faculty or teachers, and to the governing boards. Those in supreme authority have known the facts in a general way, yet such officers have held practically irresponsible power until removed for some extraneous cause, not unrelated probably but incidental, and after indefinitely prolonged admin- CONCEPTION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 201 istrations. How would it be possible for governing boards to make such a mistake if they understood that an organism cannot be successfully administered without conserving its proper organiza- tion? Professor Joseph Jastrow of the University of Wisconsin, in an address to the Xational Conference of College and University Trustees, has described an illustrative instance: "A member of a faculty propounded to me the attitude of its president as a psychological problem. I was unable to give any enlightenment, but this is the enlightenment that I received, the result of a careful inductive study. ( 1 ) Whenever President X announced to his surprised faculty that the board had adopted such and such a measure, it proved to mean that the president had proposed the measure to the wholly inno- cent board, and that it was a measure that the faculty, were it given a chance, would have cordially opposed. (2) When a measure was 'up* before the faculty, and opposition unexpectedly developed, an announce- ment was made by President X that there were reasons, which unfortu- nately he could not disclose, that really made the measure necessary and this meant that if not approved by the faculty, the board would take the proposed step anyway. There were two other types of situations that entered into this psychological analysis; but they are too individual to make it proper to cite them." It would be a word "fitly spoken" if the next great inaugural of a university president were made the occasion of an indictment so plain and forceful that the governing boards of educational insti- tutions throughout the length and breadth of the land would be aroused and guided to apply true tests of administrative skill !o administrative officers, so as to discover whether those officers ar& organizers or disorganizes and in order to hold them to a responsi- bility commensurate with their power. In the address referred to, President Alderman gave a brave hint in one brief sentence: "It is commonly alleged against college presidents that they are liars." He most justly hastened to add, "this is a tolerablv hasty generalization, like the famous one of the Psalmist's." No special research need be added to what has been offered in the present 202 CONCEPTION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE study to disclose the main reasons why the selective processes by which college presidents ought to be chosen and retained, have not operated to cause them to be commonly included, as a class, rather among the understood exceptions to the psalmist's generali- zation about "all men." The organic fault in the relation between the faculty (as a body) and the board of regents has placed presi- dents in an almost insuperably difficult position. If corruptible he will fall into duplicity and falsehood (often equivocated as "diplo- macy") ; if incorruptible, the same organic condition brings about so many misunderstandings that he will still be accused of dupli- city. Modern university presidents have had thrust upon them almost plenary powers. And most of them have lacked the philosophical faculty to understand, or have been too busy doing tangible things by the shortest cut, too engrossed in administration, to heed the fault in organization from which arise their worst troubles and which leads to their own most dangerous errors. "The academic comment," says Professor Jastrow, "that occasionally reaches the college president's ears to the effect that his troubles are largely of his own making, is intended to remind him that he encourages, or complacently accepts does not, at all events, protest against and strive for the abolition of the conditions out of which troubles naturally grow." As a temporary policy suitable to an acute maladv, it might be well for many universities and for all that universities ought to foster and serve, if for several years they built no new buildings, added no new departments, and devoted all available wisdom and effort to the correction of internal disorders, to the securing for fac- ulty and students conditions favorable to the purposes for which students and professors should come together, and to the forma- tion and upholding of right ideals of scholarship and science, of conduct and life. There is, indeed, no inherent reason why the one could not be done without leaving the other undone; but by way of emphasis and self-discipline sometimes abstinence may be CONCEPTION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 203 a more suitable regimen than temperance, for a limited period after an opposite excess. Director Davenport, of the University of Illinois, in the address quoted in a previous chapter, digressed from his main themes to show the great injustice to the president in "the present mania for doing everything by administrative control" : "There is very little room for, or need of, authority in the daily oper- ations of the University. . . . The objects to be gained are not mass effects to be achieved by onslaught and team work as on the battle ground and the football field. They are rather a complicated series of achieve- ments to be won, each by individual effort or by well considered co-oper- ation. And if the state universities ever assume the proportions of which they are capable, or if they ever succeed in serving the public to their limits it will be only through the power of individual initiative and the stimulus of individual responsibility, acting in many lines. . . . "Nor is this fatal to good organization or strong, even invincible, admin- istration. Every man holds his place by sufferance; every man is respon- sible for results, and aside from all this, a good and wise president will command leadership by the principle of the universal recognition of a superior mind without demanding it through the exercise of authority. . . . He who puts his hand upon the estimates and the personnel and the general policies will control the situation, so far as authority can control it for good. . . . "The inevitable results of the present mania for doing everything by, administrative control are to destroy individual initiative, to hamper the work, and in the end to break down even the administration itself, and destroy it for its better purposes. . . . "The department details are both logically and physically outside the president's range of duties or responsibilities. The disposition to regard him as personally and officially responsible for department details is as cruel to him as it is detrimental to the work. It can accomplish nothing useful. It is setting our best man to picking chips around the department workshops, which not only interferes with the workmen, but consumes the time and dissipates the energies that ought to be devoted to larger purposes. "Nor should these details be thrust upon him. I have seen taken to the president's office, over and over again, matters of such common routine and trivial detail that, should I permit those of equal consequence to come 204 CONCEPTION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE to the office of the director, I should be worn to the marrow, and if I should require them I should do infinite damage by blundering decisions rendered on partial knowledge of the facts. "I plead for a decent amount of leisure on the part of the president that he may work out presidents' problems. What are they? That is not my theme, but in order to protect my position here I will indicate some of them. The representation of the university before the public through addresses, and through the wider fields of activity that only the president can occupy. New lines of work, broader policies, a larger public service, and the thousand and one new things that do not occur to the men I have been talking about, and could not be performed by them if they did. . . . There is a service outward that can be rendered only by the president acting for the university as a whole. Besides this there is a service that is inward to the university that no department, no college, and no officer but the president can render. It is imperative that some great mind be free to work out from time to time new conceptions for the upbuilding of the university as conditions change, and that these energies be not wasted by the daily drain of distracting detail. . . . What cannot a single man in the right place do at certain junctures if he is big enough to know when the psychological moment has arrived? . . . "I place a plea for presidential leisure and a protest against a system that ties a president down to the business of daily directions. A well ordered university needs a president for other purposes than the details of daily operation." The center, and nearly the circumference, of the president's inde- pendent authority and power is his right, inherent in the nature of his responsibility, that only on the president's recommendation shall any one be elected by the board of regents to any university position. This is his indispensable function, indispensable for the welfare of the institution. It can be properly discharged only si in freedom, dignity, and security, conditions which are conserved, not. infringed, by orderly consultation with a faculty council and open report of concurrence or difference of opinion.* If the exclu- sive power of nominating all appointees is assured, no other unquestionable authority is needed or should be possessed for reg- *See page 133. CONCEPTION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 205 ular purposes. For emergency the president must have authority to suspend any person or undertaking, pending the next session of the faculty or board of regents according to the jurisdiction for the matter in question. Of course, he has independent authority over anything duly committed to his immediate charge, for in- stance a publicity bureau, and he may hold specially delegated authority in particular matters, as expressly commissioned by some ordinance of regents or faculty. In all other affairs the president should exercise influence by criticism, advice, and counsel, but should not issue commands. Another passage from Director Davenport's address may add some suggestions and side lights for readers who are not familiar with the inner sides of university life and work : "When a man of the rank and consequence of a head of a. department approaches the office of his administrative superior in fear or in trepida- tion instead of anticipated pleasure at the prospect of an interesting con- ference I say when this thing is so, then something is wrong at the upper office, and something else is awfully wrong that makes such conditions possible. Yet so far as I am advised this is the inevitable consequence of the so-called 'strong administration,' except with the few individuals so conditioned as to be able to protect themselves or their interests, and except for the few who are administrative favorites. I ought not to tell tales out of school in this assemblage, yet the fact is notorious that no man is so exposed to flattery, no man so frequently cajoled by small souls, no man so thoroughly easy to 'work' as the autocrat at the head of what he is pleased to believe a strong administration. Of absolute loyalty he knows next to nothing. "Some one will say, 'if nobody issues directions, how shall standards be set and established?' On this point let us remember that standards which live long are not born suddenly by edict; they develop out of exigencies and experience, and after a while they become traditional and then they are stronger than either law or edict. The advocates of doing things by administration do not seem to have remembered that influence, tradition, and the spirit of loyalty are infinitely stronger than authority. They seem not to realize that there is a form of organization with all the appearance of strength, but which breeds only weakness; strong and 206 CONCEPTION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE very busy at the center, but weak, even dead, out at the working points where it ought to be most alive. "The strongest organization is the one that is not always on dress parade, and does not always remind us that the big stick is close at hand. There is an organization that is scarcely evident except when occasion arises. . . . Such an organization possesses an inherent power, un- measured and unmeasurable. It will leap into instant service almost of itself and will not break in two at any point, however severe the strain. The power of such an organization is in its traditions, and the loyalty of its members, not in the authority of its head; nor does it depend altogether upon the personality of its members, for once started it seems to be endowed with the genius of immortality. "While many good men have been spoiled and their work ruined by too much direction, there is no case on record of securing the service of a genius out of a stick by the injection of any sort of administrative virus. Men grow and develop under responsibility, and they are at their best under a feeling that a great public trust devolves upon them. . . . Any man is a better man when feeling a personal sense of responsibility. If there is anything in a man this course will bring it out. Therefore give him every opportunity with a free hand and in good time he wilJ demonstrate either his worth or his worthlessness." In many discussions of this question of presidential authority., the speakers often appear to misunderstand each other and them- selves from sheer vagueness as to the meaning of the word.* If they always kept in mind that "authority" means a right to com- mand, many antagonisms would be avoided. Evidently the presi- dent cannot reasonably command the board of regents or the faculty to legislate in accordance with his opinions. Evidently he should never attempt to command a member of the faculty to do this or that, or thus and so. Every attempt to control authoritatively in the absence of legitimate authority, is an act of usurpation, incon- sistent alike with the enlightenment of a philosopher or the self- restraint of a gentleman or the prudence of experience. *Cf. page 92. ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS 207 Essential Functions The primary and essential functions of the president of an American university may now be stated concisely : (1) The executive agent of the board of regents, vested with the authority inherent in his duty to see that the laws enacted by the board are put into effect; (2) The intimate expert adviser of the board, with the right, inherent in the responsibility of his presidency over the institu- tion, of selecting and nominating all appointees to university posi- tions ; (3) Leadership in, but not command of, the whole conduct and development of the institution. Given the right conception of these three functions, ordinary fidelity and good sense will suffice for fulfilling the first ; but the second and third make such exalted demands upon attainments and character that one misrht well ask, "who is sufficient for these things?" Certainlv no man could avoid mistakes and shortcom- ings altogether. President Alderman has said justlv: "A presi- dent can only avoid mistakes bv cunningly doinff nothing. Tf an institution would escape the stagnation, therefore, of a do-nothing president (un president faineant} it must be will in & to have patience with his errors." For the second and third functions, a masterful knowledge of the nature and methods and scope of edu- cation, and a catholic comprehension of the proper relations of all branches of learning and scientific aims to each other and to indi- vidual life and to society, constitute but a mere preparation which may be attained by any man endowed with philosophical powers of mind. There must be added wisdom and courage and imagina- tion and sympathy and patience sufficient to make timely use of that knowledge for practicable and judicious plans. Some knowl- edge of law and a deep feeling for orderliness and justice is an essential qualification of a safe counsellor in such intricate and far-reaching affairs : without it, no matter with what other knowl- 208 ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS : ^ edge and gifts, disastrous mistakes will follow one after the other. Force and clearness are needed to convince and persuade, else good advice may not be followed. Last and rarest of the needed qualifi- cations for rightly meeting the duties and opportunities of the second and third functions, is unspoiled insight for knowing men. Perhaps more university presidents have ruined and been ruined because they were poor judges of men, than for any other one cause. The insight that guides some men to almost unerring judg- ments in this vital matter is, I believe, the natural reward of a M candid and fearless life. Habitual feigning of approval or cor- diality, or the experience of fear of the face or power of mortal man or men, blears the vision whereby we see each other in true character, as the clouding of the optic lens balks physical eyesight. Native intellectual powers and social experience enhance the ability, but the essential faculty is as generic in mankind as the sense of smell; and if evanescent in a once normal person it has been diminished through his own counterfeiting or cowardice com- monly begun in childhood. Social experience rather enhances the skill than increases the potential ability as an eye may be trained to see more skillfully without causing any change in the oculist's measurement of visual power. Those who have enjoyed from earliest life social advantages of a high order seem to know almost Immediately "who's who" in a new environment. This I suppose is simply because they know what is significant and whom to be- lieve, as they casually hear estimates of their new neighbors. Men as honest and perhaps better endowed but lacking that advantage flounder about without such side-lights, forming judgments as ^opportunities for direct observation slowly come. If I am permitted to relate an anecdote it may illustrate how a clear case of "poor judge of men," in a university president, is a diagnostic symptom of hopeless incompetence for that office: A new and loquacious university president, after a full year's oppor- ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS 209 t unity for knowing the members of the faculty (spent by him in talking to instead of listening to thtm) remarked to several mem- bers that one of their colleagues might have certain merits but totally lacked weight and influence. That president was of the sort that never learns who's who. His opinion in this instance was such a far cry from the fact, that it was told on him as a joke. It had happened that one of the professors to whom he expressed the opinion, had only a few days before elaborated a ludicrously opposite judgment in toasting at a banquet the very man so blindly misunderstood by this president. After twitting his colleague as being "true as steel but just as hard headed," the said professor had gone on to say that the speaker would rather have any other man he ever knew "down on him" than that hard headed individ- ual, because his judgments of men and things were so clear, so objective, so true and just, that every man who knew him seemed to adopt his estimates of other men without doubt or hesitation. If he damned a man the man was damned, without more ado, among his acquaintances. "And so," the speaker (a life-time friend of the object of his raillery) concluded, "I have ever walked circum- spectly lest I might ramble into the suburbs of his good pleasure, and, doubtless, with this fear of him before my eyes, I have pome- times been kept in a straight and narrow way from which I might have wandered. And I have no doubt that many of you gentlemen have perambulated in these environs with a similar trepidation before our arbiter elegantiarum, and with a like wholesome effect." The approving laughter from a score of colleagues that greeted this sally proved that some truth had been spoken in the jest. The president referred to went on for a second year multiplying more serious errors, and the next year resigned. In all the manifold relations of a university president's duties and opportunities an intelligent, quick sympathy with persons and purposes is always a potent factor of success, but such tact, as it may be called, is nowhere and never so important as in the case 210 FACTORS OF SUCCESS of the advent of a new president. If a president in such a situa- tion does not rightly discern and appraise the peculiar spirit and traditions of the institution he has been called to lead, his failure is foredoomed. A university that has a clear and potent tradi- tion possesses a rare and precious heritage. It is a thing to be appreciated and built upon, not obtusely ignored. I find, again, a striking illustration in President Alderman's call to be the first president of the University of Virginia. Here was an institution, where the old graduates recall not buildings, but men instructors and student companions, all conceived and known as responsible individuals. A typical alumnus of that university, if he under- took to account for his culture, would call the names of old teach- ers and comrades, as did Marcus Aurelius ages ago, and above all would refer to the general spirit of individual responsibility and self-reliance that breathed in every relation of his college days. The afflatus of that spirit has not been numbed in him by sordid or c}mical doctrines. It still lifts him above cowardice or self- seeking. All this was the result of the interplay of various forces, which would have been stubbornly and rightly arrayed against any new administrator too callous to perceive or too crude to appreciate such an inheritance. President Alderman was not found wanting. His first public address demonstrated his ability to understand the character of the University of Virginia. He stated it accurately and as discriminatingly as its oldest and most enlightened friend could have done: "One does not have to search for this institutional character as for something elusive and subtle. It shines out before the face of the stranger in five clear points of light : "A sympathetic understanding of democracy as a working hypothesis of life, guaranteeing to every man a chance to realize the best that is in him. "An absolute religious freedom, combined with wide and vital religious opportunities. FACTORS OF SUCCESS 211 "An appeal to the best in young men, resulting in the creation of a student public opinion and a student system of honor, which endowed the university of the past, and endows the university of to-day with its richet asset of reputation and fame. "A high standard of scholarship rigidly maintained, in an air of freedom of learning and freedom of teaching, begetting an austere ideal of intellectual thoroughness and honesty. "A conception of culture as a compound of sound learning and gracious conduct, as an inheritance of manhood and moral will won through discipline and conquest, and as a capacity to deal with men in the rough work of the world with gentleness and simpli- city." The new president pledged himself, also, to do what he could "to cherish and magnify, come good days or ill, this inspiring univer- sity character." Yet he bravely explained, "I do not mean that there should not be readjustment here change, if you will the growth that is conservative of life and that comes somehow out of the tissues of ancient strength. A changing society means a chang- ing curriculum, and a university is society shaping itself to future ends. But there are things that are eternal, and the substance of this ancient spirit of the University of Virginia is one of them." Wisdom, imagination, and patience in its leader are very re- quisite if the complex organism of a university is to be inspired and guided for an ever enhancing service to science, to its students, and to the industrial, professional, political, and moral interests of the commonwealth. The president's responsibility for looking ahead into the future is a heavy one. No opportunist can be a good leader for a university. He must be alert to understand the true bearings of every proposal, and firm to resist proposed measures that would lead to evil consequences. Much misplaced zeal must be checked; a vast deal of fallacious logic must be com- bated; and sometimes conceit must be punctured, and even greed restrained. Almost as much depends on preventing things from 212 FACTORS OF SUCCESS being done in an injurious way and inhibiting totally mistaken enterprises, as on securing correct procedures for good ends and originating good policies. A factor of success as important as any other, is the rare quality of natural, spontaneous, unrestrained courage in which is included perfect candor when frankness is called for and reticence would be deceit. It was high praise of President James, of the University of Illinois, when a trustee of Northwestern University, speaking of his presidency there, said of him: "He is of judicial mind, and though advocating some policy he would have the university adopt, he always pointed out its dangers as well as its advantages; he never misled. These qualities won for him our confidence." Whenever the members of a governing board begin to have doubts of the candor or balanced judgment or clear vision of their execu- tive and adviser, the end of his influence and usefulness in that institution is at hand. No responsible executive officer can accept too many votes of "lack of confidence/' and retain proper respect. The fundamental moralities and conditions of success as the executive officer of a governing board, are essentially the same for school superintendents and college presidents. The following para- graph from an address to school superintendents, made by me ten years ago, points out a rock on which many a college president has met shipwreck : "If the executive officer of a governing board finds its members divided and mutually suspicious, he should be especially careful to discuss every proposal before the full board and to avoid even the appearance of depend- ing on certain privately consulted members. I happened recently to read the following expression published by a school superintendent: 'Give me one strong, influential member on the average board to whom I can always feel free to go and talk on every question, and I will be the ultimate manager of that board.' Alas! brother, despite your good intentions, you will be an ultimate bone of contention between two factions of that board, if you pursue any such policy. Have your personal friends among the trustees, by all means; but talk with them in such intercourse on other PROBLEM OF ELIMINATION 213' subjects rather than on those which will come before the board for official action. You are the officer of the entire body, not of one or two of its members. They and you meet at a counsel board, and it is best to have all dealings above that board. If the arguments you advance in support of your recommendation fail to commend it, do not canvass for votes; seek better arguments, or possibly a better recommendation. If that policy does not sooner or later succeed resign; and you will advance in your profession far more than if, by your practices, the board had been split into a set majority for you and a minority set against you, and you had kept the place until the tables turned. Nothing would so effectively increase the respect, the influence, and the salaries of school superintend- ents, as occasional resignations because too many official recommendations had been disregarded. No responsible executive officer can accept too many votes of 'lack of confidence,' and retain proper respect. At present boards of trustees generally imagine that school superintendents and col- lege presidents resign only to get better salaries or when asked to do so. This is a generalization that assumes its exceptions; but all suffer from the fact that the generalization could be made at all. We ought to exer- cise proper self-restraint, but we ought not to forfeit self-respect; and we ought to hold ourselves responsible: ' 'Tis not in mortals to command success; we will do more deserve it.'" The Problem of Elimination The president's function of selecting and nominating all ap- pointees to university positions has been stated, and what seems to me the only proper and feasible restraint and safeguard in the exercise of that responsibility has been explained and recom- mended.* It remains to consider a special phase of that function which always and everywhere presents peculiar difficulties. It was tacitly postponed, at the previous connection, for separate treat- ment ; because, although I have pushed a parenthetical and digres- sive style to its limits (in an endeavor to give every segment of dis- cussion such precision and adequacy that it might bear study and carry force if studied), it was not practicable to include in the first general statement this particular phase of the question. *See page 204 and page 133; cf. pp. 125-135. 214 PROBLEM OF ELIMINATION In American colleges and universities there is no automatic way of getting rid of or side-tracking members of the faculty who, whether by fault or shortcoming, have proved unsuitable and un- successful. In German universities there is an automatic check on the regular professors in the work of the private docents. A professor who there grew neglectful or proved incompetent would have at his side an able young colleague, lecturing on the same subject, to whom the students would be sure to resort if he showed weakness, or if his work deteriorated. But our teachers are paid independently of their students' discrimination. Under such pro- tected conditions, an elimination of the unfitted and the failing by some responsible authority is a necessity. The faculty cannot do this directly; men and work should be intelligently weighed, not voted on. The regents cannot do it directly. There is nobody but the president who could do it. He must do it at his peril. Mitiga- tion of that peril depends on the justice and wisdom of his recom- mendations for terminating appointments, and almost equally on the manner in which the duty is performed. The latter point will be considered after presenting somewhat further the conditions in question. Commissioner Draper, an advocate of practically unrestricted power in the president of a university, states the matter forcibly, and correctly as far as his statement goes, but he fails to provide or to see the need of the safeguard that seems to me to be essential. Speaking of the necessity of "getting rid of teachers who do not teach or of investigators who do not produce," he says : "Some competent and protected authority must accomplish this and continually reinforce the teaching staff with virile men. The competition between institutions rather than between men, and the natural reluctance at deposing a teacher, are producing pathetic situations at different points in many American universities, and are likely to become the occasion of more weakness in our university system than has been widely real- ized. . . . "The very life of the institution depends upon eliminating weak and PROBLEM OF ELIMINATION 215 unproductive teachers and reinforcing the teaching body with the very best [obtainable]. No board ever got rid of a teacher or an investigator no matter how weak or absurd except for immorality known to the board and likely to become known to the public. The reason why a board cannot deal with such a matter is the lack of individual confidence about what to do, and of individual responsibility for doing either something or nothing. But, with three or four hundred in the faculty, the need of attention to this vital matter is always present and urgent. No board knows where new men of first quality are to be found; no board can conduct the negotiations for them or fit them into an harmonious and effective whole. The man who is fitted for this great burden and who puts his conscience up against his responsibility can hardly be expected to tolerate the opposition of an unsubstantial sentiment which would protect a teacher at all hazards, or the more subtle combination of selfish influences which puts personal over and above public interests when the upbuilding of a university is the task in hand." President Pritchett in his Annual Report for 1909 presents a more careful,, inductive statement: "Both boards of trustees and executive officers of colleges find them- selves constantly called upon to deal with men who are clearly unequal to their tasks, and whose further continuance in position is at the expense of scholarship and of the student body. "This is the old question of all university administration. How can academic security and freedom be coupled with a fair scrutiny of the efficiency of the men who are concerned? The question is a little different from what it is in England and in Germany because of our different edu- cational organization in institutions of higher learning. Our institu- tional administration is a more centralized one; the president has larger powers and is more directly responsible for the efficiency and well-being of the whole institution than is the case of any one officer in a European university. These considerations suggest that our organization will be subjected to a somewhat closer scrutiny than it has hitherto had, a scrutiny dealing with both academic freedom and scholarly efficiency. "Out of the mass of facts which, have been referred to in this report, the following underlying principles seem to emerge as the basis upon which the study of the American university must proceed. 21 G PROBLEM OF ELIMINATION "First, while the American university president will have larger powers than the chief officer of foreign universities, these powers will go hand in hand with the independence and security alike of presidnet and pro- fessor. In order that this may be accomplished, the appointment and the dismissal of teachers must rest on some wider action than the recommenda- tion of a single individual. "Second, in the interest of efficiency and of the whole cause of educa- tion, the individual who looks toward the career of the college professor must go through a probationary term, in which his appointment shall be for a limited time. This practice is already in operation ; n many col- leges and universities, assistant professors being appointed usually for a period of three or five years, this period being looked upon as a proba- tionary period during which the man's fitness must be proved before he is taken into a secured position. "Third, the college professor must in the future submit more directly than in the past to some scrutiny of his work and of his results, as well as to some examination of the extent of his co-operation with other men in the institution. . . . The development of effective responsibility within the college itself is alike in the interest of the professor and of the cause of education, and to this development the American teacher him- self should lend his best effort." It is, indeed, evident that "some wider action than the recom- mendation of a single individual" is needed. Justice and decorum require this, and it is needed as a safeguard for the president. But I believe it would be sufficient to follow the procedure already pro- posed for the proper adjustment of formal relations between presi- dent and faculty, in the second part of the plan for the faculty's participation in government, explained in pages 125 to 135. I would merely add that one distinction ought to be recognized be- tween a new selection for appointment to a position in the faculty, and the dropping or dismissal of a member. In the former case in the rare instances in which the council might dissent from the president, the board of regents must, on principle, uphold the president. No personal injustice could thus be done, and presi- dent's responsibility entitles him to control the selections of new ad- PROBLEM OF ELIMINATION 217 ditions to the faculty. In the latter case, I believe the board should not be formally bound to adopt the president's opinion, if the coun- cil reported dissent, but should weigh the reasons to the contrary presented by the council. Generally the president's counsel would and probably should be followed, but the principle that ought to control is different. As in the case of a new nomination the presi- dent's selection, duly explained in council, would generally be ap- proved, or his own opinion be changed by helpful discussion; so an opinion on his part that some one ought no longer be retained would generally be justified to the council, or corrected in his own judg- ment, and no dissent would occur. In either case, it is far better that the council's rarely occurring difference should be known in an open and orderly way, than that acts that take the faculty by surprise should be murmured against. If the faculty knew that all nomina- tions for advancement and for filling .vacancies and all recommen- dations for elimination had been explained to a council chosen by themselves, they would feel that the president's opinions had been justified before their own representatives. This simple procedure would rescue the president of the American university from the position and attitude of an alienated commander, and would open to him the place of a trusted leader. The second of the "underlying principles," stated by President Pritchett as the basis upon which the elimination of the unfit must be secured, need not be discussed in this connection. It is already generally recognized, will scarcely be disputed by any one, and will be considered in the next chapter from a more general stand- point. It only remains to form just ideas of the "scrutiny" of work and results and cooperation with others, that must somehow precede the conclusions upon which elimination is to be based. On this point the talk of the petty-minded and of those who lack intimate knowl- edge, and the spirit of the martinet are likely to work havoc. Any notion of an inspector of class-room work, or of time-card records 218 PROBLEM OF ELIMINATION in the business office, is absurd in its futility and utter inapplica- bility to the real thing. How, then, is the requisite scrutiny to take place, and the needed criticism to be made? Here is no mystery to those who understand who know the work and the life; but it may puzzle even an intelligent man if he has no famil- iarity with such affairs and has never thought closely upon the subject. In the first place, it must be understood that no such simple scrutiny and estimates as are made of the results or output of the workers in a shoe factory would be possible. In the second place, the uninitiated must believe that estimates, as just and correct as need be for eliminating purposes, are not difficult for a competent president to make. The most just and erpedient selections for advancement are more difficult. For neither purpose does the pres- ident need to go about class-rooms on tours of formal inspection. It may be remarked in this connection , however, that it a serious indictment against the manner and matter of the instruction commonly given to university students by American professors, that neither the president nor their colleagues are naturally attracted to attend any of the reg- ular lectures they deliver. That which is a matter of course in Europe, as it ought to be among intellectual men anywhere, is a rare exception in our universities. Nothing points more signi- ficantly to the miserable consequences of treating young men as if they were children and of leveling everything to a supposed capac- ity of the weak and the supposed benefit of the "greatest num- ber." If a president attempts to control the details of all work in the institution, he will do all of that badly, and will lack time for his proper functions; but if the institution is well organized for administrative purposes a competent president may easily form just estimates of every member of the faculty in ways far more reliable than the crass method of a supervising inspector. The PROBLEM OF ELIMINATION 219 task is not so heavy as the large number of individuals concerned might suggest. In many cases diligence and high quality of service would be evident, in many others it would be evident that there was no occasion to consider the question of elimination. The doubtful and suspicious cases would not be numerous. Each should be looked into sufficiently to reach a clear opinion. In the case of a young member holding a temporary appointment on trial, the counsel of the chief men of the department would generally be sufficient, if corroborated by the president's personal impressions in the light of known facts. If a president is a poor judge of men and scholars, he is not qualified to meet the most primary and essential duty of his office, and mistakes of omission and commis- sion will accumulate inevitably. Always the president ought to know personally the instructor whose elimination he recommends. And when he has reached his decision, he ought to inform the person most interested of his intention, telling at least some of his reasons. This is not a pleasant duty, but it is a plain one. The person to be eliminated V is entitled to know that his services are not desired for the follow- ing year, in time to seek another position to mention only one very practical basis of his rights in the premises. In my judgment even a coward fortified by a proper love of justice would not fail in this plain duty. I need not, therefore, make more explicit my opinion of the personal character of the university presidents who permit members of the faculty to find out from the public press, or through some leakage, in June after the adjournment of the board of regents, that they have been eliminated from the service of the institution. That such conduct is not unusual is not only an offense to decency and a disgrace to our civilization, but it means a corrupting atmosphere for the youth who are enticed into such colleges and universities. It is the wrong and cowardly manner of dismissal, not the mere fact, that causes bitterness and personal animosities, and has made 220 PROBLEM OF ELIMINATION elimination the difficult and dreaded thing it appears to be to col- lege presidents and governing boards. A wrong method of reach- ing the decision causes it to seem unjust and despotic, and a timid secretive manner of performing the act arouses suspicions of various obliquities. On such conditions, many will disapprove and one will passionately resent. The open and decorous procedure I recommend would command general confidence; and, if the presi- dent be a magnanimous man, the timely interview with the in- structor to be dropped would often be the occasion of a personal reaction the very opposite of resentment. There is no analogy be- tween the relation of a member of the faculty to a college president, and that of a brakeman to a railroad superintendent; but the follow- ing episode, told by a distinguished efficiency engineer, illustrates a trait in human nature that ought to be well known to every col- lege president (and school superintendent) from his own exper- ience : "A railroad brakeman was put on the carpet by a superin- tendent. He came out from the ordeal and exclaimed : 'That is the whitest man who ever lived.' 'Did he reinstate you?' asked his companions. 'Reinstate me ! No, he fired me; but he talked to me as if he were my father.' * The elimination of a member of the faculty who has passed the proper probationary stages, for other cause than the infirmities of old age, ought to be, and is, an extraordinary occurrence in reputable institutions. Such cases arise from peculiar circum- stances, and are dealt with at least openly, whether wisely or mis- takenly. Some remarks upon this subject are offered in the fol- lowing chapter, in connection with a brief discussion of lehrfrei- beit. Some current public discussions seem to call for a few further observations on the subject of "scrutiny" for the purpose of elimi- nation. Perhaps the most morbid symptom of conditions under which the enterprise of higher education labors in this country, appears in the manner in which some presidents speak of college and university professors. Ideas have been advanced and Ian- PROBLEM OF ELIMINATION 221 guage employed which may be more or less applicable to the teach- ers in a city's public schools (mostly women with only normal school training, or less), but are preposterous in reference to a university's work and faculty. If there were in particular institu- tions any justification of such ideas and language, the fact would be the most grievous of indictments against the presidents who created or tolerate the condition. Ae an example of the misconcep- tions alluded to, the young president of an aspiring college recently published his inductions from a visitation of "one hundred and five of the institutions listed in the reports of the United States Com- missioner of Education as colleges and universities." He infers from his observations that one of the essential obligations which American college presidents are expected to meet, is "the presi- dent should supervise the teaching." He had explained: "The question what should be expected of a college president I have not ventured to discuss. I have confined myself to conditions as I have found them in one hundred of our better institutions." But he appears to comment in his own part on the need of the presiden- tial presence and supervision in the class-rooms, and concludes, "Tt is reasonable to expect him to supervise the teaching until that duty is definitely assigned to another person." Before such mis- conceptions one stands aghast. Of course, the notion would be repudiated at the great majority of "our better institutions," but that it could be expressed by a college president at all ! lehrfrei- heit, tempora, mores. Where are we, and whither are we tending, when a young president of pure purpose and many tal- ents, visiting the best hundred of our universities and colleges to improve his qualifications for the presidency of a new and aspiring college, learns that a university president in this country must "supervise the teaching" in order to fulfill his duty and meet what is expected of him, at least until that duty is definitely assigned to another person ? May we not assure the young man that no such burden rests upon him? I also entreat him not to assign "that duty" to "another person," and especially not to his deans. The 222 "COLLEAGUESHIP" WITH FACULTY young instructors will be sufficiently (perhaps too much) super- vised by their departmental colleagues ; the professors are past such supervision. And who of mortal men could supervise the teaching of a university faculty, even if it were desirable ? Men must stand on their own feet in a college or university both teachers and taught, or lo ! no "higher education" will be found in the place. A very different, but perhaps more injurious, because less absurd, attitude is exposed in a casual remark by the president of the largest university in the United States of America : "Almost with- out exception the men who to-day occupy the most conspicuous positions in the United States have worked their way up, by their own ability, from very humble beginnings. The heads of the great universities were every one of them not long ago hum- ble and poorly compensated teachers." It must be inferred that President Butler here exposes his attitude toward the university professor; because, if he had had in mind experiences of early life, he would necessarily have said that the once humble teacher was now either a professor in a great university or its administrative head. In no other manner could such a remark be made in Ger- many or in England, or even in bureaucratic France. It cannot be well with us until great professors in an American university are esteemed as its distinguished men of whom it would be im- possible to speak as "humble" in comparison with the president of the university. The presidential office is honorable and servicea- ble only as it serves to gather together strong men for the instruc- tion of the young and the advancement of knowledge. The Attitude of Colleagueship With Faculty A point of subtle difficulty and danger, in both the spirit and the formalities of university organization, is involved in the atti- tude of colleagueship with the faculty, which is everywhere imposed upon the president and at least passively assumed by him. Herein lies a cruel difficulty for him ; because "no man can serve two mas- ters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else "COLLEAGUESHIP" WITH FACULTY 223 he will hold to the one and despise the other/' It would seem that a little clear thinking would prevent this confusion, but the security conferred hy a logical organization truly adapted to the nature and ideals of each enterprise is only recently* coming to be understood and appreciated by a few leading minds notably by some of the best efficiency engineers. The president of the American university is primarily and necessarily the executive officer and expert adviser of the board of regents. His other function of general leadership, as has been fully explained, demands comprehension of and sympathy with " the work of the faculty; but his most immediate official loyalty belongs to the governing board. He cannot otherwise be that board's trusted adviser. The plan that has been proposed for participation by representa- tives of the faculty in the counsels of the governing board, and for the president's consultation with representative councils, would remove the fatal fault of organization by which the president has hitherto undertaken to be the exclusive representative of the faculty to the board, and at the same time the independent adviser of the board. Those functions are contradictory; no man can always be faithful in both. Hence the universal accusations of bad faith necessarily more or less justified under an impossible theory of the president's functions and obligations. But there might still re- main, after such correction of fundamental procedures as has been recommended, the question we are now considering. It would, indeed, be an illogical survival from previous habits of thought; but it is exceedingly difficult to do away with fixed ideas, or to put an end to an habitual employment of misused words those "unjust stewards of men's ideas." If it be admitted that the proper functions of the university *The importance of logical relations in the agencies for the government of states was insisted upon by men like Montesquieu and Alexander Ham- ilton; but such principles have been ignored or despised among us, even in that sphere, for more than a century. 224 "COLLEAGUESIIIP" WITH FACULTY president have been correctly stated on page 207 of this study, it should follow that the inconsistent and deceptive attitude of col- leagueship with the members of the faculty ought to be carefully avoided. Judges should be selected from members of the bar for appointment on the bench, and judge and practitioner are of one legal profession; but the bench is not the bar, and a judge ceases to be in a specific sense a colleague of the attorneys who practice before him. Even so the governing board of a university should select for its executive officer and president of the institution one who knows the vital work and aims of a university in a professional way; but that officer, as such, is no more specifically a colleague of the members of the faculty than a regent is their colleague. I am, of course, aware that this is an unheard of contention ; but I submit it upon its rational appeal. The reader may judge for himself. I believe it would help every president immensely if he and the professoriate adopted clearly and followed with thoroughgoing con- sistency the theory of the presidential office I have propounded. Intercourse would become natural, respective duties and responsi- bilities would be mutually recognized. Men could then differ in judgment about particulars without bitterness. The present anoma- lous attitudes pervert judgments and engender animosities. This is manifested in almost every discussion of the presidential office by university professors. Even so clear and candid a thinker as Professor Jastrow is tripped by the unconscious misconception. Speaking of the president's treatment of salaries in the budget, he complains: "The administrative feeling creeps in, or is openly defended, that so long as places can be filled, salaries are not the first consideration. It is this phase of the presidential activity that estranges him from colleagueship with his faculty." This remark, I say, is made by an experienced and distinguished profes- sor, and not casually, but in a careful critical discussion of marked ability. It illustrates how the misconception of colleagueship with the faculty adds the sting of betrayal to difference of opinion. "COLLEAGUESHIP" WITH FACULTY 225 Under proper conceptions it would be impossible to say that, the administrative feeling creeps in on the chief administrator, or that the loyalties of colleagueship with the faculty were betrayed by the president, nor would the faculty, it may be added, ever be spoken of as his faculty. These are not matters of rhetorical precision; the misconceptions and deep connotations of such expressions cause, as Francis Bacon long ago explained, "a predisposition of the mind which distorts and infects all the anticipations of the understand- ing/' The administrative standpoint is properly taken by the president. Adequate and rightly distributed salaries are not prop- erly matters of sentiment, but of wise administration. If, for instance, a president commits the error of advocating salaries for new and obscure incumbents in chairs created mainly f^r advertis- ing purposes, exceeding those of distinguised scholars, who, in their more ordinary chairs, give the institution its real standing and prestige, that is, indeed, a grievous mistake. But it would be far more effectively met on its true and proper ground. It is an administrative mistake. It can be proved to be such an error. To drag in passions, involved with notions about treason to colleagues, when there is no real colleagueship, only makes confusion worse confounded, and renders mutual understanding practically im- possible. Every university president would do well to cease from vain attempts to pose as a member of the faculty. The present mis- / taken theory demands an acrobatic feat that cannot be performed successfully. The president may properly, at his pleasure, preside over a meeting of the faculty; but it should be done as president of the university, not as chairman of the faculty, just as he may preside over any convocation in the university. But he should often attend faculty meetings when he does not preside. The president, for many reasons,* should attend as many of the meet- ings of every faculty as he can. He may thus, for instance, give *See page 235. 220 "COLLEAGUESHIP" WITH FACULTY each faculty the benefit of the experience of all the others. But there is no need for him to be the chairman of every faculty, in order to render this or any other service. The chairman of the faculty should be its own dean elected by the faculty. The faculty might very properly, on some occasion, wish to meet without the president's presence, not as a surreptitious conclave, but in the full formality of its corporate dignity. I believe the more such an organization and accordant attitudes are considered, the more reasonable and advantageous they will ap- pear. The president's influence would be enhanced, not dimin- ished. Faculty meetings would be voluntarily much better at- tended. The proposals and counsels that the president often desires and needs to submit to the faculty, would be heard by its best and strongest members, who now so frequently absent them- selves. Good and strong men abominate shams. Such men have come to loathe the travesty of the so-called "faculty meetings" of the prevalent practice. If faculty meetings are conducted by the president, all appointments, rulings, and initiative tend to fall upon him, even if they are not rashly assumed by him. Young mem- bers of the faculty whose breeding and innate character do not keep them immune from a base contagion, fall into sycophancy, or into a legislative precipitancy and insolence that renders them and their influence upon students a menace to society. Genuine deliberation tends to vanish. Protests, hopelessly made by wiser heads from a sense of personal integrity and to wash their hands of the matter, are flippantly disregarded by an always safe majority eager to follow the chairman's suggestions. A president may begin with a sincere desire that his opinions should gain weight from their wisdom rather than from their source; but the destruc- tive tendency inheres in the system. The characteristic results will be manifested in the long run, quicklv in a young institution destitute of resistant traditions. The "drift within the university" consequent upon faculty meet- ings of the prevalent sort, is pointed out by almost every observer. "COLLEAGUESHIP" WITH FACULTY 227 It often carries things beyond any original purpose of the unwit- ting presidential instigator. Compliant claqueures tend to out- Herod their Herod. Professor Jastrow observes : "The drift within the university is toward winning those marks of suc- cess upon which administrative dominance sets greatest store. . . . 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 aegis to resist, often with much personal sacrifice, these untoward influences." There is one point upon which I should be careful to avoid pos- sible misunderstanding. If the president is not a member of the faculty, someone may wonder: What channel is left open to him for actively expressing the allegiance he still owes to teaching and to science his original professional obligation? If in any rare instance a university president wished to offer throughout a term a course of instruction in the regular curriculum, there would be no difficulty in arranging for him to be, quo ad hoc, a member of the faculty, entirely aside from his presidential office. But the teaching obligation seems to be more honored in the breach than in the observance by the presidents of our universities. No one could more deplore the preoccupation, or neglect, or inability, thus implied, than do I; nor does any advice of mine militate against the resuscitation of the impulse that ought to prompt and compel university presidents to meet the students and faculty, on convenient occasions, as a lover of learning and the communication thereof, and, if possible, as a creator of new knowledge and announcer thereof. In general, it is only an irregular lecture or course of 228 "COLLEAGUESHIP" WITH FACULTY lectures that should be expected in the university from its presi- dent. Against this an objection seems to arise from a petty notion that the university student should and must receive "credit" in marks in the registrar's office for everything he listens to. There are victims of the marking mania who imagine that irregular scholarly lectures by members of the faculty or by the president are practically barred on this account. "How could the student get credits?" The question deserves only such an answer as that of the captain of Napoleon's Old Guard when asked whether he was ready to surrender. Let the president lecture to who will come to hear, as he may be able. He will be better able to do some scholarly work once in a while, if he will put far from him the fantasy that everybody and everything always needs to be directed and managed and controlled by the president. For the satfe of manhood, to say nothing of science, let there be one point in American university life where credits in the registrar's office may be forgotten. Let the president lecture when he has something worth saying for the instruction of the young, or for the advance- ment of knowledge. Let his lectures, at least, be one oasis in which grade marks are ignored. I know young men and their hearts. T know too that they have no worse traducers than a certain sort of university instructor. If a competent president would adopt the course I suggest, it would afford a salutary object lesson to many members of the faculty. They would see lectures attended regardless of credits.* The fact might open their understand- ings. *I knew of a young instructor, twelve years ago, in the department of philosophy of a great university, whose regular lectures were frequently attended by members of the faculties of other departments, and whose audiences usually included a large number of students who were not enrolled for the courses and received no "credit" for their attendance. It is reported that the biggest amphitheatre possessed by the Coltige de France is too small to hold Henri Bergson's would-be hearers: "Long before the lecture hour the seats and the steps of the aisles, which can be made to serve as seats, are pre-empted by patient waiters. . . . The standing room fills up rapidly also. . . . When the lecture begins, the sitters, and such of the standers as are lucky enough to have their arms "COLLEAGUESHIP" WITH FACULTY 229 The advising and control of students belongs functionally to the faculties and their deans, nevertheless it behooves the president to keep in vital touch with the students. There need be no systematic method in this relation, and the intercourse that should sustain it had better not be too common. From time to time the president ought to have something which he wishes to say to the student body, and if he is of the right stuff for his calling, he will know how to make such irregular occasions natural and effective chan- nels for the personal influence with the young that should be an abiding desire of his heart. If a college president does not under- stand young men, he does not understand the business he is set to administer. Of one thing, at least, he may be sure: whether lie understands them or not, they will understand him. President Benton, in his book The Real College, justly observes : "These keen young minds will read him through and through. To others he may make himself opaque. To his students he is always thoroughly transparent. . . . There is no stronger disciple of the gospel of the 'square deal' than the young collegian. A president will never control Trim by abuse. He will not win him by oppression. College students hold tyranny and play to the galleries in equal contempt. They like an expres- sion of confidence and appreciation when it is merited. They will aecept deserved rebuke properly administered. They despise unmerited com- mendation. They honor perfect frankness. The alert mind of youth is quick to distinguish between the genuine and the counterfeit. A college president can afford to be an artisan in raising money. He can afford to "be nothing less than an artist in shaping immortal men." iree, scribble furiously in their note-books. . . . The lecturer is short of stature, spare, an almost perfect ascetic type, somewhat gray, and slightly bald. ... He speaks slowly and distinctly, but easily, with engaging indifference to his notes, and without any effort at oratory. .... It is as though sheer intellect, abstract intellect, were endowed with the power of speech. There is not the slightest trace in M. Bergson's manner of vanity, . . . nor is there a scrap of the unlovely pedantry and arid officialism, against the prevalence of which at the Sorbonne a considerable portion of cultivated France recently rose in revolt." 230 SECONDARY ADMINISTRATORS Secondary Administrators The entire discussion throughout this and preceding chapters has upheld the general principles of what is termed functional organization, and its appropriate general policy of non-interference with inherent responsibility and properly commensurate authority. The logical place and status of a business manager and his staff, and of the registrar's office have been made clear. The proper nature of the office of the deans of the faculties has been indicated or implied at various points, but that important matter and the inner organization of departments will be treated more directly in the next chapter. There remain to be considered only those administrative officers who are merely direct assistants to the presi- dent. Secondary administrators of this kind exist, or ought to exist, only in institutions in which the separate location of dif- ferent parts, or the magnitude of some definite division, or the amount and character of the president's personal engagements, re- quires such presidential lieutenants, or, in the last case, an assist- ant president. No such function ought ever to be confused with the deanship of a faculty. If officers of the sort in question are required they should have titles that avoid confusion with positions properly belonging to the jurisdiction of faculties or departments. Usually they may be called directors. In the last case mentioned, however, if a president for some good reason needs an immediate general assistant, that officer should be called Assistant President.* *0n May 19, 1913, President David Starr Jordan of Leland Stanford Junior University, desiring to devote himself mainly to the university's external relations, was largely relieved of the cares of internal adminis- tration. Dr. J. C. Branner, who for fifteen years has been assistant or vice-president, was made president, and Dr. Jordan was made Chancellor of the University. Shortly afterwards Dr. J. M. Stillman, head of the department of chemistry, was made vice-president. Such an arrangement is, of course, exceptional, and was adopted to meet special conditions. It could be properly judged only after close examination of those conditions and the actual functions and relations of the officials. Certainly no such administrative triumvirate would be generally advisable. SECONDARY ADMINISTRATORS 231 Confusion of properly distinct functions and spheres of authority almost always accompanies an official misnomer. Even if the original misconception that led to the adoption of an illogical title be no longer shared by present administrators, the retention of the misleading title will continue to cause more or less disorganiz- ing confusion. So many members of governing boards and facul- ties understand so little of organization and government, that their conduct and attitudes are unconsciously directed or affected by the legitimate purport of a title. It is therefore eminently worth while to make every title employed in the institution fit the scheme of actual organization. There are some divisions of a large university which have such manifold external relations, that for them special directors may be permanently needed and, perhaps, increasingly advantageous. For instance, some extension divisions, or the experiment stations of a great college of agriculture, will usually require special administra- tive services that the president cannot or is not in a position to render. Well organized faculties can best manage the work of instruction and research, but the ideal for the services of institu- tions of higher education has expanded to include the public dis- semination of the results of science for practical application. This new sphere of service getting the knowledge applied which has been achieved, and is stored, as it were, in repositories of learning is one in which administrative direction is peculiarly necessary. And the administrative direction needed in this sphere is of a kind that a faculty could hardly give. For example, the various de- partments of any strong school of agriculture know more today than the farmers of the country could be led in a century to apply or utilize, unless skillful and persistent and systematic methods of dissemination are employed. Highly developed and vigorous de- partments of prophylactic medicine and public hygiene would be similarly situated. On the other hand, proper organization would enable the presi- 232 SECONDARY ADMINISTRATORS dent to fulfill all general administrative duties without assistance, and leave him far more time for his essential and useful functions than the common type of organization leaves him with numerous lieutenants. Ordinary schools and colleges, even if very large and separately located, cause no inherent need of directors or assistant presidents. I helieve President Schurman is correct in his opin- ion : "Probably the office of director will be abolished* as the col- leges having such heads become firmly established and democrati- cally organized. . . . But the dean as executive agent of the fac- ulty is indispensable." The matter of college athletics, as it has been developed in the majority of ambitious colleges, presents anomalies that make it somewhat difficult to place in respect to suitable jurisdiction. To one unacquainted with the conditions it would seem plain that the control of student athletics belonged to the faculty, and that there- fore a Director of Athletics should look immediately to the Dean of the Faculty for the fundamental regulations governing the affairs over which the Director is commissioned to exercise executive control. If this works well, it is the natural status of a director of athletics. It may be remarked, however, that if the external, public connections of some conspicuous phases of the matter be such that a president is convinced that they need to be under his own hand, he should be careful to avoid any confusing interfer- ence. The condition supposed involves doubtless an exaggerated employment of so-called "games" for the amusement of the public and spectacular advertising. Perhaps the wiser course would be to let truer games be a matter of athletic sport for a much larger 'Cornell University has had hitherto nine directors of different colleges, schools, or divisions. Some of them, by reason of the complexity or ex- tensive external relations of their divisions will probably continue to be needed. But future experience will doubtless find the offices of Director of the College of Law, Director of the College of Architecture, Director of the School of Education, for instance, to be inexpedient. On the other hand, a Director of tae College of Agriculture, and a Director of the Summer Ses- sion, may be permanently required. SECONDARY ADMINISTRATORS 233 number of the young men, with less frequent traveling exhibitions. Nevertheless if the supposed condition exists, and the conduct of the matter involves such complicated external relations and the ex- penditure of such great sums of money, that the president desires to control it, it might be best to have a Director of Public Athletics looking to the president for general guidance and control, and a Gymnasium Director (or other appropriate title) looking to the faculty's executive officer. I offer, as a concluding suggestion, that the office and proper functions of the president of a college or university are such that there is no need for any "acting president," when the president happens to be absent from his desk for a few days. Nothing ex- poses more crudely an arbitrary one-man rule, than the appoint- ment automatic or special of an "acting president," whenever the president takes a train to attend a distant meeting or to spend a vacation week. When the head of an executive department of the state government steps out of his office, the public business may require an "Acting Secretary of State," for instance, to fall auto- matically into the chief's place; but the president of a university has no such business. A trip to Europe, or a resting retirement for several months, is a different matter, and an acting president may be specially appointed. For ordinary brief absences, there is no need of an acting president. The organization of the institu- tion must be totally bad, if it cannot run a few days without the president at his desk. V. THE FACULTY. The administration of curricula, which is the faculty's main part within the subject of this study, will be considered in the next chapter. In previous chapters the organic relations and status of the faculty have been thoroughly discussed. Deanships and the management of departments have been collaterally involved at various points, but a more direct consideration of the office of the dean of a faculty, and of the internal organization of a department has been reserved for this chapter. Here, also, is the place for brief references to some of the ideals that should be preserved and enforced by the faculties of colleges and universities. It has been shown that a college must be built upon a group of professorships. It can grow from no other nucleus. The faculty is the comparatively continuous body among all the component parts of the institution. Solidarity and continuity in the student body is also a very vital fact, nevertheless- regents, presidents, and students may come and go without causing essential changes, if the nucleus keep its integrity. Its force and ideals must persist through the slower changes suffered by it, else chaos will come, to stay until a new nucleus becomes steadfast again. Of course, by "steadfast" I do not mean fixed, nor have I in mind any sort of ultra conservatism, but refer to the characteristic quality of living principle and right understanding in any matter it is not blown about by every puff of wind, it presses forward an4 changes its course only consciously and in order to improve. The vital importance of such continuity and steadfastness in a faculty, im- poses upon all its members a high duty which is too often neglected. The neglect of that duty is evidenced wherever it is distinctly dif- ficult for new members to become acquainted with colleagues, and where there is very little social and convivial intercourse in con- genial groups. For if the rational and ordinary means to an end THE FACULTY 235 are neglected or unknown, the end will seldom be otherwise at- tained ; or, if the natural manifestations of a spirit do not appear, the spirit is usually lacking. "Good fellowship," says President Eliot in his book University Administration, "and a real intellec- tual intimacy among the teachers of a university are in them- selves great objects. They create a good atmosphere for the intel- lectual life of the whole body of teachers and students." He con- tinues : "That the members of a faculty understand each other's dispositions and various capacities is often a great advantage in university crises or emer- gencies; that the president and the deans should have the opportunities which faculty meetings supply to become acquainted with the powers and characters of the different members of the university staff is of primary importance. . . . "In faculty meetings the different qualities of the members who take part in the discussions are plainly revealed. The whole body learns that certain members are public-spirited, generous of time and labor, and co-operative, while other members exhibit the opposite qualities. Some members are seen to be clear, keen, and fair in debate, while others are obscure, dull, or unfair; some members are modest and retiring, and yet ready for service, while others are more forth-putting in talk, but not so serviceable; some are quick, ready, and fertile, while others are habitually slow to speak, and even tardy in debate, and yet sound and influential; some say little, but their opinions are weighty when expressed; others talk much and often, and nevertheless are influential because inventive and suggestive. ... A wise president will dread nothing so much as an inert and uninterested faculty." In spite of the life tenure of the professors in all universities of good repute, a faculty changes its constituent members more rap- idly than is generally supposed. The larger the proportion of \J assistant professors and instructors, the more rapid is the change.* *"It is not at all uncommon," says President Eliot, "for one-fifth of a faculty to disappear within five years. . . . There is no difficulty in keeping a faculty young on the average, in spite of the fact that long tenures and life-service are the rule in well-managed universities." 236 THE FACULTY If its members pay no attention to the duties and find no enjoyment in the pleasures of colleagueship, they will soon find themselves a disorganized group each individual misunderstood and misunder- standing, suspicious and suspected. Under such conditions the faculty's corporate action (in its atmosphere and methods, and in the accidental character of results unless "cut and dried" in advance by some clique) will resemble rather the proceedings of a political convention, than the deliberations of a permanent academic senate whose members should know each other in mutual sympathy and long habit of co-operative work and counsel, and who should be bound together by a common loyalty to their high calling. The Faculty is the very heart of the institution, and it must be a kingly heart, or all will be misruled. The government is on his shoul- ders. The members of faculties in which the president and the dean, and committees appointed by them, 'run' everything, will make a very wry face if more frequent faculty meetings be suggested. But that sinister attitude toward meetings of the faculty would soon disappear if such an organization as I have proposed were instituted. Under any conditions, however, a faculty that is fit to meet at all ought to meet frequently. I am sure that President Eliot has rightly answered (in part) his question, "How can the functions of a faculty be best discharged ?" as follows : "In the first place, by frequent stated meetings for examining the condi- tion of its work, for hearing reports from its officers and committees, and for the consideration and discussion of proposals to improve its methods. . . . Every faculty has to keep up with the rapid march of educational events, and for this purpose it must have frequent stated meetings, and patient discussion of new proposals. "This necessity for the constant revision of educational plans, methods, and material penetrates, or should penetrate, to the work of every indi- vidual teacher in the university. ... If they meet but seldom, leav- ing to deo,ns, secretaries, and committees all the routine work without demanding of them incessant improvements, receive from the members THE FACULTY 237 few new proposals, and do their best to avoid discussion of those few, it is certain that the institution in their charge will not grow or thrive, and will soon cease to play a leading part in the educational progress of the community or the nation. By the vitality, inventiveness, and enter- prise of its faculty, it is safe to judge any institution of learning. Noth- ing can take the place of vitality in a faculty, no one-man power in a president or dean, no vigor and ambition in a board of trustees, and no affection or zeal in the graduates of the institution." The character of a faculty and its attitude toward all vital activi- ties in the university is the paramount question. The importance of right organization lies in its bearing on this main question. The only safeguard against disasters and the one remedy for mis- , takes and disorders of almost every sort, is an intelligent recogni-^ tion of its responsibility on the part of a competent and resolute faculty. While carefully instituting a reorganization calculated to fortify a faculty in its proper functions, President Schurman reminded that organization cannot by itself secure the desired action, and that such action can be realized in spite of improper organization, if other conditions within voluntary control be favorable. Por- tions of his wise and expert counsel referring to the president's part have been given in the preceding chapter ; the following suggestions concern the faculty : "The end in view can be accomplished even without institutional reor- ganization. Let the faculty recommend what after due consideration it deems important for the university to do or not to do, and so far at any rate as Cornell University is concerned, not only the president but the board of trustees will be too thankful for the recommendations to think of raising any question of jurisdiction or prerogative. The welfare, the best interest, the advancement of Cornell University as an organ of higher education and research is the supreme object in every mind and heart, and the faculty should know better than any other body or than any individual how this end is to be attained. No greater good could come to Cornell University than a quickening and deepening of the faculty sense of responsibility for its welfare. Too often the faculties of American uni- versities have rolled all responsibility on the president and trustees. . . . 238 THE DEANSHIP "The one remedy is cultivation by the faculty of a sense of responsibility for the welfare and advancement of the institution and a readiness to advise on all matters directly or indirectly connected with the essential functions of the university of which they are the constituted organs and guardians. . . . The report of the Faculty of the Graduate School pub- lished at the end of the year 1909-10 is an admirable example of faculty co-operation in determining fundamental policies for the university. By such action the faculty asserts itself, even under the present corporate organization of the university, as a potent element in its government. And the feeling that the university is their university, that they are influential in its control and that they themselves are free and independent in their several positions, enhances the happiness of professors and stimulates them to their largest and best endeavors as teachers and investigators. . . . "A faculty will not be dominated or over-ridden which justly asserts itself. Yet not only trustees but administrative officers are likely to remain; the positions are necessary or at any rate appropriate organs of the institution. Possibly the headship of the department may disappear, and a committee consisting of all the members of the department take its place, as has now been done in several of the departments of Cornell University. Probably the office of director will be abolished as the col- leges having such heads become firmly established and democratically organized, and the work of the head is less largely devoted to non- academic objects. But the dean as executive agent of the faculty is indispensable; and it will be due to the laches of the members of the faculty themselves if the dean ever exercises their powers. It is for them to keep the institution democratic. And nowhere else is democracy so important as in the university. For the professor's function is an intel- lectual one, and freedom is the law and life of the spirit." The Deanship If there were no weakness and no neglect on the part of mem- bers of the faculty, the sheer weight of its moral influence might protect the institution against functional usurpations by regents, presidents, deans, or any other officials. But it would be unrea- sonable to hope for such perfection: the tendencies of wrong organization ought to be avoided with diligent care by correcting the organization. THE DEANSHIP 239 The office of dean is comparatively new in American universi- ties. Less than fifty years ago, there was only one dean (of the medical faculty) in Harvard University. There are now nine or ten deans in that university. The dean of a faculty is everywhere V 1 the executive officer of his faculty. His primary function is to see to the execution of all the ordinances and regulations enacted V by the faculty for the administration of its curriculum and the government of students. Yet almost everywhere the faculty's dean is nominated or appointed by the president, and the dean has ordinarily become a direct subordinate of the president. This secondary relation, this function of president's lieutenant, obscures the original obligation of the dean. He tends to become the presi- dent's man, not the faculty's representative. The most sincere individual strives in vain to fill acceptably such a two-faced office. It is bad for a faculty to suffer dictatorial interference from the president; it is utterly demoralizing if its own executive officer is seduced by the organization of the institution into becoming an extraneous authority. As a practical issue, the undefined sway of deans exercising powers vaguely delegated* from the president, is to the professoriate the most vexatious and discouraging feature of university government in this country. Consultations between the deans and the president ought to be full, frank, and frequent; but each dean should be the executive officer of his faculty, and nothing else. And, as President Schur- man says, "the time ha-s come when the right of the faculty to / select its own chief officer 'should be recognized and confirmed" And the authority of a faculty to remove its dean (however rarely to be exerted) ought to be recognized, just as the govern- ing board has authority, if need be, to remove the president. The title of a dean should never run "Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences," "Dean of the School of Law," etc.; but the title should be "Dean of the Faculty of the College of Arts and *E. g., "Next in authority to the president come the several deans. . . . The duties of the Dean of the Faculty are in the absence of the president to represent him in appropriate matters, . . ." Catalog Uni- versity of Texas, 1911-12. 240 THE DEANSHIP Sciences," "Dean of the Faculty of the School of Law," etc. If one who knows the institutions will read their catalogs, he will find some significant correspondences between organic facts and the practice in regard to these names. President Eliot, of course, advocates the appointment of deans by the president, nevertheless he warns : "A wise faculty will, how- ever, keep in its own hands a firm control over its officers and com- mittees, and will itself lay down all the general lines of educational policy." But it seems to me vain to advise or to cherish hope for any such practice by a faculty, if the president appoints all "its officers and committees"; they will be practically not its but his. If the primary means of control are usurped, is it reasonable to expect the faculty to "keep a firm control" ? I beg to direct atten- tion to a general incongruity between President Eliot's magnani- mous sentiments and the theories of organization he advocates. He holds that the president should be chairman of the governing board, and that, "in the board of trustees and in all the faculties the president should invariably name all committees, never allowing ihis important function to be usurped by any private member of these boards." Every feature and detail of organization he rec- ommends tends to establish a one-man power; yet he frequently expresses sentiments nobly contrary to such theories. He is un- doubtedly a benevolent despot, whose personal administration ob- viated the characteristic consequence? of the form of organization he administered. But faults in organization lie in wait like pit- falls, forcing the knowing into devious ways and ever ready to engulf the unwary. After asserting that the president of a university ought to have autocratic power, by demanding every possible organic arrangement for conferring such power upon him, he, for instance, will presently continue : "The president of a university should never exercise an autocratic or one-man power. He should be often an inventing and animating force, and often a leader; but not a ruler or autocrat. His success will be due more to powers of exposition and persuasion combined with persistent industry, than to any force of will or habit of command. Indeed, one- ORGANIZATION VS. ADMINISTRATION 241 man power is always objectionable in a university, whether lodged in president, secretary of the trustees, dean, or head of department." If the proper distinction between organization and administra- tion be kept in view, students of college and university manage- ment would be greatly assisted. Organization establishes the func- tional relations of all parts of the institution by fundamental ordi- nances which provide potentialities of action. Administration seeks to get out of each part the most beneficial exercise of its function. Organization deals with the abstract; it seeks permanent condi- tions; it cannot, or should not, consider persons or particular exi- gencies. Administration deals with the concrete; it puts a soul into the body. It would be profitless to argue which is the more important. In a short view covering only one man's life-time, administration appears to be the more important; for the soul it infuses makes so plainly for weal or for woe, it may be prompt and vigorous, or faltering and weak; kind and wise, or selfish and blind; faithful and just, or false and unjust; in brief, the admin- istration within any organization may be sane or insane. But when one takes the long and comprehensive view, the life-time of any man or group of contemporary men is seen to be a small span in the life of the institution, and the tendencies produced by per- sistent organic conditions appear to be the more potent factor. It is somewhat like arguing about the relative importance of nurture and heredity. The debate, as such, is futile, except as it might teach wherein and why each is important. Both are vitally im- portant; both deserve more thorough study than either has ever received. Organization, however, is much less regarded and much less understood than administration. A good heart and high moral ideals go far toward good administration ; analytical thought and good judgment in addition are required to provide good organi- zation. Contrary to the testimony of many, I have found in my experience of life a hundred good hearts to one good head. There is evil affection and perverse intention in this world, but far more iaulty thought and weak will. The poet is right 242 THE DEANSHIP "The poor inhabitant below Was quick to learn and wise to know, And keenly felt the friendly glow, And softer flame; But thoughtless follies laid him low, And stained his name." I repeat, if the student of the literature of this subject can hold in mind the difference between organization and administra- tion, he will be able to take from anv writer what is good on the one side, while rejecting what is bad on the other. For instance, in my opinion, almost everything President Eliot says about admin- istration is right, and almost everything involving organization advocated by him is wrong. Of course, I might be mistaken on either score, still the matters are totally distinct. From the fol- lowing passage in University Administration his opinions about a dean's organic relation to the president are eliminated ; the remain- der is an acute and helpful statement concerning a dean's admin- istrative duties and the "qualities of a good dean" : "At the head of each department [i. e., school or college] a dean is ordinarily placed, who is its chief administrative officer. In most cases he is also a professor and an active teacher, who gives part of his time to administrative work. . . . "The functions of a dean relate almost exclusively to his own depart- ment of the university; but within that department they are compre- hensive. . . . He is responsible for the preparation and orderly con- duct of its faculty business, and for the discipline of its students. In the undergraduate departments much of his time is given to intercourse with students who need advice or pecuniary aid, or who neglect their oppor- tunities, or become dangerous to their associates. For the younger pro- fessors and inexperienced teachers in his department, the dean is a coun- selor and friend. . . . "The dean of a large department requires a good deal of clerical assist- ance; because the records of the students under his charge must be kept with accuracy. The students' records kept in a dean's office are not only indispensable while the students are members of the university, but are also in many cases useful in after years; although the record of each SECRETARIES 243 individual is held to be confidential, there are many proper uses to which they can be put by request of relatives, friends or biographers. . . . "Deans may best be persons who are capable of working cordially with the president, although their functions are in many respects independent of him. Much of the work of a dean is done in conformity with rules laid down by the faculty, or with well-understood, predetermined policies of the university, and it is only on matters for the settlement of which he finds no such guidance, or on new pecuniary problems, or on difficult cases, that a dean will ordinarily consult the president. "It is obvious that for the discharge of these functions a dean needs good judgment, quick insight, patience, and a strong liking for helpful, sympathetic intercourse with young men. The men who are most suc- cessful in the work of a dean are neither dry nor gushing, neither rude nor soft; they are alert, attentive, sympathetic, and hopeful. In conduct- ing the business of his office a dean needs the usual qualities of a good administrative officer, namely: thoroughness in inquiry, promptness and clearness in decision, and assiduity. In manner and address he ought to be frank, considerate, and cordial. He ought to inspire confidence and win regard, and be capable of exerting a good influence without visible effort, and without self-consciousness. "In a large department, containing many students, the work of a dean makes a serious demand upon a conscientious man whose feelings are quick; so that deans are often compelled to retire from service in conse- quence of the incessant drain on their sympathies, and the exhausting nature of parts of their work. One of the most trying parts is the inter- course with anxious, dissatisfied, or unintelligent parents. On the other hand, there is no part of university work which brings to the faithful worker a stronger sense of being useful, or more durable satisfactions. His personal contacts with young men are numerous and intimate. He often knows that he has done good to people in anxiety or trouble, and as the years go by he experiences many of the legitimate rewards of bringing help at critical moments in other people's lives." Faculty Secretaries The following admirable statement by President Eliot expresses all that need be said about the recording secretary of a faculty : "The function of the secretary of a faculty is by no means unim- 244 PUBLICATIONS portant. The history of a university may best be read in the rec- ords of its board of trustees and its faculties ; for the main steps of its progress are there recorded. The secretary of a faculty, like an administration secretary, needs a capacity to grasp quickly the thoughts of other people and reduce them to clear and precise written form. A secretary who can pick the kernel out of a good deal of discursive chaff, or express concisely the result of an in- volved debate, will be likely to make himself very useful. If he can do those things, and is fair and diligent, he may be a quiet man of infrequent speech, and yet have a strong influence for good. If he possesses also some gift of speech and some charm of style, and a strong memory, his serviceableness will be greatly en- hanced." There are other affairs properly within the jurisdiction of facul- ties for which special secretaries may be advantageous. Such mat- ters are commonly attended to by committees. There are publica- tions, for example, of a kind that should be controlled by the fac- ulty, being essentially distinct from the "publicity bureau" under the president's control, mentioned on page 182. These affairs may grow to such proportions that no committee, even by sacrificing an inordinate amount of time, can manage them satisfactorily. If so, a secretary with suitable talents and attainments, giving his entire time, would be more efficient, and the arrangement would be economical although the salary of an assistant or adjunct professor be paid. This secretary should be responsible to the general fac- ulty. Questions would arise as to whether some particular matter should be handled by the faculty's secretary of publications or by the publicity bureau of the general administration, but ordinary cooperation between the two offices would usually settle them, and the president could decide any doubtful point. President Eliot describes the work in question as follows: ACADEMIC ENDORSEMENTS 245 "Every vigorous university issues in these days a large number of periodical publications, including catalogues, reports, and announcements, and also a considerable number of literary and scientific publications such as annals or memoirs of observatories and museums, theses or essays produced by the teachers and graduate students of the university, contribu- tions from the various laboratories, syllabuses of lectures and laboratory courses, so-called studies in classics, history, and economics, and collections of examination papers. These various publications are issued in a steady stream throughout the year, and a competent agent must be employed to superintend the work of printing and issuing them. This work needs to be done with accuracy and efficiency; it affects every teacher and student in the university, and many of its future members. Since all the strong American universities have undertaken a great deal of new work within the last twenty years, it is necessary to bring this new work to the knowl- edge of graduates, teachers, parents, and pupils at school. The distribu- tion of this information must be as wide as the country; for the stronger universities are now resorted to from many parts of the United States, or indeed, from all parts." I mention., in contrast, another matter which careful organiza- tion would not put under the jurisdiction of the faculty. If a students' aid bureau be maintained, it should, in my judgment, be an office in the sphere of the business manager. Consultation with the deans would often be required, but such an enterprise is essen- tially a part of the general business management of the institu- tion. The dean of the general faculty ought not to be burdened with its details. The aid extended by such a bureau may include both loans and information about miscellaneous employment during collegiate residence; but it ought not to have anything to do with professional (i. e., scholarly) employment either during residence or after leaving college. On the other hand, recommendation for academic engagements is a prerogative (if deserved, an obligation) of members of the fac- ulty. In addition to individual obligations, the faculty may deal with this matter in a systematic way; but, in that case, there is no occasion for interdicting independent recommendations by members 246 LIBRARIES AND MUSEUMS of the faculty, a crude impertinence that has been perpetuated by some faculties through which committee reports are 'railroaded' over the discouraged protests of members who understand the pro- prieties of life and professional conduct. There is a legitimate demand in all large universities for an office in which information about inquiries, most frequently from secondary schools, are made available for students seeking such positions, and by which state- ments of academic record and endorsements may be forwarded to the inquiring correspondents. Such an office decently and relia- bly conducted may be very serviceable. A committee of the fac- ulty, with special secretary should conduct it. Libraries and Museums There is much administrative work connected with libraries and museums, and also with some laboratories. The heads of such parts of a college or university are usually called directors; but such officers have a different function from that of the directors of large schools or colleges in a university, who are simply assistants to the president.* The latter sort of directors are administrators, secondary to the president, and are required only when the magni- tude and complexity of the institution renders it necessary for the president to have such lieutenants. Libraries and museums, on the other hand, should have the same status in the institution as other scholarly departments. Their "directors" should be simply mem- bers of the faculty. The only difference between a library or a museum and other departments within the faculty that need be considered here, lies in the facts that the former seldom has or requires more than one man of first rank, and that the affairs of a library or museum require a kind of authority in that ranking officer over assistants such as is neither needed nor suitable in an ordinary department of instruction. I believe an ordinary depart- ment acts best as a committee of the whole, electing its own chair- 'See page 230 et sq. DEPARTMENT ORGANIZATION man. The director of a library or museum should doubtless be appointed as such by the regents of course, like every other mem- ber of the faculty, on the president's nomination, the difference being that for the department of history, for instance, the president should nominate merely professors and instructors in history, leav- ing them to choose the chairman of their department. I have already pointed out the propriety and the probable need of a director (in the sense of an administrator secondary to the president) of agricultural experiment stations. I add here that ordinary laboratories, such as those of the departments of physics, chemistry, zoology, botany, etc., do not need directors of that sort. If such a laboratory be so complex that the president deems it best not to leave its direction to the internal organization of its department, a director may be appointed by the regents; but his position should be merely a professorship in the department, with only the authority necessary to discharge his special function. He ought not to be an administrative officer looking directly to the president; but a member of the faculty responsible to his depart- ment and to his faculty. Department Organization In preceding chapters it has been brought out in various connec- tions that the work for which colleges and universities are insti- tuted is performed in the departments; and their relations to each other and to the entire institution have been considered in connec- tion with the budget, and at other points. The nature of its func- tion makes a department a true unit, yet this unitary element of the whole organism is internally complex. Its inner organiza- tion must be considered. How that organization may affect the workers in the department is a fundamental question. I cannot do better than offer the following condensation of a paper on "De- partmental Organization," read less than two years ago before the National Association of State Universities by one of the wisest 248 DEPARTMENT ORGANIZATION and most truly expert administrators in this (or any other) coun- try, President Albert Ross Hill : "In a large university faculty it becomes practically necessary to make a division into departments by subjects, each department including the teachers of that subject. These teachers all know much about one an- other's work, and constitute a group with homogeneous interests and sim- ilar aims. . . . They can readily discuss within the department the best methods of instruction for use in treating their subject, the complete- ness or incompleteness of the courses offered, the expediency of changing courses, of alternating some of them from year to year, of exchanging courses from time to time among members of the department, etc. "How best to organize such a department so as to secure co-operation and unity of action . . . and to develop initiative and a feeling of responsibility on the part of all the teachers of the department, in short, how to organize a department faculty so as to make it the most effective educational agency possible within the institution is the problem of this paper. And the thesis proposed for discussion is, that the system having a chairman of a department, with all its teachers, especially all its teachers of professorial rank, responsible for the efficiency of the department, is better than the one in more common use that of having a head of each department with power to fix schedules, alternate courses, determine pol- icies, etc., without the necessity of consulting other teachers in the depart- ment. . . . "The type of organization quite common today is based upon the notion that only one man should have anything to do with the policies and the administration of a department, and that all other teachers in the depart- ment are to be regarded as his assistants. This paper is meant to voice a protest against this type of departmental organization. Instead of it, the proposal is made that each department shall have a chairman to attend to the routine work if the department is not large enough to require a secretary also, to bring the interests of the subject to the atten- tion of the general administration of the university, etc., but without authority to determine policies, fix schedules, and the like, except after full discussion and vote by all teachers of professorial rank in the depart- ment. . . . "Among the advantages I see in such an organization are the following: "1. It is consistent with the organization of the larger groups of DEPARTMENT ORGANIZATION 249 teachers to which the department faculties belong. . . . They can vote on all questions of university policy, and on matters affecting the interests of the school or college to which their work especially belongs. Why. then, should they not have a vote in matters affecting the interests or policies of the department in which their courses are offered, and with whose subject-matter they are supposed to be primarily concerned? "2. It would tend to bring out in departmental discussions every edu- cational opinion or viewpoint, and all inventiveness regarding methods of teaching and administration, to the enlightenment of all the members and to the benefit of the entire university. It is a mistake to suppose that all wisdom in a department centers in its head or chairman. His admin- istrative or executive ability may have won him his position; but in scholarship, educational insight, and ideals, he may be inferior to other professors of the same department. "3. It would tend to give each teacher of professorial rank a feeling of responsibility for the work of the department as a whole, that cannot be expected of him when all matters except those affecting the conduct of his own courses are settled for him by a colleague designated 'the head of the department.' "4. It would tend to encourage a loyalty to the department and to the institution on the part of every teacher on the permanent staff, which is a highly important factor in the success of a university. Not much in this direction can be expected of a teacher who has no authority, no responsibility, and no freedom aside from the conduct of the few courses that he himself teaches, courses that are perhaps assigned to him against his will by a superior officer of instruction. "5. It would tend to set free every teacher's power of initiative, and all his inventiveness regarding methods of instruction, the aims and ideals of the department, etc., and would thus make him a much more efficient teacher, and make the department a better educational instrument in the realization of the educational aims of the entire university. "6. It would give greater essential harmony in departmental effort. The harmony which comes from enforced co-operation cannot be half so effective as that which arises from the voluntary co-operation of a number of free personalities, when educational, instead of business, effort is at stake. In fact, directorial methods among university professors cannot produce real harmony at all; and the system of department headships is 250 DEPARTMENT ORGANIZATION always liable to introduce such methods. The surest safeguard is to be found in the committee system of departmental organization. "7. The committee system gives greater flexibility of organization, and provides better for the growth and improvement of the teaching force in any department. New professors can be introduced into the department without subordinating them to some one, perhaps of inferior ability, already on the staff, and without the necessity of subordinating the senior professors to them. In fact, this system will eliminate many of the occa- sions for dropping professors from the staff, as teachers of professorial rank who have already served the university for a number of years can usually be assigned important functions in the departments; provided they are not department heads who can block all progress or force a situation which calls for their dismissal. "8. It would prevent members of the faculty from getting the notion that the university is primarily a business corporation, to be managed after business methods, and that the man held in greatest esteem is the one who can do administrative work rather than teach and investigate. It would thus tend to improve the educational ideals of the entire teach- ing force. "9. Experience seems to indicate that the system works better than the old one, and that the advantages already mentioned belong to it. Harvard has followed the system for a long time. Wisconsin has used it in the faculty of arts and sciences. Missouri has gradually adopted it, first, in the case of departments where vacant headships arose; and finally, after discussion and vote by the entire faculty, it has been unanimously adopted throughout the entire university. "In regard to the operation of the committee system, a few questions will naturally arise that may call for brief discussion: "1. How are the chairmen to be designated? Should they be appointed by the governing board, the president, or other administrative officer, or should they be elected by vote of the teachers of professorial rank in the department? The chief danger I see in the latter policy is that some wire-pulling may be indulged in among members of the department, and that some tendency may here and there show itself in the direction of honoring some colleague, who is felt to be entitled to the chairmanship because of priority of appointment, or the like. On the other hand, the members of a department ought to know one another better than the DEPAETMENT ORGANIZATION 251 administrative officers know them, and wisdom in selection ought to develop with the exercise of the function. . . . Furthermore, it must be borne in mind that the chairmanship of a department organized under the committee system will not likely be coveted by ambitious men as much as the headships have often been, especially where the latter, as is com- monly the case, involve additional salary. "2. For how long a period should the appointments be made? When once the committee system is fully established and understood by the faculty, I do not see that this question is a very vital one. Changing chairmen from time to time would tend to emphasize the purely adminis- trative and executive nature of their functions and prevent the chairman- ship from becoming a headship again. But there is sometimes only one good man for the position in a department. . . . On general principles, the following seems to me true: the administrative work of a president or dean of a large college or school is so great as to demand practically his entire time and to make it necessary that he regard it as his life work, in short, that he make administration his profession; but the admin- istrative work of a single department is not of sufficient importance or extent to demand this of the chairman, and permanency of tenure does not seem necessary. Certainly during the transition period, when adopt- ing the committee system for the first time, it would be best not to permit one professor to act as chairman of a department for many years con- secutively. "3. I have not attempted to deal with the strictly business features of a department, such as purchase of laboratory supplies, care of univer- sity property, and similar phases of university housekeeping. But even in the purchase of laboratory supplies I should regard it as unfortunate to have one man, as director of the laboratories of a department, author- ized to spend all the funds of the department without consulting his col- leagues. The same is true of the purchase of books, etc., in the depart- ment library. Without further discussion of this special phase of the subject, however, I may remark that I should think reasonable perma- nency of appointment would be desirable in the directorship of a labora- tory, and also that the appointment, involving as it does the expenditure of the institution's funds, should be made by the governing board. "All further details I leave to be brought out in the course of the discussion. 252 DEPARTMENT ORGANIZATION "VICE-PRESIDENT CARRUTH : Might it not be well sometimes to appoint one of the younger men as chairman?" "PRESIDENT HILL: I think it would be advisable in some cases. One of the ablest men in our faculty induced me last spring to appoint an assistant professor as chairman of his department, and he is as efficient in the position as can be wished for." "PRESIDENT VENABLE: I have had much difficulty with the younger men in the departments, the heads of departments not always looking after them properly. Would this young chairman President Hill speaks of feel that he could look after the men working in his department and see that their duties are properly discharged, or are they under him? In what way is efficiency secured?" "PRESIDENT HILL: It happens that in this particular department there are two professors and two assistant professors, and no instructors. But, as a general rule, the whole group of professors and assistant professors should be held responsible for the work of the instructors, and should be looked to for advice regarding their reappointment or promotion. Indeed, I received a report last year of a discussion between the professors and the assistant professors in one department in regard to the instructors in another department that, I think, was much more helpful than any- thing I might have obtained from the chairman of that other department alone. It gave me much more advice. Perhaps the chairman system throws a little more responsibility on the president and dean; but, in case the president is not well acquainted with the work of the instructors, I think he gets better advice from several, than by simply relying on the heads of the departments. At present, I know our instructors pretty well. I presume we have a larger number of full and assistant professors in proportion to the number of our instructors than in some of the larger state universities, but I think our situation is probably a fair example." "PRESIDENT McVEY: Does the chairman plan give the administration a sufficient check upon the work of the instructors? Such a check, it seems to me, can only be secured through the assistance of heads of depart- ments. The point raised by President Venable is a real point." "PRESIDENT HILL: Back of his question is the assumption that efficiency can be secured from the younger men of the faculty only by putting some one in a position to force efficiency. Now, I do not think that that rep- resents a proper educational ideal, and I think it unfair to the younger men." "PRESIDENT HUTCHINS: At Michigan we have small departments, and DEPARTMENT ORGANIZATION 253 large departments departments of all sizes. It does not seem necessary that the organization of all departments should be rigidly uniform." "PRESIDENT HILL: So far as the working of the system is concerned, it makes little difference whether the departments are large or small. Leadership these young men certainly need; but that leadership will show itself whatever the size of the department. I haven't the slightest doubt that a man whose influence is great by virtue of his ability will become a leader in his department and stimulate others to render the best pos- sible service; and he can bring his influence to bear just as well with little or no official power. But how can you deal with one department in one way, and with another department in another way? I think our situation in Missouri is very much better now, after the whole faculty has adopted the new policy, than when I was dealing with some depart- ments in advance of this general action, and leaving other departments as they were." "PRESIDENT WHEELEE: In my opinion, the proper organization of de- partments constitutes the best opportunity of making advance in the internal life of the universities today. I am in sympathy with most of the views the paper presents. When I first went to Berkeley, I found in existence there what is now called the feudal system. . . . We have no one rule. The older professors have been allowed to go on to the conclusion of their term of office without change of their prerogatives. No one, however, is appointed as head professor. No one receives a salary as head of a department. There are a number of departments in which there are several full professors. Each department has a secretary. . . . The organization of the department through its department meet- ings is more important than the question of headship." "DEAN BIEGE: I will try to state briefly our experience at Wisconsin regarding departmental organization. We never had any system except that of the committee. At first, the committee consisted, legally, of full and associate professors; now the assistant professors are regular mem- bers of the committee. But recommendations regarding promotions, sal- aries, and matters connected with the annual budget come from a com- mittee limited to professors and associate professors. In the older organi- zation, the chairman was said to have the powers ordinarily belonging to the chairman of a committee. In the newer scheme, his powers are more explicitly stated, but, in general, he is the executive officer of the depart- ment. He is not to dictate the policy or to order each man's work; but it is his duty to see that the departmental committee adopts a policy 254 RANK TENURE SALARIES which he can execute. In short, he has the same responsibility for the committee that a chairman ordinarily has, and he has whatever powers are needed for carrying out his duties. . . . The chairman is appointed by the dean and president in consultation, after ascertaining the wishes of the members of the department. . . . Within the department we expect that responsibilities and powers will go together. Large depart- ments practically divide into branches, as English into literature and composition. The man or men in immediate charge of each branch are primarily responsible for it, and have corresponding influence in regard to policy and in regard to appointments. Appointments to positions higher than that of assistant professors are regarded as matters for the university, rather than for the department. Nominations are made by the president after consulting with the professors of the departments interested, but no formal recommendations are made by a committee. The departmental committees do not make recommendations regarding salaries of members above the rank of assistant professor." "PBESIDENT HUTCHINS: Are we to conclude from what you have said that you deem the general adoption in the immediate future of the chair- man system to be advisable?" "PRESIDENT HILL: I assume a reasonable time for making the change. The principle, however, might be announced and generally accepted with- out delay." Rank Tenure Salaries The general features of the administrative practice that deter- mines the rank, tenure of office, and scale of salaries of faculty members, ought to be reduced to a well articulated, suitably elastic, and plainly intelligible program designed upon sound principles. Each institution must study out for itself the salaries required by the scale and cost of living in its environment, making changes as required by changing social and economic conditions. This is one of the most important responsibilities of the governing board. This first principle of right action in this matter, is, that provision should be made to do well everything that is attempted. Other guiding principles look to ways and means of getting and keeping high-minded and able men in the faculty. The ranks will more easily fit actual conditions if they be more than the minimum instructor, assistant professor, professor. The IUXK TENURE SALARIES 255 scale of salaries ought always to correspond definitely with the scale of rank. It is advantageous, therefore, to have the elasticity of such a scale as instructor, assistant professor, adjunct profes- sor, associate professor, professor. Advancement over more than one grade at a single promotion should not be prohibited or very rare. Unless some colleges and universities will desist from putting young men and women in teaching positions before they have pursued graduate courses of study, it would be well for them to make yet one more rank for the lowest grade, such as "assistant instructor." When a man proved elsewhere is called to a faculty position, he should be located in the scale of rank and salary in substantial accordance with his professional merit as compared with his new colleagues. The following scale is submitted as an illustration for a case in which one might rise through each stage, from the bottom to the top. The salaries set down are merely suggestions. The first of the alternative figures for each rank represents a minimum; the second would generally be more just and more expedient; and in some cities, or if a university desires to command (as far as sala- ries can command) its choice of men, a higher scale is required: Unproved instructors should be appointed for one year, at a sal- ary of $1,000 or $1,200, where the doctorate or a professional de- gree (or its equivalent in independent study and experience) is required.* After one or two years of probation this instructor should be dropped, or reappointed without limit of time and with vote in his division faculty, at $1,200 or $1,500 with some small advance for each subsequent year, if retained. If this approved instructor is retained more than two or three years, he should be made assistant professor, at a salary adequate to the support of a wife and several small children, say $2,000 or $2,400. A man who does not deserve to be advanced to the rank of assistant professor Nothing of the nature of the "assistant instructor" mentioned above is here considered. 256 RANK TENURE SALARIES after serving five years as instructor ought not to be retained at all. After the assistant professorship, it seems to me that continued promotion to the highest rank after stated periods ought not to be the only alternative to dismissal. The appointment as assistant professor should be for a term of years, say, five years. At the end of each term the assistant professor should be promoted, or be reap- pointed with small raise of salary, or be dropped. An adjunct professor should be appointed for a term of five years at $2,700 or $3,000, with the same alternatives at the end of each term as sug- gested for the previous stage. The appointment as associate pro- fessor should be for life at $3,000 or $3,500, advanceable at any time to the highest rank. The initial salary of a full professorship should be $4,000 or $4,500. The salary in a life professorship should rise every five years by some advance until the maximum of $3,500 or $4,000 for an associate professorship, and $4,500 or $5,000 for the full professorship be reached. Election to a deanship should raise a man of lower rank to the rank and salary of associate professor, or, if of that rank already, to the salary of full professor of same length of service, or, if a full professor, to the maximum salary. "Upon resignation from deanship, or other termination of services as dean, the officer should return to the rank and salary determined by the highest point in the scale attainable (without extraordinary action 1 ) during the time of his service as dean, with the benefit of counting any fraction of a period for a raise in salary as the entire period. The salaries of the minor administrative positions (registrars, secretaries, etc.) may be assimilated according to age and scholar- ship to the salaries of the teachers, with some premium for these less attractive places. President Eliot is right in' holding: "In general the administrative posts in a university are less attractive than the teaching posts, because they do not offer the satisfaction of literary or scientific attainment, the long, uninterrupted vacations which teachers enjoy, or the pleasures of intimate, helpful intercourse with a stream of young men of high intellectual ambition [or, I would add, the RANK TENURE SALARIES 257 opportunity for professional development and advancement]. Accordingly, salaries for able and altruistic young men ought to be somewhat higher in administrative posts than they are for men of corresponding age and merit in teaching posts." As to the president, I have no sympathy with the opinion, much expressed in discussions published during the last two years, that his salary ought not to exceed the salary of a full professor. The practical social demands made upon the president, as well as his responsibilities and burdens and risk, justify a salary well nigh double that of any professor. In mentioning the "risk" assumed by the president of the average college or university, I had in mind a far worse risk than death; for I am one of those who deem, "Wisdom is gray hairs unto men, and an unspotted life is ripe old age." But President W. T. Foster states : "The college president is already regarded as a poor risk by life insurance companies." Such risk would be much reduced if the forms of organization and practices of administration recommended in this book were insti- tuted; but as matters stand, I am sure that the life insurance com- panies have overlooked an item from the actuary's, if not from the agent's point of view, if they do not regard the life of a college president as a poor risk. Of theories opposed to such a program for rank and salary as I have recommended, only one seems to me to merit discussion after all that has been presented in previous chapters. Professor Jas- trow contends : "What I emphasize as essential is that men are elected to positions of definite rank, for definite periods, with definite understandings. The cen- tral issue that is to be determined at the close of the period is whether the university desires to retain the services of the occupant; if so, he steps to the next grade with constantly increasing salary. . . . More rapid promotion is always open to promptly established worth and effi- ciency, and should indeed be the rule, not the exception. Such measures of elasticity the system designedly retains. . . . "A living within the academic fold should not be regarded as a reward 258 BANK TENURE SALARIES to be given to the exceptionally deserving when circumstances indicate that the only method of retaining their services is to yield what for years has been unwisely and unjustly withheld, but is to be regarded as a natural privilege for all worthy of the academic life. There is not the slightest discrepancy in the inevitable fact that A and B, men of quite unequal merit and value to their institution, should be enjoying the same income. There is nothing in the slightest degree disconcerting in so inevitable a consequence of human variability; and in a less commercially minded community, no one would think of remarking upon so obvious a situation. A man's academic worth should not and cannot in the least be measured by his salary; and any attempt to do so is a deep injury to the profession. If some one has made a mistake in judgment in asking a wrong man to fill a chair, when better men are available, and if the mis- take cannot be remedied without repudiating obligations already incurred, it is far better to seek any solution of the situation than the one that sets the emphasis upon the very point that has no place in the academic life. Endowed professorships insuring adequate livings are for this reason far more ideal a system than American circumstances make practicable, "I have thus dwelt upon the more serious of the unfortunate conse- quences of the dominant systemless practices in American institutions, and of the possibilities of their correction. It is even more than a mis- fortune; it is indeed an indignity that a scholar of tried worth and repu- tation one who in another country would be an homme arriv& with a secure living should still find the very wherewithal of his sustenance, and the appraisal of his rank meted out to him by the uncertain esteem of one or two of his colleagues for such the president and the dean are placed in a position of authority by reason of qualities unrelated to any such Jupiterian function. His helplessness in a situation, for which inade- quate administration or administrative autocracy has left no place for remedy, hardly even for protest, may well invite despair." The general ideas and impulses expressed in the foregoing state- ment deserve sympathy and respect. They are essentially right. But they run to extremes at two practical issues. After due moder ation at these points, there would remain no inconsistency with the procedure I advocate. The organic check and safeguard described at pages 129 and 133 should render the president's power of nomina- RANK TENURE SALARIES 259 tion as satisfactory as it is appropriate to his responsibility and necessary under the system of government and method of remuner- ating members of the faculty in American universities. The only remaining difference lies in my advice that, after attaining the low- est rank of the professoriate, automatic promotion after regular periods ought not to be the only alternative to dismissal. My pro- posal is not based on the idea denounced by Professor Jastrow. I thoroughly agree with him, that salaries cannot be made commen- surate with merit and worth to the institution, and that it is inevit- able and not in the slightest degree disconcerting that men of unequal merit and value should enjoy the same income. But it does not follow from this calm and sane recognition of the essential disparity between moral worth and material reward, that every man entering the service ought to pass automatically to the highest dig- nity and responsibility. There are men of a calibre not fitted to the responsibilities of the highest rank, who might still be merito- rious and permanently useful in less exalted positions. I do not see why the embarrassing situation should be created arbitrarily whereby, at the end of five years, no choice is left except to turn a teacher out or to promote him in rank. Mr. S. A. Bullard, Presi- dent of the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, in dis- cussing this question remarked : "If we have a rigid system by which promotion may be expected, ft is evidently going to work a hardship to some members of the faculty. For instance, a certain member of the faculty is apparently not strong. He does not shine like some others, but he is a sober, earnest, hard-working man and accomplishes what he undertakes to accomplish. . . . Judgment has to be used in such a case, lest a man might be dropped who does not shine brightly, but whose work in his department gives good results, and promotes the general interest of the university. What are you going to do, when the five years are up? You will, under the system suggested, have to say to him that he must drop out. . . . We cannot make a cast- iron rule for the promotion of every man. Men must stand on their individual qualities and character. . . . Presidents of universities also 260 RECRUITING A FACULTY have to pass under inspection, and it comes up in the board every once in a while whether it would not be a good idea to have a change of admin- istration." Recruiting a Faculty A few general principles that should guide in selecting individ- uals to fill the numerous vacancies and new positions occurring in the faculty of every growing college, may be briefly stated. As in nearly all matters of administration (as distinguished from organization*), President Eliot's counsel in these regards could hardly be improved, and the reader is referred to his book Univer- sity Administration. If practicable the president and his advisers should have seen and conversed with the man under consideration. The whole per- sonality, as well as professional attainments and skill in teaching and in research, should be regarded. As a means to this, the presidents of universities should attend the meetings of learned societies, and the institution should offer to every member of the faculty payment once a year of railroad fare to some such meeting. Other expenses should not be paid, lest temptations to make trips for selfish reasons be extended. Besides the direct benefit to the specialist of attending national assemblies of his coworkers, there are great advantages in the matter here referred to. Speaking of the societies devoted to special branches of knowledge, Prsident Eliot says : "To the annual meetings of these societies men come from all parts of the country, and spend a few days together in earnest discussion of topics in which they have a common interest. The professors of these several subjects in any one university will gradually have opportunities to measure and weigh all the other active members of the same society, and particu- larly to see and hear the younger members of the society. Much valuable information is, therefore, to be obtained through these meetings of special- ists concerning candidates for teachers' places in the colleges and univer- See pages 240-241. RECRUITING A FACULTY 261 sities of the country. At these meetings much can be learned about the personality of the men who come to them. The whole meeting will learn that such a one is high-minded and winning, and a master of his subject, and that such another is rude and unattractive, though doubtless able." A faculty should be recruited from a variety of sources. The constant temptation to in-breeding must be resisted. A large uni- versity needs to try out a large number of young instructors in annual appointments, persons who have just received (or have nearly completed the studies for) the doctorate or an equivalent professional degree. But not all even of these should be of its own upbringing. The professors of every rank and the instructors \vithout limit of time in the staff of any department are the best judges of character and capabilities of the annual appointees in the department. Their recommendations for appointments to in- structorships without limit of time ought to be followed, pro- vided they and the president have looked about to discover young men in other institutions who have distinguished themselves, and duly consider such of these as may be obtainable in- comparison with their own probationers. The call of a strong university in good repute will often bring to an instructorship without limit of time, not only the most promising of similar instructors, but even assist- ant professors in weaker or less congenial institutions. All instructorships are distinctly and emphatically probationary appointments.* At every stage the next higher rank ought not to be filled exclu- sively by advancement from within. Men called from other institu- *President Eliot acutely observes that the probationary period ought to cover the time within which marriage is probable. He says: "Mar- riage is quite as apt to affect either favorably or unfavorably the efficiency and general usefulness of a university teacher, as of professional and busi- ness men in any other line. It is a good deal safer to give a life office to a married man on whom marriags has proved to have a good effect, than to a single man who may shortly be married with uncertain results." If this principle were somewhat recognized, it might operate as a salutary encouragement to earlier and wiser marriages. 262 FREEDOM OF TEACHING tions are subject to the regular conditions of the established scale; if called to positions below life-professorships, the institution i* under no peculiar obligation to retain them beyond stipulated pe- riods, should they prove unsatisfactory. Of course, when a man of recognized standing and power is called to a full professorship (or to an associate professorship, if life-tenure belongs to that rank) an honorable institution has committed itself to a life-time en- gagement, no matter whether experience brings disappointment or not. I shall say nothing about pensions for superannuated teachers. There is abundant literature on the subject. It does not seem to me to be of vital importance. Teachers could, if need be, get along as well as others without old-age and service pensions, if properly respected in their calling and suitably remunerated during their service. This is a hard world, and all improvable conditions should be improved for all men; but meanwhile there are compen- sations in some seeming hardships, and some responsibilities and some risks may strengthen if rightly comprehended and accepted. Freedom of Teaching The situation of the professor in American universities in re- spect to freedom of teaching has improved so much during the last thirty years, that he has left not much cause of complaint. In some denominational colleges religious intolerance, and in a few state institutions "politics" or the clamor of some group calling itself the public, has occasionally wrought folly in Israel; but such occur- rences are always widely denounced, are offensive to public opinion at large, and are contrary to the characteristic policy and practice of our reputable universities. Security in any proper expression of scientific views seems fairly assured for the future, unless, indeed, the device of putting a central board of control over a subordinate board of "regents" should spread enough to involve many state universities in its toils. Meanwhile, of course, every FREEDOM OF TEACHING 263 clear transgression ought to be denounced ("vigilance is the price of liberty") in a way that will instil, in those inclined to trans- gress, a wholesome fear of righteous indignation. There being no respectable difference of opinion about trans- gressions against genuine freedom of teaching, it will be more profitable to consider the matter from another side. Judging from the discussions that follow every alleged trespass against Jehrfrei- Tieit, it appears that some American professors do not understand what the lehrfreiheit they invoke should be, and is. Some seem to imagine that it should be, and that it is in Germany, an official immunity, such as that of the Cuban legislators who cannot be law- fully arrested for any crime whatsoever. Lehrfreiheit is not a license or a stipulation of any sort ; it is a principle, a code of honor. The freedom is the reverse side of a responsibility. Like everv other principle of conduct, or code of honor, no man can learn what it is from any formula or set of rules; to understand it, he must learn what it is from those who live it. Accordingly, I cannot better illustrate, than by quoting two men who have been personally through long lives noble exponents of the principle, and who have lived those lives in a university which, for twenty years at least, has kept the faith as blamelessly as any other in the world, Presi- dent Schurman and Professor Creighton, of Cornell University. During the current year a professor was dismissed by "Wesleyan University, after twenty years' service, on grounds (as publicly stated by the president of the institution) which Professor Creigh- ton deemed "trivial and puerile." In censuring the dismissal both on the grounds alleged and on reports of the "real ground" which "seem reliable," Professor Creighton took occasion in a communi- cation published in Science, Mar. 21, 1913, to quote the following passage from an address delivered by President Schurman in 1897: "If it is asserted that the business of the college or university is to teach that which the average man may believe, or that which is acceptable 264 FREEDOM OF TEACHING to the university, or that which the board of trustees may assert as the tmth, the answer must always be that such a course contravenes the very principle on which the university was founded, and however true it may be that the majority must rule in the body politic, the motto of the uni- versity must be, one man with God's truth is a majority. There is also a second principle involved. It is perfectly clear that every^ teacher must be free to carry out his inquiries and to announce and proclaim if he wishes what he has observed, or in dealing with the individual student the teacher must be free to present all phases of the question as they occur to him otherwise he has missed his great vocation as a teacher. "Money is needed by universities. I know it well. . . . Yet if money is to be got for the institution by the suppression of the truth, by setting any limitation whatever upon the freedom of the teachers to inquire or to announce the results of their inquiries, better a thousand times that the institution should go out of existence. The end of a uni- versity is truth and the promotion of truth. Money may be a means to that end, and as a means it may kindle a great light; as an end it can only produce total darkness. Hence, any attempt to set limitations upon the independence of the teaching staff must be resisted, must be unwar- ranted." In a following issue of Science (Apr. 18, 1913) a correspondent, after stating that he regarded the sentiments of President Schur- man "as highly commendable," wrote cynically and despairingly as follows : "Academic freedom is like friendship, 'but a name that lures the soul to sleep.' . . . Let us suppose, for instance, that when Professor Schurman's address was published, a subordinate instructor in the univer- sity had spoken as follows: 'When President Schurman speaks of "God's truth" he speaks of something about which he knows no more than a gibbering idiot in the nearest asylum. God, if He exists, has apparently not declared Himself to anybody. All such allusions are either mere catering to popular superstitions, or are on the same plane as the beliefs of the lowest savages.' How long would this instructor retain his place in the university? I would be pleased to hear what your correspondent would advocate concerning a person who should so express himself. A hundred other examples can be selected." FREEDOM OF TEACHING 265 Before giving Professor Creighton's answer to the correspond- ent's main question, I will make squarely two observations: Academic freedom is something like friendship, but the similitude is to be found in the idea, as expressed by Kingsley: "It is only the great hearted who can be true friends, the mean the cowardly can never know what true friendship is." The assertion that friend- ship is only a name that lures the soul to sleep, like every other cynical statement has some petty basis of fact, because nothing human is perfect; nevertheless Cicero's saying is the Truth: "It is like taking the sun out of the world to bereave human life of friendship." In the second place, the "instance" chosen by the correspondent does not involve freedom of teaching at all. In the context in question there is no difference between the phrases, "one man with God's truth is a majority." and "one with Truth is a majority"; and therefore the perpetrator of the supposed folly, if intelligently accused, would be charged with wanton incivility, not with scientific doubts or denials of man's knowledge of God. If dismissed, it would be for conduct unbecoming a scholar (to say nothing of a gentleman), not for skepticism. He might express the same doubts or denials in a reasonable connection, and proper manner, without disturbing anyone or being himself disturbed. Professor Creighton's answer ought to make the matter plain to one able to comprehend any ethical problem : "When the necessity of freedom for university teachers and investigators is emphasized, it is never assumed that this freedom carries with it a license to do or say anything and everything. University teachers do not claim that they constitute a class with special privileges. But as a body of men with serious and important work to do, they claim the freedom that is necessary to enable them to perform this work and to fulfill their obligations to society. Freedom in this field, as everywhere, is a reason- able freedom, involving law, responsibility, and due regard for others. Academic freedom has its roots and its justification in the duty which the teacher owes to his students and to the community. It may well be that at times it is just as important to emphasize this duty and respon- FREEDOM OF TEACHING sibility as to call attention to the necessity of freedom. But one side is the counterpart and complement of the other: where there is no free- dom there can be no responsibility, and where there is no feeling of respon- sibility there can be no genuine freedom. If this is true, it would seem to follow that the limits of a reasonable freedom cannot be fixed by any abstract definition. What are the reasonable limits in any particular case must be decided by the whole set of circumstances, as judged by reasonable men living in a reasonable society. Of course this involves a circle; but there is no way of escaping it." If any reader, who does not already know, would like to hear what lehrfreiheii really is in the land of its glory and fullest flor- escence, I refer him to the noble work, The German Universities, by Friederich Paul sen, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Berlin, or to its admirable authorized translation by Professor Frank Thilly, then (1906) in Princeton University, now Professor of Philosophy in Cornell University. If that book were instantly read by every faculty member and by every student, and by every president and regent of American universities, the ideas thereby engendered would quickly work many needed reforms not by way of any imitation, but from the sheer effect of enlightment.* The whole book shines with one candid spirit, and the writer is as sagacious as he is sincere. There is a chapter of nearly forty pages on Freedom of Teaching. The German people are, as Helmholz declared, "more fearless *Professor Thilly, himself familiar with the German universities as well as with the best in America, says in his preface to the translation: "It ought to be studied by every man who takes any part in university legislation, whether as president, professor, or member of a controlling board, and by every student who desires to get the most out of his uni- versity course. It is so rich in valuable information, so full of practical suggestions, that it cannot fail to prove useful and helpful to all who sincerely desire to perform the tasks growing out of their connection with university life, in the best possible manner. Particularly in this country where things are in the transition state and where, in spite of much that is crude and charlatanical, the desire is strong to assimilate all that is good in the higher institutions of other countries, will a work like this assist us in finding the right path." FREEDOM OF TEACHING 267 of the consequences of the whole truth than any other people" ; and, perhaps, in no other country will the people ever take as much interest and pride in the freedom of teaching, or guard it so jeal- ously, as do the Germans. "The German university," says Presi- dent G. Stanley Hall, "is the freest spot on earth . . . but the most perfect liberty was never more triumphantly vindicated by its fruits." I am here emphasizing, however, the fact that in the Ger- man freedom of teaching, responsibility is recognized and enforced. Professor Paulsen explains: "We can neither justly demand nor reasonably expect that the state should voluntarily expose itself and its legality to whatever insults the theorists appointed by it as teachers may choose to offer. Such unlimited academic freedom would manifestly be conceivable only as an evidence of the state's absolute contempt for the professor's teaching; it would be placing it on a level with the pratings of an anarchistic demagogue . . . Just as there can be such a thing as supersensitiveness, there can be su- pertolerance." The Germans see both sides of the question. For the very reason that they will not suffer political interference with teaching, they will not allow the teacher to be a practical politic-ian. "The question might well be asked," says Paulsen, "whether parti- san activity had been pursued in such a manner and to such an ex- tent as to be no longer compatible with the candidate's function as a teacher of science. This applies equally to all parties." There is one restriction even upon the neutrality of the state toward the results of research. Professor Paulsen explains why it is "neces- sary to place one restriction, if not upon the thinker, at least upon the teacher appointed by the state and supported from the funds of the people" : "A person who . . . assumes a hostile attitude towards the state as the historically developed institution of the people, aiming at its dis- memberment and destruction and not at its preservation and improvement, cannot as an honest man accept an office and a commission from the hands of the people or the state. . . . 268 FREEDOM OF TEACHING "Or suppose that a man had been convinced by his own reflections upon the nature of the state or by the eloquence of a Tolstoi, that the state as an institution of force was an evil, and ought to be destroyed. That, too, would unfit him for the office of a teacher of political science just as it would unfit a person to be a teacher of law if he looked upon the posi- tive law as a foolish burden and a plague always provided at least that the state is not inclined to abrogate itself and the law in case theory demands it. The teacher will, therefore, have to recognize that there is a reason in these things, and it will be his first task to see and to show the reason that is in them. Then he may also point out the distance between the reality and the ideal, and, if he can, the way to approximate, the ideal. The man, however, who can find absolutely no reason in the state and in law, who, as a theoretical anarchist, denies the necessity of a state and a legal order, having the power to compel, not only for an ideal dream-world, but for this work-a-day world, may try to prove his theory by means of as many good arguments as he can, but he has no call to teach the political sciences at a state institution. And no state would be willing to appoint him to such an office or be able to tolerate him in it, however thoroughly he may be convinced of his vocation for it. ... "From this standpoint we may also judge of the state's attitude toward the academic presentation of the political and social sciences in accordance with the principles of the social-democracy. So long as the party advo- cates a theory hostile in principle to the state as such, . . . hostile to this particular state and to the state in general, it cannot be permitted to teach the political sciences in state institutions. A state that will permit such theories to be taught, as 'the results of science,' in the lecture rooms of the universities established by it, and will allow the teachers of the political sciences employed by it to point out the worthlessness of the state as such, or of this particular state, as a scientifically proved fact, will be looked for in vain. . . . "This, of course, does not mean that the state should absolutely sup- press all attempts to formulate such theories. Nor do I deny the need of a social-democratic party and of its criticism of existing political insti- tutions. Though it may often shoot far beyond the mark, it has given rise to wholesome reforms in our legal and social institutions. . . . All I assert is this: The state cannot hand over the business of teaching the science of the state to men who show no deeper appreciation of the inner necessity of historical products, and who have no more respect for estab- FREEDOM OF TEACHING 269 lished institutions than the platforms, literature, and press of the social- democracy express. The state will permit such men to gain followers for their doctrines wherever they choose, but it cannot appoint them as, the authorized leaders in the science of these things. "It is also to be added that so long as the social-democracy boasts of being a revolutionary party, expecting and aiming at the overthrow of the entire established political and legal order, no professor, be his chair what it will, can join this party without at the same time renouncing his office. . . . No state, be it republican or monarchial or what you please, will confer an office upon a man who declares it to be his political function to destroy its very foundation. To destroy its very foundation, mind you, not to reform and improve the state, for which provision is made by the constitution itself. No one can be an officer of the state who seeks to destroy it. Not for a moment can we imagine that a social- democratic republic or whatever the state might call itself, would assume a different attitude in this respect. Indeed, it is to be presumed that it would go much farther and be forced to go much farther in watching those under suspicion and expelling its enemies than any one of the exist- ing states. The more firmly established a state is, the less sensitive it is to criticism; the weaker it is, the more anxious it will be to ward off attacks and to suppress public criticism. And hence the freedom of teach- ing would be nowhere less assured than in a place where a new revolutionary government was compelled to defend itself against reactionary movements, where law and authority were insecure and depended wholly upon public opinion, the most uncertain thing in the world. . . . "The universities are and desire to remain non-political corporations. And they will be particularly sensitive on the question of propagandism for the social-democratic party because of the peculiar character of this party: it is, more than any other political party, a 'sect' with a 'doctrine* and 'correct tenets.' This fact was again brought out at the recent Liibeck convention: not only the member's political action, but even his literary and scientific work is subject to the approval and disapproval of the party. This follows necessarily from the fact that the party plat- form contains a dogmatic system, that there is 'scientific' socialism or socialistic science. There has never been 'scientific' liberalism or conserva- tism; these parties have no 'system,' but merely a practical political pro- gram. The social-democracy aims to be more than a political party; it has a doctrina fidei to which it binds its members or attempts to bind them. 270 FREEDOM OF LEARNING . . . When the social-democracy ceases to be a sect with an iron-clad doctrine, when it stops prating about the revolution or playing upon the double meaning of the word, when it assumes the attitude of a reform party and aims to reform existing institutions by bringing about complete equality before the law and by elevating the moral and intellectual con- ditions of the lower classes, then it will no longer be possible to justify the state in treating this party differently from the others." Freedom of learning is a correlate of freedom of teaching in the German university. There, indeed, lernfreiheit is even more abso- lute than lehrfreiheit. Of course, the German faith and practice in this matter does not apply precisely to the undergraduate work of the American college. The leader is referred to Paulsen's ex- cellent chapter on the subject. I quote a few sentences to indicate the attitude of the most genuine spirit of freedom of teaching toward freedom of learning: "The liberty to pass freely from one institution to another, to which our university system owes so much, makes a rigid regulation of the course impossible; no one will wish to hinder a student, who has the opportunity of hearing an excellent instructor, from taking a course of lectures under him somewhat before the time and postponing to do so, another course for another university. . . . The individual must be left to find his own way, though this does not mean that he should not seek private advice; it rather presupposes it. ... If we really wish to maintain our freedom of learning, if we do not desire a system of uni- versity instruction modelled after that of the schools, we must have the courage to desire a thoroughgoing freedom at the cost of any possible abuse of it. We must recognize that freedom without the possibility of its abuse is an impossibility. . . . The relation between teachers and students is now throughout so wholesome because it is a voluntary one; the student who cannot get what he wants in the lecture room remains away, a proceeding in all respects better for him and all concerned than a forced physical presence on his part. "And this also would have to be considered. If, instead of voluntary lectures and scientific exercises, obligatory exercises and compulsory work were substituted, would men who amount to anything as scientific investi- gators and writers be willing to become university instructors? Does any FREEDOM OF LEARNING 271 one really believe that men like Wolf and Boeckh, Ranke and Waitz, Savigny and Gneist, J. Mtiller and Helmholtz would consent to spend their lives in setting tasks and correcting work for participants in compulsory exercises? What the elimination of such names from a university would mean need not be further discussed. If you turn the university into a school well, then it ceases to be what it has been thus far: a place for scientific investigation; the distinguished scholars and investigators would retire to the Academy, and the same separation that now exists in France would come about here. . . . "The student ought to learn the difficult art of controlling himself, of working spontaneously, so to speak; and this cannot be acquired under compulsion. . . . The years at the university are the test which decides whether a young fellow has in him the making of a man who can guide and rule himself, and then also others. . . . Here a man who has too little to offer, either in the way of intellectual gifts or energy of will, makes a failure; which is not a loss for society, but rather a guarantee against intellectual and moral insufficiency. ... I am well aware that by this process even young men, who, with proper care, would have developed into very serviceable officials, come to grief and ruin. They rep- resent the price which we must pay for the school of freedom. It is costly r but cannot be had for less; the young must be exposed to such risks if we are to have men. The university is not a kindergarten. . . . Such is the attitude of the German university. And it is this very feature which, in later life, arouses the true man's gratitude that he was not led about by the hand like a schoolboy, but was allowed to find his own way. . . . "Schleiermacher in his Gelegentliche Gedanken declares that learning is not the real purpose of the university, but the purpose is 'to arouse, if possible, an entirely new life, a higher, truly scientific spirit in the youths. But this cannot be done by compulsion; the attempt can only be made in the atmosphere of complete intellectual freedom.' . . . "A really typical example of a university course arranged with regard to pedagogical considerations is supplied by the French law faculties. There is a rigid curriculum in which the courses are prescribed for each year; there can be no chance of error in the choice of a teacher either, since there is always only one teacher for each subject; the instruction must be in accordance with a program which the instructor formerly received, complete, from the ministry of education, but which he must 272 FREEDOM OF LEARNING now submit to it for approval; attendance upon lectures and exercises is compulsory; an annual report is sent to the student's father; finally there is a graduated series of examinations, intimately connected with the several courses, . . . and in order to promotion to the next higher course they must be passed successfully. . . . And the result? "According to L. von Savigny's report, which no one who expects any- thing from examinations during each semester should fail to read, even the purely external results are far from satisfactory. . . . Owing to the frequency of the examinations and the little time lost by failures in any one of them (early opportunity for re-examination is allowed), failure to pass is not taken seriously, is not looked upon as a serious catastrophe, as with us, but only as requiring a longer term in a class. ... In Paris each professor is compelled to devote from 400 to 600 hours annually to examinations, 6000 examinations being given. I do not think we hav cause to look with envy upon such results. But the effects of the system extend even further. The purely scholastic character of the examinations exerts a reflex influence upon the instruction given and the character of the work done by the students. Independent work and thought is never achieved, scarcely aimed at; the object is to learn by rote with the exami- nations in view. Hence the schoolboy-like way of looking at things that characterizes the student to the end, appearing even in the work done for the doctorate; mere reproduction, without any real independence and pro- ductive power. . . . "The infallible system which makes all the students reasonable, indus- trious, and virtuous has not yet been invented; the German system of free- dom doee not do it. But the systems of restraint, supervision, and exami- nations accomplish as little; even the most careful precautions are unavail- ing. On the contrary, it is a question whether the strongest and most capable students who thrive under the free system, are not the very ones >who would suffer under the system of restraint, and whether this latter would not be a worse injury than the former." It was the Englishman Matthew Arnold who, after deliberate investigation, concluded: "The French university has no liberty, and the English universities have no science; the German univer- sities have both." A CRUCIAL TEST 273 I add an observation which seems to me to be a peculiarly strik- ing illustration. It may be regarded as the "acid test" of the gen- uineness of any spirit of freedom of teaching on the part of the teachers. It deserves to be pondered in university circles in Amer- ica: In 1820 George Bancroft was the third American to receive the degree of doctor of philosophy from German universities. In a statement written in 1871, he tells of his return to his native land and his immediate efforts to induce Harvard College to separate clearly its graduate courses, so as to begin the development of "our colleges into universities." After telling of his failure in that attempt, he continues: "I then applied ... for leave to read lectures on History in the university. At Gottingen or at Berlin I had the right, after a few preliminary formalities,, to deliver such a course . . . My request wes declined by my own alma mater." This occurred nearly a hundred years ago ; since that time "univer- sities" have sprung up in every State of the Union, and some of them have grown on munificent resources to giant size, and there has been much talk about freedom of teaching. Yet if another Bancroft, to-day, were to repeat his offer to teach voluntary hearers, as a private docent, it would be likewise disallowed. At Johns Hopkins University, in its early days, and at several other univer- sities, incipient attempts to allow private docents have been made, but with no permanent effect. The faculties of American univer- sities, I say, should ponder these facts. There is need for some searching of hearts. The facts are: In the German universities a large part of the professor's remuneration comes from the fees of voluntary students, yet any young philosophiae doctor mav secure the right of lecturing in the university simply by proving that he is competent. He receives no stipend from the university, but he may take from every professorial competitor what fees he is able to attract. That is freedom of teaching. The degree of the Germao university signifies knowledge , and the German professor is con- 274 IDEALS tent with testing to his satisfaction the candidate's knowledge, pro- vided he may assume from its having been sought in true universi- ties that a proper spirit and attitude accompany the scholarship. Except for the requirement that university degrees must be sought in universities, his professional code disdains jealousy and despises compulsion as to the times, places, or persons concerned in the attainment of proficiency. Also, the same principles bestow upon the proficient freedom to teach. It need not be inferred that the difference in professional atti- tude and practice in the two countries is caused by great moral differences in their teachers as individuals. It is the consequence on the one side of a code of professional ethics which recognizes and enforces responsibility as well as privilege; and, on the other side, of an inchoate demand for privilege without clearly recognized responsibility. The personally characteristic impulses of a man living under the sway of a clear ethical code may be no more exalted than those of one not so influenced, yet his conduct will be more consistent. Nevertheless, it must be understood that virtue is rot abstract, but is realized or consists in right conduct, and that such conduct (unless it be the sham of hypocrisy) tends to realize the steadfast disposition which constitutes the virtue. He that doeth shall know of the doctrine. Ideals To have ideals is simply to have an unclouded mind to know what, you desire and are striving for. More harm than good is likely to come from unenlightened effort. Effort without ideals is anarchy; effort under false ideals is thraldom. The ideals that should be upheld and enforced by university faculties need not be formulated with extensive definitencss, but their central principles should be clear and luminous. Principles abide; application?: vary infinitely. It is a spirit and attitude, not a dogma that is needed. The genuine principles may be viewed from many different ap- IDEALS 275 proaches, but all true ways of access will converge. Right state- ments from different standpoints, upon analysis, will be seen to involve or to imply each the others if they are fundamental, and, in any case, to harmonize with and reinforce each other. Let us consider one statement which is fundamental, and therefore far more comprehensive in its implications than it may seem to the thoughtless or the inexperienced. President Eliot has declared that there are three essential characteristics of a true university : Free- dom in the choice of studies ; opportunity to win distinction in spe- cial lines of study; a discipline which imposes on each individual the responsibility for forming his own habits and guiding his own conduct. The institutions which have erred least from the requirements thus stated are recognized instinctively as the noblest and soundest of our universities. It was due to its foundation upon and living loyally to precisely those principles that the pecuniarilv poorest of the leading universities in this country has been one of the great- est and most influential. The principles of President Eliot's ideal were precisely and expressly the principles avowed for and by the University of Virginia at its foundation. "For the first fifty years of its historv," says President Pritchett, "the University of Virginia was conducted in a larger spirit of freedom, and had about it more of the atmosphere of a true university than any other institution in thi? country." Speaking again of the Univer- sity of Virginia, in another report, he says : "Beautiful housing had been but one of Jefferson's cares. For the pro- fessors he had ransacked the United States and Europe. . . . Univer- sity methods were in practice from the day of opening [March 7, 1825], teachers and students working together with a minimum of reliance on text-books or other formal aids. . . . There were no entrance require- ments, the period of study leading to a degree was undetermined. The students were not divided into classes. But although anybody could ma- triculate, once inside, the matriculant found examinations fixed and search- ing. . . . Rigorous tests preserved from prolonged residence those 276 IDEALS unable to profit, and protected the value of the degrees. This was in accordance with Jefferson's theory of remitting to the individual the chief care of his own interests. . . . The university always upheld rigidly the value of its degrees, and by means of the group system maintained balanced and harmonious training while allowing the widest election. . . . "The civil war found the university in great prosperity; 604 students were in residence in the winter of 1859-60. But in 1861 almost the entire student body enlisted, and three professors accepted commissions." In recent years the University of Virginia has established stand- ard entrance requirements and the ordinary "classes." The former is not repugnant to the fundamental principles we are con- sidering, and it is an appropriate consequence of the systemization of the secondary schools. The latter is questionable. College "classes," as commonly administered, tend to a 'lock-step' for indi- viduals of very different abilities and to a lowering of the degree toward the minimum of tolerance for residence during a set period of time. This question is considered directly on its merits in the next chapter, as is also, the matter of entrance requirements. President Pritchett remarks that, "only the high intellectual tone generally prevalent at Charlottesville prevented [the absence of entrance requirements] from lowering the distinctlv university atmosphere." Of course, that is the only explanation; but a simi- lar tone would have the same effect always and anywhere else. The history of the University of Virginia has strongly corrobo- rated the philosophical grounds for its ideals. Its principles, which were unique in 1825,* have been adopted in form, if not in spirit. *In order that credit be given where credit is due, it should be remem- bered that at the reformation of the v College of William and Mary in 1779, at least one of the principles which were realized in 1825 in the University of Virginia had been promulgated. But the credit for the action of the earlier college probably also belongs, as President Foster has shown, to Thomas Jefferson. William and Mary's action is described by President Madison in a letter dated August 27, 1780, quoted by Foster in his book, Administration of the College Curriculum: "The Doors of ye University are open to all, nor is even a knowledge in ye ant. Lan- guages a previous Requisite for Entrance. The Students have ye liberty IDEALS 277 by nearly all our universities. Harvard adopted them more than forty years ago, and President Eliot championed them as essential for a true university. Professor Archibald Gary Coolidge of Har- vard University, speaking in Virginia in 1905 said: "At the present day what is termed the elective system of studies has found its way in one form or another into most of our higher institutions of learning. . . . When eighty years ago the University of Virginia Was founded on a basis broader than that of any other college in the country, the elective system, which you alone at that early day dared to introduce, was, indeed, a startling innovation, one that long could find but few imitators. . . . Time has vindicated your wisdom and the fore- sight of your founder. The principle for which you contended has become a common heritage. You have shown that a broad road to knowledge need not be an easy one, for you have kept your standards so high that you have discouraged many an applicant who would gladly have won your degree if it could have been obtained at any other cost than that of long and patient toil. All this we of the sister universities appreciate per- haps not without jealousy. "There is, moreover, another principle which we who live at a distance associate with the University of Virginia. High as she has put knowledge as her ideal, she has put something else higher still. She has recognized from the beginning that her institution which has charge of youth, to mold them for after-life, fulfills but a part of its duty if it ministers merely to their intellects. The distinguishing mark of its graduates should be not only learning, but character. . . . This truth, which in our mod- of attending whom they please, and in what order they please, or all ye diffr. Lectures in a term if they think proper. The time of taking Degrees was formerly ye same as in Cambridge, but now depends upon ye Qualifi- cations of ye candidate. He has a certain course pointed out for his first Degree, and also for ye next. When Master of Either, ye Degree is con- ferred." This statement, says President Foster, "strikes like a thunder- bolt into the petrified old-world college customs that had up to this time shackled the college curriculum of the new world. . . . Although this new plan of studies for the College of William and Mary was not the Elective System as we now understand it, since certain courses were pointed out for certain degrees, yet the gates of the college were opened wide; and while the Revolutionary forces were achieving political freedom on the battlefield, academic freedom was achieved in the field of higher education." 278 IDEALS ern striving for efficiency sometimes appears to be dropping into the back- ground, has never been forgotten here. Who is there in the United States who knows of the University of Virginia and does not think of her as the home of the honor system, of the priceless possession of which others may well be envious? To you it seems as natural as the air you breathe. To those less fortunate in this respect it remains, even if different condi- tions make it difficult of attainment, an ideal, an encouragement towards a better state of things in the future. This is well, for never in our history has there been a greater need of a steadfast maintenance of the principles of character for which you have stood with such noble results. In this day of triumprant materialism, when faiths are crumbling and nothing goes unquestioned, when success at any price is the one achieve- ment that seems to appeal to a large portion of the community, when consciences are weakened by casuistry, when simplicity is looked upon as foolishness, and when the almighty dollar tends openly or insidiously to enslave us all, may the University of Virginia with an ever enlarged sphere of influence stand as she always has stood for the principle of the Scotch poet. 'The man's the gold for all that.' " Much confusion of ideas and purposes has arisen amid the expanding and diversifying enterprises of the modern university. In reaching out to increase and multiply its services in so many new spheres, some essential things are frequently lost sight of. In so far a.s this occurs, the institution falls into many disorders, consequent upon the loss of vision and in proportion to the degree of blindness with which its rulers are stricken. There has never heretofore been a time when there was such urgent need for men who might be called statesmen-educators, men who combine with expert knowledge of education both as a process and as a result, the philosophical powers of mind that enable one to comprehend the principles of organization and administration, and to keep in view, amid an infinite variety of details, those things which are essential. Ability of this kind seems to be either peculiarly rare in America,, or men having such ability are, with us, rarely selected as leaders. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 279 The .Final Report of the Royal Commission on University Educa- tion in London* (dated March 27, 1913, but not obtainable until some months later) is a work that should be read in this country by all who are charged with responsibility concerning the govern- ment of universities. The particular problems dealt with have, in- deed, little direct bearing upon conditions extant in this country; but if superficial opportunists could hold themselves down to a perusal of that painstaking work, they might be impressed by the efficacy and utility of fundamental principles in guiding those enlightened by them through mazes of confusing details and con- flicting claims. Nowhere else in the world is presented so diffi- cult and complex a problem concerning educational affairs, as that of rightly organizing the University of London with its con- stituent colleges and legion of allied institutions. Some passages from the admirable report by the commissioners will indicate several essential principles applicable always and everywhere. ''The Nature and Work of the University "We have described what appear to us to be the main defects in the present organisation of the University, and we think it must be clear from what we have said -that the University cannot work well so long as the present relations of the Internal and External sides continue as they are now. . . . Experience has shown that the Gresham Commis- sion were mistaken in believing it was in any way possible to organise a homogeneous university by connecting a number of financially and educationally independent institutions witli a central degree-giving body endowed with the limited power and influence possessed by such a univer- sity as they proposed. . . . "Much that is defective in the present organisation of the University of London can be traced ultimately to confusion of thought about what things are essential to university education and what things are non- essential. For example, whatever importance may he attached to exam- inations, an examining board can never constitute a university ; and, again, technical instruction and advanced courses of study may be multi- * Published by His Majesty's Stationery Office; to be purchased directly, or from the agencies in the United States and abroad of T. Fisher Unwin, London, W. C., price 2 shillings. 280 ESSENTIALS OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION plied indefinitely without providing university education. Of course, any educational institution may be called a university; but, as Dr. Rashdall says, 'to degrade the name of a University, is to degrade our highest educational ideal.' We do not mean, however, that what we call non- essential things ought not to be provided, but only that they can be done without a university, although some of them can be better done by a university and in as close connexion as possible with the work which only a university can do. The history of the rapid growth of university institutions in this country during the last thirty years would no doubt explain much of the confusion of thought to which we have referred, but a large part of it is due to the history of the University of London itself. . . . The demand for higher technical instruction made itself felt throughout the Western world in the second half of the nineteenth century, when the modern universities of this country were coming into existence. It is possible that if the organisation of secondary schools in England had been more advanced, and if there had been, as there was in Germany, a large number of universities with a settled scope and policy, the demand might have been met here as it was in Germany, by institutions distinct from the universities. . . . Perhaps it is yet to be proved whether the definite professional outlook of some of the modern English universities is consistent with the wide intellectual train- ing which university education has always been understood to imply. We have no doubt, however, that any branch of knowledge which is suffi- ciently developed and systematised to be capable of scientific treatment may be taught and studied in such a way as to form part of a university education. The differentiae of university education do not consist in the nature of the particular subjects studied, or in their difficulty or abstruse- ness, but rather in the nature and aim of the students' work, and in the conditions under which it is done. "The Essentials of University Education "In the first place, it is essential that the regular students of the University should be able to work in intimate and constant association with their fellow students, not only of the same but of different Faculties, and also in close contact with their teachers. The University should be organised on this basis, and should regard it as the ordinary and normal state of things. This is impossible, however, when any considerable pro- portion of the students are not fitted by their previous training to receive a university education, and therefore do not and cannot take their place in the common life of the university as a community of teachers and ESSENTIALS OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 281 students, but, as far as their intellectual education is concerned, continue iu a state of pupilage, and receive instruction of much the same kind as at a school, though under conditions of greater individual free- dom. . . . It is essential that the students and teachers should be brought together in living intercourse in the daily work of the Univer- sity. From the time the undergraduate enters the University he should find himself a member of a community in which he has his part to play. The teaching and learning should be combined through the active and per- sonal co-operation of teachers and students. . . . "The main business of a university is the training of its undergrad- uates, and it is clear that university study will be best pursued if the students, or at any rate a large proportion of them, are of an age when fresh intellectual impressions and habits of mind are easily formed, and if their main purpose during the period of their student life is the training which they hope to receive from the university. A university education is most effective when it is given before the struggles and preoccupations of life in the world have begun. It is a training which ought to make great demands both upon the intellectual energy and upon the time of the student; on his energy, because he is learning the methods of independent work carried on in an inquiring spirit; on his time, because mental habits cannot be formed rapidly, nor if the mind is distracted by other cares and interests, and because, if he is to get more from the instruction of the class-room or laboratory than notes in preparation for an examination, a considerable amount of leisure is essential for independent reading, for common life with fellow students and teachers, and above all for the reflective thought necessary to the rather slow process of assimilation. "In the second place, the work in a university by teachers and students should differ in its nature and aim both from the work of a secondary school and from that of a technical or a purely professional school. In the secondary school it is expected that a knowledge of many things should be acquired while the mind is specially receptive, and during this stage of education definite tasks are rightly prescribed. But even more im- portant than knowledge is the moral and mental training needed for later success in study or in life, which the pupils gain by the orderly exercise of all their activities demanded in a well arranged school. In the technical or professional school the theoretical teaching is so closely connected with the requirements of the art to be acquired, or the profession or calling for which the pupil desires to prepare himself, 282 UNIVERSITY TEACHING that it is limited and directed largely to the application of ascertained facts to practical purposes, or it may be to the preparation for a quali- fying examination. "In a university the aim is different, and the whole organization ought to be adapted to the attainment of the end in view. Knowledge is, of course, the foundation and the medium of all intellectual education, but in a university knowledge should be pursued not merely for the sake of the information to be acquired, but for its own extension and always with reference to the attainment of truth. This alters the whole attitude of the mind. Scientific thought becomes a habit, and almost incidentally in- tellectual power is developed. Modern universities are called into exist- ence principally by the social need for professional training, and probably most of the students enter the University with a purely utilitarian object; but they should find themselves in a community of workers, devoted to the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, and tenacious of this ideal against all external pressure of material and social advantages. Academic instruction is primarily purely theoretical and scientific, and yet it is not only the best training for the conduct of life, but also the best, if not the necessary introduction to all those professions and callings of which it may be said that practice and progress are closely connected and constantly reacting on each other. Its effect in relation to the pro- fession or calling which the student has in view is that he brings to it not only the discipline, training, knowledge, and resourcefulness he has acquired, but also the intellectual mastery of the principles involved which enables him throughout his life to appreciate and apply all advances in science that bear upon it. "The following description of university teaching given by the in- spectors of the Board of Education in a Report of 1910 appears to us to agree in substance with what we have said, and in some respects to express our meaning in greater detail and completeness : " 'We may assume.' they say, 'that university teaching is teaching suited to adults; that it is scientific, detached, and impartial in character; that it aims not so much at filling the mind of the student with facts or theories as at calling forth his own individ- uality, and stimulating him to mental effort; that it accustoms him to the critical study of the leading authorities, with, perhaps, occasional references to first-hand sources of information; and that it implants in his mind a standard of thoroughness, and gives him a sense of the difficulty as well as of the value of truth. TEACHING AND RESEARCH 283 The student so trained learns to distinguish between what may fairly be called matter of fact, and what is certainly mere matter of opinion, between the white light and the coloured. He becomes accustomed to distinguish issues, and to look at separate questions each on its own merits and without an eye to their bearing on some cherished theory. He learns to state fairly, and even sympatheti- cally, the position of those to whose practical conclusions he is most stoutly opposed. He becomes able to examine a suggested idea, and see what comes of it, before accepting it or rejecting it. Finally, without necessarily becoming an original student, he gains an insight into the conditions under which original research is carried on. He is able to weigh evidence, to follow and criticise argu- ment, and put his own value on authorities.' "In the third place, it is essential that the higher work of the University should be closely associated with the undergraduate work. Proposals which tend to their separation take two forms. On the one hand, it is proposed that the bulk of the undergraduates should be distributed over a large number of centres, most of which would be limited to instruction in one or two Faculties only, while the teaching of the University Pro- fessors in the more central colleges should be organized with primary reference to the needs of the post-graduate or advanced student, and should provide for undergraduates, if at all, only as a secondary and entirely subordinate consideration. On the other hand, there is the proposal of the Council for External Students, to which we have already referred, for the creation of a series of institutes for research and higher learning to which the best students would pass from the colleges and other institutions where they had received their undergraduate training. Neither of these proposals commends itself to us as a desirable policy, and both of them appear to involve a half-conscious admission that the great majority of the students who at present take the bachelor's degree of London University do not receive a university education at all. But this is the greatest evil which results from the present organization of the University, and the one which it is most important to remove in the interests of higher education in London. "No one suggests that research should be divorced from teaching, but for various reasons proposals are made for organizing the higher and more advanced work of the University separately from the undergraduate work in a way which must tend in this direction. We agree with the view expressed in the Report of the Professorial Board of University 284 TEACHING AND RESEARCH College that 'any hard and fast line between undergraduate and post- graduate work must be artificial, must be to the disadvantage of the undergraduate, and must tend to diminish the supply of students who undertake post-graduate and research work.' Even in those cases where it is necessary to provide for research departments which, because of their specialised work, are unsuited for the admission of undergraduates, they will be stronger and more effective if they are in close proximity to departments where undergraduate work is done. "Teaching will, of course, predominate in the earlier work, and research will predominate in the advanced work ; but it is in the best interests of the University that the most distinguished of its professors should take part in the teaching of the undergraduates from the beginning of their univer- sity career. It is only by coming into contact with the junior students that a teacher can direct their minds to his own conception of his subject, and train them in his own methods, and hence obtain the double advan- tage of selecting the best men for research, and getting the best work out of them. Again, it is the personal influence of the man doing original work in this subject which inspires belief in it, awakens enthu- siasm, gains disciples. His personality is the selective power by which those who are fittest for his special work are voluntarily enlisted in its service, and his individual influence is reproduced and extended by the spirit which actuates his staff. Neither is it the few alone who gain; all honest students gain inestimably from association with teachers who show them something of the working of the thought of independent and original minds. 'Anyone,' says Helmholtz, 'who has once come into contact with one or more men of the first rank must have had his whole mental standard altered for the rest of his life.' Lectures have not lost their use, and books can never fully take the place of the living spoken word. Still less can they take the place of the more intimate teaching in labora- tory and seminar, which ought not to be beyond the range of the ordinary course of a university education, and in which the student learns, not only conclusions and the reasons supporting them, all of which he might get from books, but the actual process of developing thought, the working of a highly trained and original mind. "If it is thus to be desired that the highest university teachers should take their part in undergraduate work, and that their spirit should dominate it all, it follows for the same reasons that they should not be deprived of the best of their students when they reach the stage of post- graduate work. This work should not be separated from the rest of the TEACHING AND RESEARCH 285 work of the University, and conducted by different teachers in separate institutions. As far as the teacher is concerned it is necessry that he should have post-graduate students under him. He must be doing original work himself, and he often obtains material assistance from the co- operation of advanced students. Their very difficulties are full of sugges- tion, and their faith and enthusiasm are a perennial sourcexof refreshment and strength. He escapes the flagging spirit and the moods of lethargy which are apt to overtake the solitary worker. There can be no question of a higher class of teachers than the professors of the University, or the whole position of the University will be degraded. On the other hand, a university teacher of the highest rank will naturally desire to have as his post-graduate students those students whom he has already begun to train in his own methods, though his laboratory or seminar will, of course, be open to students who come from other universities, and to some perhaps who come from no universities at all, as well as to some who come from other teachers of the University of London. There must be a great deal of give and take, and students may often gain by studying under more than one teacher of the same subject; but that is an entirely different thing from separating the higher work from the lower. We do not think it would be possible to get the best men for University Professorships if they were in any way restricted from doing the highest work, or prevented from spreading their net wide to catch the best stu- dents. "It is also a great disadvantage to the undergraduate students of the University that post-graduate students should be removed to separate institutions. They ought to be in constant contact with those who are doing more advanced work then themselves, and who are not too far beyond them, but stimulate and encourage them by the familiar presence of an attainable ideal. "Then, again, there is the influence of the University as a whole upon all departments of work within it. The advance of knowledge is not along single lines of special research alone. The sciences have all been developed out of the ordinary knowledge of common experience by the gradual substitution of completeness and accuracy for vagueness. Research is often spoken of as if all of it was the highest kind of work, and it is often assumed that a student's education has reached its goal when he is said to be doing original research, and that if he attains to this it does not matter what his previous training has been. But, in fact, there are all degrees of value in research, and much that is diginfied by the name, however laborious and praiseworthy it may be, is directed to narrow 286 TEACHING AND RESEARCH issues and problems of quite secondary importanoe because the student lacks a broad and liberal education and a wider point of view. Even men of great eminence in their own department of knowledge have been known to apply the conceptions which are valid within the range of their particular science to problems which can never be solved by means of them. All the sciences are fragmentary when viewed in relation to the whole range of experience. They pass over into each other ; they require to be supplemented, corrected, extended, even their most fundamental pre- suppositions may have to be reconsidered in the light of discoveries in other fields of investigation, and as the result of the re-thinking and re-conceiv- ing of existing knowledge. It is impossible for any but the greatest minds to gain mastery over more than a small part of human knowledge; but in addition to the mastery of a part it is possible to acquire a general con- ception of the whole, a sympathetic understanding of the ideas which guide the work of the other men, an almost instinctive sense of the bearing of other branches of knowledge on one's own special work, and a just appreciation of its possibilities and limitations. All these ends are best achieved by a University which takes the whole realm of human thought and knowledge as its own, associates its teachers and students together as closely as the conditions of their work will allow, and so forms a community with one spirit and one aim, which in course of time will develop an individual character and create traditions that will affect the minds of all who come within its influence. . . . "In a great city like London, we believe there is room, as there is in Berlin and Leipzig, for important independent research institutes which may incidentally offer advanced students of the London and other Universities opportunities for making investigations of a special kind; but institutes of this type, however necessary in themselves, do not, and in our view should not, form a part of the university organization. . . . It is obvious that the University can exercise no influence over the conduct of a purely research centre such as the Lister Institute, or over a special professional school like that of the Pharmaceutical Society, both independent in every real sense of the University, and with purposes of their own which are not university purposes. We trust that students or graduates of the University may be found within their walls, but they will reap no advantage from a formal connexion of the institutions with the University. We believe that what the University requires from institutions such as those named, is the same kind of convenience of access and general co-operation in the interests of learning that it looks for UNIVERSITY PRESS 287 from the national museums, or the collections of learned societies. Formal bonds of connexion would do nothing to assist the teachers and students of the University in making the full use they will and ought to make of the unrivalled opportunities for special study these institutions afford. "On the other hand, we are strongly of the opinion that provision should be made by the University itself for the publication of the investi- gations which are carried out under its auspices by its teachers and its senior students. The benefit which a university can confer on the world of learning depends largely upon the influence that it has upon other universities and learned bodies. Shorter scientific contributions are per- haps best made known by publication in the recognised periodicals devoted to the subjects to which they relate, but the publication of longer original works cannot be made upon a commercial basis, and unless a university can assist its investigators by bringing their labors to the notice of other workers in the same field, not only will its own teachers and students be discouraged, but the advance of knowledge, which it is one of the chief purposes of a university to achieve, will be delayed because other workers will be ignorant of what has already been done or attempted. The establishment of a University Press under the full control of the Univer- sity itself is therefore, in our opinion, an essential function of the Univer- sity. . . . "Technology "There is nothing in the functions of a university as we have described them which ought to exclude technological instruction ; but it must not be of a narrow utilitarian kind. If only those technoligical problems were studied which appeared likely to involve an immediate financial or material advantage, the point of view from which the inquiry, however recondite, was made would destroy the university spirit, and would not in fact be likely to open up the path to their solution. The difficulties that present themselves to manufacturers or merchants seldom afford an indication of the true nature of the problems to be solved. They are generally secondary in their nature, and a direct attack on them is likely to be as empirical as the symptomatic treatment of disease. It is the recognition of this truth which has led to the paradoxical assertion that the value of any study varies inversely with its usefulness; but in fact the value of a particular study arises not out of the matter which is treated, but out of the manner in which it is handled. Even from the point of view of technology we think Sir Water Raleigh is right when he says in his Ad- dress on the Meaning of a University: 'The standard of utility is a false 288 TECHNOLOGY and mischievous standard, invented by short-sighted greed, and certain, if it is accepted, to paralyse and kill the University that accepts it. It cultivates the branches for profit, and neglects the root. You cannot apply the test of utility to knowledge that is living and growing. The use of knowledge is often the application to practical ends of knowledge that has ceased to grow. It is the timber, not the growing tree, which serves for ships. Some of the conclusions of scientific study can be utilised, but who shall say which of them? How can we be free to ask questions of the world, if we are told that we must ask no question the answer of which is not certain to be immediately profitable to us? We ask the question because we do not know the answer. The answer, if we are so fortunate as to find it, may be disconcerting and strange. Then we must ask more questions.' This view of the attitude which a univer- sity should assume towards utility does not prevent it from being useful to the industries, indeed it will be more useful to them if this is its spirit than if it merely thinks of those strictly trade purposes which it is the necessary and useful end of polytechnics and technical institutes to promote. . . . "Both the history of educational organization and a right view of the methods of university work appear to us to justify the inclusion of pro- fessionel and technological studies within the University; and this being so, it is neither possible nor desirable to withhold the advantage of the highly specialized work being done in the University laboratories and class-rooms from those already engaged in a profession or calling, who need to supplement their knowledge in particular directions. Although it may be true that the first and most urgent call upon the University is that made by its regular students, it could not hope to retain the sympathy and support of the community to which it must look for ma- terial as well as moral assistance, if it refused help and guidance to men and women who, though the days of regular study were past, wished to keep abreast with the demands made upon them by their professions. A university in a great center of population must be prepared to provide advanced instruction of specialised kind for all classes of the community who are willing to receive it. A great deal of this work must be done in the evening, and for this purpose the great day colleges of the University should be used. . . . DEGREES AND EXAMINATIONS 289 "Degrees and Examinations "The power of granting degrees is one of the chief characteristics of all universities, although it is not the real end of their existence. The great majority of the students enter the university only for a few years, and graduation is for them the culmination of their university career. In earlier times the students of a Faculty were apprentices to a profession, and when they became masters they entered the rank of teachers and were required to teach for a time. This rarely happens now; the teachers are a specially appointed class, and the bulk of the students leave the univer- sity immediately after graduation. The university fulfils its end for the nation and the world partly by the advancement of science and learning, but partly also by sending out into many of the different paths of life a constant stream of men and women who have been trained by its teaching and influenced by its life. "The object of going to a university is, or ought to be, to obtain a university education; and the degree ought to signify that this end has been attained. It is required for practical purposes as the sign and guar- antee of a university education. At the present day the pass degree is the public certificate of the university that the student has complied with such conditions as may be prescribed with regard to residence, in- struction and course of study, and has satisfied the tests which the univer- sity imposes in order to ascertain that he has profited to a reasonable extent by the opportunity he has had. The honours degrees certify that he has acquitted himself with greater or less distinction, and the higher degrees that he has pursued a further course of study and satisfied addi- tional tests. Degrees, however, are not only certificates, they are also distinctions; and the hope of academic distinction excites emulation and rivalry which, although not the highest motives, are powerful incentives to sustained effort and self-denying exertion not easily dispensed with. "It is obvious that the tests imposed ought to be designed for the purpose of affording sufficient evidence that the object has been attained which is certified by the degree. Two things, then, must be kept in view in fixing what the tests should be. First, they should be fair tests affording sufficient evidence of what they are intended to prove; and, secondly, they should not interfere with or injuriously affect, but should, if possi- ble, assist the education which it is the real end of the university to give. In English universities the main test employed is that of examination. We must therefore consider the question how far that test affords suffi- cient evidence of a university education (1) when conducted solely by 290 DEGREES AND EXAMINATIONS ;; ?i -fj : ; RMi : i '!". Tl-.^i-'i external examiners, and (2), when conducted largely by the teachers of the students examined; and how far in each case it is injurious to the real education of the student or can be made to assist its ends. "On the External side of the University of London, the only test imposed is that of examination, and the only condition for securing the education of the student is the lapse of time between the examinations, during which he may apply himself to study on the lines of prescribed syllabus, with or without instruction. Such examinations are necessarily con- ducted by examiners who, except by accident, have had nothing to do with the instruction of the candidates, and the questions must be so framed as to be fair to candidates who have been entirely dependent upon private study. What, then, does the examination test? All that is provided is a syllabus, and all that the examination can profess to test is a knowledge, at the time of the examinatioon, of the subjects prescribed by the syllabus, because the candidate may get his knowledge in any way he likes. He may work hard and well, and he may have the best instruction, but the test of the examination affords no sufficient evidence of this. As far as it tests his knowledge or information alone, it can obtain evidence only of memory, and not even of lasting memory, because, in the case of some subjects at any rate, cramming is the most successful way of preparing for the test, and it is notorious that a good coach can enable a candidate even to dispense with cramming more than fragments of a subject prescribed. . . . We do not suggest that the examinations are easy to pass; the large percentage of failures is sufficient evidence that they are not. But the large number of failures also proves that a wide syllabus of prescribed subjects, with an External examination as the test for the information acquired, inevitably tends to uneducational methods of work, and, that far too many of the candidates are only 'having a shot at it,' because there is a fair chance of scraping through a rather indiscriminating test with a minimum amount of knowledge and a turn of good luck. It is not an answer to say, as one witness said, that the intellect is strengthened by overcoming difficulties; that if a man has the resolution and strength of purpose to attain a standard of knowledge by himself, equal to that attained by another man with assistance, the former is the stronger man; that if he has mastered great books by the greatest men he will have come into communication with bigger minds than any who are likely to be his teachers, and that his teachers can do him good only by assisting him more readily to come into communication with those bigger minds. Even then we think the DEGREES AND EXAMINATIONS 291 intellectual cultivation is likely to be one-sided and defective; but there is a fallacy in the assumption that self-education is achieved by any but the very exceptional man, or is induced by the examination. No doubt the degree is an incentive to work, and there are very few who can dispense with some incentive, but the External examination does not test the quality of the work. It can be more effectively and more easily prepared for by means that are not really educational. It is in spite of, and not by means of, the so-called principle of guidance by test, if the great majority of the candidates do not belong to the class which Newman describes as 'those earnest but ill-used persons, who are forced to load their minds with a score of subjects against an examination, who have too much on their hands to indulge themselves in thinking or investigation, who devour premiss and conclusion together with indiscriminate greedi- ness, who hold whole sciences on faith, and commit demonstrations to memory, and who too often, as might be expected, when their period of education is passed, throw up all they have learned in disgust, having gained nothing really by their anxious labours, except perhaps the habit of application.' "Even in the case of a true university where the students have had the opportunity of obtaining a university education, a purely external examina- tion conducted by examiners who have nothing to go upon but the syllabus prescribed for the course of instruction, can afford evidence of nothing more than we have already described. But the failure will be greater; because the object is not to test the knowledge of candidates at the time of the examination, but whether students have profited by the opportunity they have had of obtaining a university education. Hardly anyone now defends a purely external examination as a proper test of university teaching. The University of New Zealand, one of the last of the universi- ties to retain this form of examination, adopted under the influence of the old University of London, is at present agitating for reform. . . . "We are convinced that both a detailed syllabus and an external exami- nation are inconsistent with the true interests of university education, injurious to the student, degrading to the teachers, and ineffective for the attainment of the ends they are supposed to promote. The insistence on a system of external examinations is always based upon want of faith in the teachers. Even the so-called Internal examinations of the University of London are practically external, because of the large number of insti- tutions involved, and the demands of the common syllabus; and the syllabus is a device to maintain a standard among institutions which 292 DEGREES AND EXAMINATIONS are not all of university rank. The effect upon the students and the teachers is disastrous. The students have the ordeal of the examination hanging over them and must prepare themselves for it or fail to get the degree. Thus the degree comes first and the education a bad second. They cannot help thinking of what will pay: they lose theoretic interest in the subjects of study, and with it the freedom, the thought, the reflection, the spirit of inquiry which are the atmosphere of university work. They cannot pursue knowledge both for its own sake and also for the sake of passing the test of an examination. And the teachers' powers are re- stricted by the syllabus; their freedom in dealing with their subject in their own way is limited, and they must either direct their teaching to preparation for an examination which is for each of them practically external, or else lose the interest and attention of their students. Indeed, the best teachers are apt to lose their students' attention either way, for if they teach unreservedly by the syllabus their own interest must flag, consequently that of their hearers also. We shall make recommendations which will dispense with the necessity of the syllabus, by ensuring the appointment of teachers who can be trusted with the charge of university education. Teachers who can be trusted with this far more important and responsible duty can also be trusted with the conduct of examinations, in so far as they are accepted as proper and necessary tests for the degrees of the University. But examinations, even when conducted by the teachers of the University, and based upon the instruction given by them, ought not to be the only tests for the degree. It is not right that the work of years should be juged by the answers given to examination papers in a few hours. . . . Due weight should be given to the whole record of the students' work in the University. If the academic freedom of the professors and the students is to be maintained if scope for individual initiative is to be allowed to the professors, and the students are to profit to the full by their instruction it is absolutely necessary that, subject to proper safeguards, the degrees of the University should practically be the certificates given by the professors themselves, and that the students should have entire confidence that they may trust their academic fate to honest work under their instruction and direction. "We have described in brief the things which, in our opinion, a univer- sity must do the things which it is essential should be done if there is to be a university at all, and also those things which the University of London should do, if it is to serve adequately the needs of the great DEGREES AND EXAMINATIONS 293 population at its doors. . . . For the moment . . . there is con- fusion in the public mind between a university education and a university degree. People believe that everyone who has the latter has in some way or other also had the former, and that the examinations that have been passed are a proof of it. ... When an understanding has once been reached of what university teaching really is, and of what it can do for a man, we believe students, no matter how poor they may be, will refuse to be satisfied with anything less good than the best." The Commission's discussion of the "Working of the Present Organization of the University," manifests the same clear insights and firm grasp of essential principles. They see plainly, for instance, why Boards of Studies and the common syllabus and ex- ternal examinations, whereby the various colleges have been linked together, have necessarily been "a bar to all real prosrress in the best institutions." "The external bond of a common examination, because it is common to all, must always be to some extent exter- nal to each and can never demand much more than the weakest institution can give." "The evidence shows that the Academic and the External Councils are dominated by incompatible ideals. The one side believes that training in a university under university teachers is an essential and by far the most important factor in a university education, while the other side believes that examinations based upon a syllabus afford 'a guidance by test,' which is an adequate means of ascertaining that a candidate has attined a stand- ard of knowledge entitling him to a university degree. We have been told that these different points of view are constantly opposed to each other in the Senate; that many matters thus become the subject of con- troversy which ought not to be so; that questions of grave importance have been decided by narrow majorities, and that policies which have been adopted and acted upon have been suddenly reversed. . . . "The curricula are prepared without any special regard to the particu- lar lines along which individual Schools are working, and are in all but form detailed syllabuses for examination. We have had evidence from a number of the professors that the common syllabus of instruction pre- scribed by the University hampers the best teaching. ... It appears, therefore, that this power over the curricula, by which the University 294 DEGREES AND EXAMINATIONS can exercise a real influence on the Schools, though possibly beneficial hitherto in maintaining an average standard, especially for the weaker institutions, has been far from beneficial in its effect upon more ad- vanced work done in the stronger Schools. A far more important factor in maintaining a high standard of teaching is the character of the teachers themselves; but, with a few unimportant exceptions, the Univer- sity has no control over their appointment. . . "We are convinced that it is not possible to organize a great university merely by giving a number of independent institutions with different aims and different standards a formal connexion with a central degree-giving body which has practically no control beyond the approval of syllabuses for degree courses, the recognition of individual teachers, and the conduct of degree examinations. We agree with Professor Hill, lately Vice- Chancellor of the University, that 'the power to control teaching is of more importance than the power to test it by granting degrees.' . . . "University students in the Polytechnics, no less than their teachers, are working in institutions intended for non-university purposes, with aims which have been described by the Charity Commissioners as 'the promotion of the industrial skill, general knowledge, health and well-being of young men and women belonging to the poorer classes', and which in the main, and for the majority of their students, are not those of a university. In these circumstances it is inevitable that the degree exami- nation rather than the course of instruction should appear the important matter, an attitude which is encouraged by the large proportion of the students who take the External examinations and attend only so much of the instruction as they think necessary. The passing of a university examination is no evidence that a student has received a university train- ing, yet the training is what the young men and women need who are destined to do work for which university graduates are required. The teacher who gives a part, or even the whole, of his time and energies merely to holding classes in preparation for university examinations is not on that account a university teacher; for the university teacher is not only concerned with imparting knowledge, but also with training the minds of his students, and inducing a critical and inquiring temper. The student may acquire much knowledge from his teacher; but if that is all he acquires he will not have had a university training, and if that is all his teacher can give he is not a true university teacher. The university teacher should be chosen because his powers are of the kind to fit him for university work; in so far as he is well fitted to do that POLYTECHNICS 295 work, he is not the kind of teacher that is best suited for the major part of the work to be done in Polytechnics. One machine cannot satis- factorily produce simultaneously two such different articles as the skilled craftsman or artisan and the trained university student. If the Poly- technics are to do both things they must differentiate their functions; one department must confine itself to doing university work, and others to teaching foremen and craftsmen. . . . "The Polytechnics have suffered in all their work from the rapidity of their growth and the success they have achieved. There is grave danger that the Polytechnics may fail from the absence of a clear objective, that the desire to add subject to subject and class to class may lead to a waste of public money and to a dissipation of the energies of the teachers; but if this is true of their work as a whole it is especially true in regard to university work. Some overlapping between different grades of institu- tions is inevitable, and perhaps even desirable, in order to furnish opportu- nities for the student who for one reason or another has been obliged to depart from the normal course. But when to avoid hardship in one direc- tion, institutions have been diverted from the work for which they were originally founded and for which they are still needed, and when they have been induced to undertake university work without due consideration of the necessity for it 3 or of their ability to do it efficiently, a position has been reached which is not only dangerous to these institutions themselves, but to university education as a whole. Already an active and successful technical college has been transformed into one of the weaker Schools of the University, and this example has led no less than four other institu- tions of the polytechnic type to put forward claims for similar recognition. This fact alone affords clear evidence of the need for some readjustment of the relation between Polytechnic institutions and the University. . . . [The present relations] involve elaborate and irksome regulations as to the length and scope of courses of study for degrees, division of interests and a hesitating policy among the teachers, and a complete failure to organize and weld into a properly co-ordinated whole the higher work of teaching and research which it is the main purpose of a university to promote. "Regulations prescribe the minimum length, in hours, of all approved courses, whether for day or evening students, and in order that a student may be admitted to an Internal examination he must attend four-fifths of the minimum number of hours allotted to the course in each subject of the curriculum. Elaborate rules define the number of hours' supervision by a 'recognized' teacher required at every course given in a workshop or a 296 CONFLICTING AIMS laboratory. The scope and standard of each course are defined by de- tailed syllabuses which determine not only the instruction to be given, but the examinations to be held; and in consequence the initiative of the teacher and his power to break new ground are diminished. So far-reaching is the cumulative effect of these regulations and syllabuses that, as we have been informed by many witnesses, the teachers are now hampered in the treatment of their subjects almost as much as they used to be before the reconstitution of the University, when all their students were preparing for an external examination; and that the examinations them- selves are becoming more and more external in character owing to the necessity of providing tests suitable to a large number of institutions of different standards and aims. It has become impossible to allow the degree of liberty and personal initiative which is desirable in the case of university teachers of the highest rank, and which can safely be per- mitted even to junior teachers working under the supervision of a dis- tinguished head of a department. Not only are the best teachers hampered, but even good students in the best Schools of the University are induced by irksome regulation of their course of study, which they do not find necessary or beneficial, to abandon the Internal side and take the External degree. . . . "It has been pointed out to us that in existing conditions the syllabus may be a means of ensuring that some important aspect of a particular subject not hitherto included in the curriculum shall receive due attention; but this is, after all, only another way of saying that when a university is made up of institutions of different standards and aims the syllabus is a necessary means of maintaining a reasonable level of efficiency. . . . [But] it also tends to dishearten and keep from the meetings those teachers who, because they are progressive and original, should have a commanding influence. The body of university teachers is thus divided against itself. . . . "There are other defects in the present organization of the University which it will be convenient to consider together, for, although they are not all traceable to one or other of the two main grounds we have been considering, they are all connected with the machinery of government. "Mr. Pember Reeves, the Director of the London School of Economics, who has had wide experience of administrative business both in this country and New Zealand, said in evidence: 'What is so troublesome, of course, is that the Boards of Studies come over the heads of the TEEBITOEY 297 Faculties, over the heads of almost everybody, in fact, right to the Senate, and a great deal of time of the Senate is passed in wrangling and worrying about something or other which has been done by a Board of Studies.' . . . "The large size of some of the Faculties, appears to us to be a far less evil than that which arises from the unequal standing of their mem- bers. This inequality is directly due to the second of the main causes of the defects in the organization the combination in the University of a large number of institutions differently related to it and of different edu- cational standards and aims; but it is also in part due to the action of the Statutory Commission of 1898, and, after them, of the Senate of the University in the exercise of their discretionary powers of recognizing teachers, and admitting them as members of the Faculties. . . . "Our attention has been specially directed by Lord Reay to the views of the Gresham Commission. He referred to the following passage in paragraph 22 of their report: 'Having regard, however, to the necessity so frequently adverted to by the witnesses of a more systematic grouping and co-ordination of educational means, we should deprecate any action which would tend to an undue multiplication of centres of instruction. The evidence points strongly to the conclusion that for some time to come the most effectual method of promoting higher education in London will be by completing and supplementing the resources of existing institu- tions, and even in some cases by limiting to one or more centres teaching which is now given with inadequate resources and to inadequate numbers in various institutions.' "Lord Reay went on to say: 'That is still my opinion with regard to the present situation; that as the financial means which are available are so limited, whatever means there are should be used rather to level up existing institutions, both with regard to their equipment, their plant, and the salaries of their professors, than to start new institutions.' . . . "The Area, of the University "We have given much consideration to the question of the proper area of the University. Under its present constitution the University has two areas. The smaller of the two is confined to the Administrative County of London, and it is only within this area that the University can under the statutes admit public educational institutions as Schools. . . - The larger area is defined by an imaginary line drawn at a radius of 30 miles from the central buildings of the University, and within this area 298 CONSTRUCTIVE IDEALS the Senate has the power of recognising teachers in public educational institutions, and so qualifying them for appointment to the Faculties and Boards of Studies, and their matriculated students for registration as Internal students of the University. ... If London is to have a real university, its area must be a relatively limited one, and we think that the Administrative County is certainly the largest which will allow of the effective organisation we desire. ["The strengthening of the Faculties and the close co-operation of their members."] There is a real limit to the number of students for which a university can provide the highest kind of education. It is thought by many that the University of Berlin with nearly 9,000 matriculated students is already too large, and we doubt whether the University of London would ever be able to provide for a much larger number than this an education comparable to that of Berlin. When this point has been reached the need will have arisen for another university, and if the University of London can prepare the way for a new university in the south-east of England by encouraging the develop- ment of the right lines of educational institutions beyond its own im- mediate area, it will have performed a greater service to education and to the State than by attempting a gigantic organisation which would be likely to end in the arid formalism of the Napoleonic Universitg de France." The fundamental principles discerned and affirmed by the Com- mission on University Education in London are of universal appli- cation. Their proper recognition would save the rulers and admin- istrators of any university from injurious perhaps fatal errors. Haldane of Cloan has rendered notable service to his nation in various capacities; but not in the past, as Principal Secretary of State for War, has he exceeded, nor is it probable that he will sur- pass in the future, as Lord High Chancellor, the achievement rep- resented by this great report on university education, elaborated by him and his distinguished colleagues of the Commission. The following statement by President Alderman presents cer- tain ideals that should be clearly conceived and steadfastly upheld by all university faculties. Vague declamation about such themes is common enough, but it represents too often only the homage that CONSTRUCTIVE IDEALS 299 ignorance or hypocrisy pays to philosophy and virtue. The ideals must be vital, conforming forces, else they will be but will-o'-the- wisps leading to pernicious developments, through quagmires of fraud and blundering. "The last quarter of the century has witnessed the organization of the American university, and the partial realization of its final form. . . . This new educational form will comprise: "(1) The College of Liberal Arts the academic heart which has assimilated scientific studies and thereby put itself in touch with the meaning of the age. Its function will be to receive immature youth in an atmosphere of broad and varied associations, in contact with wise and noble lives, and to offer them such experience in evoking manhood and capacity, and such knowledge of man, nature and spirit, that they shall gain power to enter into life with character, enthusiasm, and con- viction. The college is a social institution, enlightening and guiding youth, that it may make men of them. "(2) The Graduate School the academic brain charged with the function of training mature and liberally educated men to investigation and scientific productiveness. Here shall be gained that patience and energy, that open-mindedness and sure thinking, that intellectual sin- cerity, that have belonged to all of the path-finders from Aristotle to Pasteur, and must belong to him who would broaden the ways and enlarge the boundaries of thought. The advance of civilization will rest on the strength of this school, and through its work alone can a university hope to become a school of power, binding other colleges to it in loyalty, and not only responsive to tradition, but to new truth daily appearing in the life of man. Here the quiet scholar may search out the truth and hold it aloft for men to see. "(3) The Professional Schools the heart and brain at work on life as varied in number and scope as society is complex, seeking to provide the world with the best skill needful for its growth, and so justly related to the whole, that we shall escape the peril of the illiberal and uneducated specialist. "All this shall be placed in a setting of a little world of libraries, laboratories, loan funds, fellowships, mechanism, and beauty, and the whole vitalized and spiritualized by men in such force that their spirits shall not break and their hopes shall not die. We do not need many such universities but we do need them strong and in the right places. The 300 CONSTRUCTIVE IDEALS multiplication of weakness by weakness yields weakness still. The South needs them to protect its real reconstructive era from the dangers of empiricism, industrial dependence, and the perils that beset character in all democracies. . . . "The power necessary to transform the University into a fortress and dynamo of conservation and enlightenment is being won from forest and factory and farm, and is undergoing consecration to these high purposes in thousands of tender consciences and purposeful minds. . . . Money alone cannot make such a university, but vast power is necessary, and though it bear the image and superscription of Caesar, there is an alchemy of consecration in our laboratories which can transmute money into moral force. Mere individual genius, even of Plato, or Abelard or Arnold or Hopkins, cannot make such a university, though God pity it if it have not such quality of soul somewhere in its life. Prestige will not suffice, for prestige may be a gentle euphemism for epitaph, if isolated from continuing power to serve a widening field." I have already referred* to the commanding interest and value of Paulsen's great book, The German Universities, for all whose duty it is to understand the proper nature and scope and processes of university work. Its exposition of freedom of teaching and freedom of learning has been submitted to the reader. I add in this connection its presentment of the ideal of scholarship on the part of the professor in the German university, and the conse- quences of an accordant practice, not only for university work but also for the nation and, particularly, for the secondary schools. Professor Thilly says, in the translator's preface : "Our country ha? learned much from the German universities, and it is largely owing to this that we occupy the position in the scientific world which we already occupy. It is safe to say, however, that we still have a great deal to learn, and that a book like Professor Paulsen's can point the way to new ideals. We have not yet reached the development of which we are capable. For one thing we have not yet reached that degree of inner freedom which the German university enjoys and to which Professor Paulsen attributes the wonderful advance which has been made in higher education in the nineteenth century. The one-man power, which 'Page 266. CONSTRUCTIVE IDEALS 301 exists in many of our institutions, the interference of governing boards with purely academic matters which should be left to faculties or indi- vidual teachers, the influence of politics and sectarianism, the unhealthful pressure sometimes exerted by the fear of losing appropriations, all these are problems which have not yet been wholly solved, but which must and will be solved before the American university will become what it can become. Of course, this absence of inner freedom of action is often due to the primitive condition of many of our universities . . . and will disappear as these institutions more closely approach the university ideal. . . . "Another element of strength in the German university, one that could not develop without the factor just mentioned, and without which the university could never have reached its present status, is the spirit of investigation among its members. The German professor is, above every- thing else, a scientific investigator. This phase of development also has its shadow sides and dangers, as Professor Paulsen shows. But it is true, nevertheless, as he says, that the position which the German people at present holds in the scientific world, it owes in the main to its universities, and these owe what they are and what they accomplish to the principle on which they are based: they are scientific institutions and their teachers are scientific investigators. And that is just exactly the goal at which our own best universities are aiming, and why they are beginning to in- spire respect in foreign lands." Professor Paulsen describes the German ideal of professorial scholarship, and its practical consequences, as follows: "The peculiar characteristic of the German university as a laboratory for scientific research as well as a school of instruction in all the higher branches of general and professional knowledge becomes at once apparent when the internal organization of the institution is considered. Like the English universities, it offers a broad and deep course of instruction in the arts and sciences. This is the special province of the philosophical faculty. Like the French facultes, it offers technical instruction for the learned professions in that it trains the clergy, judges and higher officers of administration, physicians, and high school teachers. But it is, in addition, what the English and French universities are not, namely, the most important seat of scientific work in Germany, and the nursery of scientific investigation. According to the German idea, the university professor is both teacher and a scientific investigator, and such emphasis 302 LEADERS IN SCIENCE AS TEACHERS is laid upon the latter function that one ought rather to say that in Germany the scientific investigators are also the instructors of the aca- demic youth. . . . The important thing is not the student's prepara- tion for a practical calling, but his introduction into scientific knowledge and research. "This intimate union of investigation and instruction gives the German university its peculiar character. There are excellent scholars at Oxford and Cambridge, but no one would speak of them as the chief representa- tives of English scientific achievement. . . . But even the English professors are not, in the German sense, the instructors of the students. It is true, they deliver scientific lectures, but the real instruction is usually left to fellows and tutors. In France, similarly, the scientific investigators, the great scholars, belong to the Academy, to the Institut de France. They are also, perhaps, members of the College de France, or of the Sorbonne, and as such they deliver public lectures, which anyone may attend. But they are not, like the German professors, the actual daily teachers of the students. Nor is it expected, on the other hand, that the members of the different faculties in France, especially in the provinces, should be independent scientific investigators. "In Germany, on the other hand, it is taken for granted that all university professors are investigators and scholars, and that all investi- gators and scholars are teachers in universities. It is true, there have been prominent scholars who were not university professors, men like Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt, and we find many names distin- guished for scholarship among teachers in the German gymnasia. It is likewise true that there are among the professors not only men who never do any important scholarly work, but men whose sole ambition is to be good teachers. But all these cases are exceptions. The rule is that the professor is also a scholar. Whenever the name of a scholar is mentioned in Germany, the question is at once asked, with what university is he con- nected? And in case he does not occupy a chair in such an institution, it may safely be assumed that he himself regards this fact as a slight. Whenever, on the other hand, a professor is spoken of, the question naturally arises, what has he written, what contribution has he made to human knowledge? "These conditions have an exceedingly important bearing upon our intellectual life. "The fact that he is always an academic teacher fixes the German scholar's place in the life of our people. Our thinkers and investigators CONTACT WITH LEADERS OF THOUGHT 303 not only write books for us, but are our personal instructors, men whom we meet face to face. Men like Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Schleier- macher influenced their times primarily as academic teachers; their in- fluence as authors was not so very great. A large portion of their writings was published after their death, from the syllabi of their lectures or the notes taken by their pupils. Kant and Christian Wolff were like- wise university professors. So were the great philologists, Heyne, F. A. Wolf, G. Hermann, and Boeckh. The influence of these men was felt especially through their personal activity as teachers; and their pupils, who became teachers in their turn in the higher institutions of learning, diffused the spirit and method of these men among the youth of the land. Think of the influence which historians like Ranke and Waitz exerted through their seminars. Call to mind our natural scientists and math- ematicians, Gauss, Liebig, Helmholtz, Kirchoff, and Weierstrass. It may safely be said that if the contributions of the university professors were expunged from the history of German learning, the residue would not be very large. It must also be added that several of our illustrious poets Uhland and Eiickert, Burger and Schiller, Gellert and Haller were university professors. The influence of the professor upon our legal and political development has also been highly significant. Witness, for ex- ample, the names of Pufendorf and Thomasius, Savigny and Feuerbach, Niebuhr and Treitschke. And how much is implied in the fact that both Luther and Melanchthon were university professors. "It cannot be doubted that this condition is a fruitful one for all con- cerned. The German youths who come into direct contact with the intel- lectual leaders of the people at the universities thus receive their deepest and most lasting impressions. In German biographies the years spent at the university always play an important r6le, and it not seldom hap- pens that the influence of a professor determines the intellectual trend of a student's life. The relation is a pleasant and fruitful one, on the other hand, for the scholars and investigators themselves. The constant contact with the young enables them to prolong their own youth. The direct, personal communication of thought in the lecture room receives a stimulus and animation from the silent, but nevertheless appreciable reaction of the auditor which is never felt by the solitary author. The hearer's presence serves, moreover, to fix the teacher's attention always upon the essential and universal. The inclination to philosophize, the trend toward generalizations of which the German thinker is accused, 304 ATTRACTION OF STRONGEST SPIRITS is assuredly connected with the fact that in Germany, more than anywhere else, knowledge is directly produced for the purpose of oral instruction. "But there is another side to this question. The pursuit of learning according to university traditions readily displays less pleasing phases of our intellectual life. It gives rise, for example, to a tendency to literary overproduction, to scholasticism, to clannishness, and to a con- tempt for those who are outside of the charmed circle. Such treatment is bitterly resented by the outsiders and often leads them into vehement .abuse of those who belong to the 'guild,' a practice familiar enough to readers of Schopenhauer and Diihring. It is certainly more difficult for a .scholar to succeed outside of university circles in Germany than in England or France. Moreover, if intellectual work outside of the universities could enjoy a larger measure of prosperity, it would serve as a very valuable corrective for our distinctively academic scholarship by supplying it with a more unbiased viewpoint for many things, as well as with a more reliable standard of judgment. But certain difficulties grow out of this relation for university instruction also. This is especially true with regard to professional training, which is often neglected for the purely academic treatment, in which the interests of research are alone kept in view. This difficulty is felt just now by all the faculties, but more es- pecially by those of philosophy and medicine. "However, the German people have not, on the whole, any cause for dis- satisfaction with the conditions described. In Germany, more than else- where, learning is deeply cherished by the nation, and this is due entirely to the happy circumstance that here the great men of science have always been the personal instructors of our youth. And the universities themselves lave every reason to desire a continuation of things as they are. The secret of their power lies in their ability to attract and hold the leading .spirits of the land. And so long as they can do that they will maintain the position which they have won for themselves in the life of our _people. . . . "In the new empire . . . men of talent now find other paths to -conspicuous positions open to them besides the academic career, such as parliament, the world of commerce, the colonies. Energy that can make itself felt finds ample room for activity and prospect of influence and profit. But even amid these changed conditions the universities have maintained their prominence in our national economy. They continue to be important supporters of German unity. The constant interchange of both professors students between the several states of the empire helps materially INFLUENCE ON SECONDARY SCHOOLS 305 to keep alive the feeling of national solidarity in the separate parts of the realm. And it is to be hoped that the German university will always cherish her reputation as the mainstay of German learning. That reputa- tion will assuredly follow her so long as she remains true to her tradi- tions and keeps alive the sincere spirit which rejoices in knowledge for the sake of knowledge, loves the truth and is faithful to duty, thereby rising above the sordid sense of loss or gain. . . . "The character of the university is most clearly revealed by the faculty of philosophy, in which research, above all else, is the con- trolling purpose. In the other faculties the dogmatic transmission of professional knowledge plays a greater r6le, and their exercises, such as the clinics of the medical, the homiletics of the theological, and the practica of the law faculties, are all, in the last analysis, technical in their nature. The philosophical faculty, on the contrary, is purely theoretical. Its teachers are the true exponents of scientific research and its students are the scholars of the future. ... In the lectures and exercises there is scarcely anything to show that the hearers are destined for any other calling than that of the scholar. That, as a matter of fact, most of them intend to take up teaching as a profession, scarcely comes into considera- tion at all. The conviction prevails that the first and essential requisite for this profession is thorough scholarship. . . . Hence the German gymnasial teacher looks upon himself wholly as a scholar, at least at the beginning of his career when university memories are most keenly alive in him. And the ablest and most active teachers preserve this spirit through life, more thoroughly than do the preachers and judges, the State officials and physicians. These are almost entirely occupied with the prac- tical demands of their profession, but the gymnasial teacher remains a scholar also in his profession. "And so it must, by all means, continue, if our gymnasia, our philo- sophical faculties, and even our universities, are to remain what they are. If the gymnasial teacher should cease to be a scholar and become simply a professional teacher, the philosophical faculty would likewise gradually degenerate into a mere professional school. And when this faculty ceases to be a nursery of pure science, the character of the entire university will undergo a change. . . . It is not only by chance that the learned Academies are throughout Germany a kind of appendage to a philosophical faculty. And it also seems worthy of remark that the great universities of the United States, which were patterned after the 306 AN ULTIMATE IDEAL German universities, are really indentical with the philosophical faculties of the latter. "I must not fail to call attention to the fact that of recent years a counter-current to this development, an under-current of hostility to the scientific activity of our universities, has made itself felt in many ways. Something like disappointment is perceptible because scientific re- search does not seem to redeem its promise to supply a complete and certain theory of the universe and a practical world-wisdom grounded in the very necessity of thought. ... A new generation, as distrustful of reason as the former had befen of faith, turned to science with expec- tation that exact research would place us upon a sure footing and supply us with a true theory of the world. But that science cannot do. It is becoming more and more evident that it does not realize such an all- comprehensive world-view that will satisfy both feeling and imagination. It only discovers thousands of fragmentary facts, some of them tolerably certain, especially in the natural sciences, which at least supply a basis for practice; some of them forever doubtful, forever capable of revision, as in the historical sciences. The result is a feeling of disappointment. Science does not satisfy the hunger for knowledge, nor does it supply the demand for personal culture. . . . Such disappointment is widespread. The chief bond uniting the followers of Nietzsche is after all this unbelief in science; periods of doubt are always the easiest prey of charlatans. But a feeling of resignation from time to time takes possession even of scientific circles, as may be seen from the concluding remarks of Harnack's Geschichte der Berliner Akademie. Is it, as a few think, the premonitory symptom of the bankruptcy of science, its abdication in favor of faith? Or is it rather a natural demand for ideas, the long suppressed demand for philosophy that is coming to life again, but is not yet quite sure of its path and goal?" To reach the goal set for this chapter I must attempt to make at least an approximate statement of a general ideal of education as a result, such as ought to dominate and direct all efforts in education as a process. This is no vague or unpractical inquiry. It will depend upon some such ideal whether we squander effort in vain pursuits or exert it wisely and effectively. From the same stone may be built a house of kindness or a fortress of greed : it depends upon the idea of the building. So the same life may AN ULTIMATE IDEAL 307 grow to harmful perversity or to beneficent power: it depends upon the idea of the man. The significant compelling thing is the ideal. The ideal will fashion the vessel for strength or for weak- ness, for profit or harm, for honor or for dishonor. This fact is at once the hope and the despair of all enlightened educational en- deavor. It is the hope, because true ideals are potent to triumph at last over obstacles; it is the despair, because false ideals seem to have an almost equal potency. All have heard complaints and doubts about the value of what the speakers call education. Such strictures upon many processes offered by teaching institutions as "educational" would be justi- fied, but they are totally mistaken when applied to genuine educa- tion. When education is dallied with or sought in mistaken ways it is costly and troublesome, and there will be many who do not believe in it and others who wish they did not, and could get rid of the bother of it. But those who perceive the true nature of education never ask what it costs, never harbor a doubt about it. They condemn false imitations, but support all measures promo- tive of genuine results. They understand that education aims at intelligent sympathy with every human activity, and in its ultimate effects includes those elements which may be designated by the terms character and piety. They know, also, that the high and true aim in education is the practical and efficient one, simply because material utilities are included. Does it make one's skill in any matter less marketable because he sees that enlightened char- acter and inner power and freedom constitute in themselves a still better reward for his studies than the wages they enable him to earn? One of Ruskin's incisive observations will serve to lead on to what I wish to say: "It happens that I have some connection with schools for different classes of youth, and I receive many letters from parents respecting the education of their children. In the mass of those letters, I am always 308 AN ULTIMATE IDEAL struck by the precedence which the idea of a 'position in life' takes above all other thoughts in the parents' more especially in the mothers' minds. They never seek, as far as I can make out, an education good in itself, but an education which shall lead to 'advancement in life.' It never seems to occur to the parents that there may be an education which in itself is advancement in life, and that any other than that may perhaps be advancement in death; and that this essential education might be more easily got or given than they fancy, if they set about it in the right way; while it is for no price and by no favor to be got if they set about it in the wrong." What then is the ideal of true education? Neither knowledge nor yet mental discipline is education. The value of knowledge and mental discipline as such is indeed beyond computation, hut they are not education which is priceless. They are the material ; edu- cation is the architecture. Plain stuff may be edified in beauty or in ugliness, and costliest material may be piled up in unsight- liness or in glory, and whether shall be the fact, lies, within certain limits, not is the nature nor in the amount of the material at all. Even so are knowledge and mental discipline related to education. The profounder and ampler the knowledge, the fuller and sub- tler the education that may issue from it. Yet the anti-type of education, more antagonistic to it than rude ignorance, may equally be yielded. This is what Ruskin means when he says, "this essen- tial education might be more easily got or given than they fancy if they set about it in the right way, while it is for no price and by no favor to be got, if they set about it in the wrong." Hence institutions for teaching may be, according to the spirit that pre- vails in them, educational institutions, or, traitor-like, the deadliest foes of education. It discloses little, therefore, as to the educa- tional status of a place or of a country to enumerate its teaching institutions, or even to show their success in imparting much and accurate knowledge. After we have satisfied ourselves upon these points, we have but passed the marches of inquiry. Before any teaching may be rightly called educational it must be ascertained AN ULTIMATE IDEAL 309 not only that accurate knowledge results, but also that the student is being put on the way of education put on the way of education, for it is a process that lasts as long as life lasts. What, then, is the touchstone that tests the educated man from the merely taught man, he he ever so learned ? For I have known men so erudite, and so skilled in the manipulations of special fields of experimental sciences, that in their narrow ranges they spoke with authority, who were none the less plainly and hopelessly uneducated men. Let us see if the ideal I am striving to define cannot be so presented that it will be recognized as a truth that each one has ever dimly discerned. I know it came to me in this manner more than twenty years ago from one whose voice un- timely hushed in death spoke powerfully for a brief season in a university, in which, after twenty years, his influence is vet cher- ished by a few, and is being handed on amid new antagonistic con- ditions created by subsequent authorities who have been ignorant or thoughtless of the essential things. There still rings in my own memory an inspiring discourse by that extraordinary man, which, unfortunately, was never published or preserved in writing. Some of his very words, however, are here echoed, and the lumi- nous truth of his thesis could not be forgotten by a competent hearer. I believe if any one will reflect upon what characteristic he deems most directly antagonistic to that of being educated, he would say narrowness. Ignorance expresses deficiency, not antago- nism. From this point the truth may be leaped to at once : edu- cation is intelligent sympathy with all branches of human activity. To be intelligently sympathetic with every sort of activity of human head and heart and hand is to be educated. Both the intelligence and the sympathy must coexist, neither blind sympa- thy nor unsympathetic knowledge yield education, but the indissol- uble wedlock of sympathy and knowledge. Looking, for illustra- tion, to the products of the higher learning, if a university habitu- 310 AN ULTIMATE IDEAL ally sends forth entomologists that revile palaeography, or archaeol- ogists despising histology ; if generally among its alumni Euripides looks askance at Newton and Lavoisier thrusts out his tongue at Bopp, however great as a place of teaching, such a university is a deeducational institution. The same criterion may be applied all the way from the most advanced research in a university to the ABC class in a primary school. Does the teaching tend to make the master in one field chilled in appreciation and dimmed and blurred in his vision of others ; does it tend to persuade the bacca- laureate that the subject whence his particular course has radiated is the radiant point of human knowledge; with lad or maiden for whom a summer's day brings down the curtain on the last act of high school life; with the little fellow just struggling through a syllabilized reader, does it tend to dry up the fountains of their sympathy and turn aside the waters of their understanding from all save certain regions? then, I say, such university or college or high school or primary school is the antipodes of an educational institution. The great word of the Roman play- wright though with deeper meaning than that with which he charged it furnishes the criterion: "I am a man and nothing human is strange to me." Moreover, it is of primary importance that every teacher should inculcate by the silent influence of a broad and lofty outlook the fundamental moral principle that fixes the prerequisite condition upon which any high purpose may be attained, namely, that it must be sought honestly. It is impossible to filch this guerdon of a well-aimed and well-spent life. For instance, no man can be- come educated so long as he has in mind and heart only the money that educated men are able to earn. Think a moment how many are doomed to failure by this immutable moral law. A man might as well seek to win the joys and mighty support of friend- ship with any selfish or ulterior purpose in his choice of friends. Such a man is eternally forbidden from even discovering what IDEALS 311 true friendship means. It is thus with all high things, seek them with a pure heart, and many others things will be added to us; seek them with a base purpose, and we are necessarily ex- cluded. VI. ADMINISTRATION OF THE CURRICULUM. In this chapter we come to the crux of our entire subject as it is viewed by a much disturbed and solicitous public opinion. Both lay and professional critics commonly discuss the college curricu- lum by complaining against subjects of study as here or there required or permitted, and offer by way of remedy some different prescription for nominal studies which, in the individual's opinion, would be better suited to "preparation for life." They desire to enforce their opinions by regulations enacted in the same spirit and manner that have led to the existing conditions. I shall con- sider the administration of the curriculum in an entirely different way. If I imagined that I knew what the curriculum of the American college ought to be, I would not wish to see my opinion enforced by law. It is, however, perfectly evident that nobody knows what the college curriculum ought to be, for the very sufficient reason that it ought to be variable. Existing College Curricula It would be profitless to exhibit in these pages the incessantly shifting maze of arbitrary facts presented in the requirements for the A. B. degree in American colleges and universities. The de- tails here or there, yesterday or today, are mere accidents of a com- mon spirit and manner of legislation. It is the causes of an erring tendency that need to be considered. The incomprehensibility of college catalogs has become a by-word. The faculty members by whose votes requirements were enacted do not pretend to know what they are. The students curse or deride them. An instance has been reported in which the students added the following regula- tion: "Rule 119. Any student who can understand these rule? will be granted a degree without further examination." If any reader be curious about details, he is referred to Presi- dent W. T. Foster's recent book on the college curriculum. Re- EXISTING COLLEGE CURRICULA 313 quirements for the A. B. degree are there tabulated, as far as it is practicable to reduce the facts to comparable statements, in three tables : "Table I indicates the subjects required for the A. B. degree in twenty- nine State universities. The unit used is the year-hour, one hour per week for academic year. . . . The amount of required work ranges from three hours in Wyoming to thirty-nine and one-half in Alabama. There is no conspicuous central tendency, and the average deviation of the individual institutions from their average is great. The foot-notes to Table 1 give further evidence of the incomprehensible action of college faculties when they undertake to lay down arbitrary restrictions con- cerning the curriculum for all students. The vast amount of miscella- neous experimenting with the college curriculum that has produced the temporary results set forth in this table gives point to the remark of Professor Cattell that the collective unwisdom of a college faculty is not often exceeded by an individual student. Any one who has observed a col- lege faculty make a decision at one meeting and promptly reverse it at the next, without a particle of new evidence on the issue, is not unreasonably skeptical concerning the stability or the worth of the regulations summa- rized in these tables. "Table II presents the subjects required for the A. B. degree and the number of year-hours allotted to each in certain universities under private control. [Fourteen leading endowed universities, followed by nine leading colleges for women.] "Table III presents the practice of forty small colleges in all parts of the country. It would seem that the almost innumerable differences here re- vealed must shake the confidence of any faculty in the wisdom of its absolute prescriptions, and yet the table excludes those colleges exhibiting the greatest idiosyncrasies in their requirements. So widely divergent are the regulations of a hundred other colleges included in this investigation that it would be impossible to include them in any useful table." In view of such facts President Foster justly comments: "College catalogs from all parts of the country tell us that students are required to pursue those subjects that are universally regarded as essential to a liberal education. It would be pertinent to ask the writers of such statements to examine Tables I, II, III, and then name those sub- jects that are universally regarded as essential to a liberal education. 314 EXISTING COLLEGE CURRICULA It there one? Even the general prescription of English is an agreement in name only; what actually goes on under this name is so diverse as to show that we have not yet discovered an 'essential' course in English. And this is our nearest approach to agreement." Requirements concerning concentration and distribution of studies show similar arbitrariness and confusion. The facts in detail are given by Foster in his tables VIII, IX, and X. They correspond in the institutions considered to the tables I, II, III already described; but several institutions had to be omitted from each, because their requirements were not "sufficiently free from excessive complications and eccentricities, to render tabulation possible." "Even these groups of colleges and universities, selected for the relative eimplicity of their requirements, present great diversity and complexity as their most striking features. In the number of subjects required, in the number of year-hours unrestricted, in the proportion of work called for by the major subject, in the proportion controlled by the major adviser, in the amount prescribed for distribution, in the maximum and minimum allowances for groups, there is no uniformity, not even any significant central tendencies. "Here, as in the attempt to prescribe 'essential' subjects, the actual practices of colleges all over the country reveal no guiding principles. . . . So innocent of abiding cause are these miscellaneous and con- tradictory regulations that the tables will be out of date, no doubt, shortly after they are printed. Indeed, such administrators as actually enforce these rules must be hard put to it for reasons, unless their students are uncommonly docile." Here (as in a flood of more superficial criticism that is being vented from all sides) the lack of uniformity, appears to be con- ceived as a vice in itself. On the contrary, uniformity would be a symptom of decadence, and would be possible only under con- ditions of stagnation, or of arbitrary and absolute external con- trol. The mere fact of difference in requirements for the degree is not the cause of the unsatisfactory results, complained of with justice but commonly mis-diagnosed as to cause. Maladminis- DISSATISFYING CONSEQUENCES 315 tration of college curricula has, in each case, its ultimate causes in various errors of fundamental organization. Its results, which, in their turn cause the most dissatisfying consequences, are (1) the low quality of some required courses of instruction, as compared with others in the same institution, (2) the imposition by some institutions of their own particular requirements upon students having credit for one or more years' work in another equal or superior college, and (3) the moral effect of enforcing any require- ments which are no better than some other arrangement of studies desired by an individual student. The first mentioned result creates a condition by which students are driven to sit under a weakling from whom they are aware that nothing is to be gained. The natural and wholesome com- petition, whereby each instructor should stand mainly upon his merits, is thus prevented. The unfit are upheld as much as the fit. The administration is of things "on paper." Realities are ignored. The second result creates conditions whereby a year's good work in an equal or superior college is wantonly discounted, without even the pretense of an intrinsic reason. "It is our regulation. We cannot make an exception," explains the admitting official. The matriculant must acquiesce. He assumes the extra burdens imposed upon him, and the Administration sits smugly uncon- scious of the consequences. But the lack of justice and intelli- gence is obvious. The respect and confidence of the young man are more or less forfeited. The irrational perplexities and diffi- culties presented in this country to every college student who for any reason is about to transfer from one college to another, engen- der an irritation and contempt which is becoming widespread. The public and many college deans and presidents seem to be blindly seeking a remedy in "uniformity" or "standardization." No uniform curriculum is either possible or desirable. The third result creates an atmosphere of "red tape." It meets the students at every turn. They are incessantly puzzling over 316 THE REMEDY endless permutations and combinations offered by complicated reg- ulations. Year by year the requirements change. A student de- siring the counsel of an elder comrade, hears: "Literature lOb is all right, I am getting more out of it than from any other course. But you can't take it and count." "How's that?" "You have had three courses in English and three in Literature already, and six is the limit.* Besides, in the way you have followed your group, you must take one course in Public Speaking." "Have you had that?" "No, but I entered under the 1909 catalog and we don't have to take this new dope." "But Professor A advised me to take that course in Literature." "They won't let it count; and you will be compelled to take Public Speaking. See the Dean, if you don't believe me." College students are, of course, not competent judges of technical questions, nor are they guilty of or disposed to any such presumption. But ingenuous young men are good judges of the spirit and mass effect of any disci- pline to which they are subjected. The men in the ranks do not presume to judge strategy or grand tactics, yet they shrewdly know when orders are vacillating or aimless; and when his officer is "rattled" the predicament is very plain to Tommy Atkins. While college presidents and deans are publishing their grave anxieties about student-problems, college students all over the land with less gravity but with equal seriousness and more sin- cerity are deploring the obtuseness and vagaries of their gov- ernors. If the humor of the situation were generally discerned, our academic fogs would be blown away as a clear breeze disperses the watery vapor of the atmosphere. In short, the remedy is not some new arrangement of complex arbitrary requirements. Improvement should be sought in sim- plification and in appreciation of quality in the teaching and in Harvard says: "Every student shall take at least six courses in some one department." Some other colleges refuse to give credit for more than six courses in one department, e. g., University of Texas says: "Not more than six courses may be counted in one subject, not more than six in English and General Literature together." A REACTIONARY DEPARTURE 317 the learning, instead of by exacting nominal particulars. The latter have generally been adopted by accidental or subservient majorities at perfunctory faculty meetings. A university could protect itself and the genuineness of its degrees more effectively by judging the work of an advanced student, after he has been admitted, on the face value of the number of years spent at another reputable college, than by superciliously discounting devi- ations from its own vacillating requirements. The courses of each department could protect themselves by logical prerequisites. The only essential general requirement is a suitable number of advanced courses in the total number of courses required for the degree. Every department should demand ability to write correct English.* Harvard's new departure, which went into effect with the class of 1914, after forty years of free election, is the most deliberate and carefully constructed plan for compulsory concentration and compulsory scattering that has been devised. For the 17 courses (or 17 under certain circumstances) required for the Harvard A. B. degree, the new rules demand: "I. Every student shall take at least six of his courses (a course is 3 year-hours) in some one department, or in one of the recognized fields for distinction. In the latter case four must be in one department. *The first Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia, in accordance with Jefferson's wish, provided that two degrees should be conferred by the University. The louver degree, characteristic of the institution for many years, was conferred upon a student who had completed all the work offered in any one School; to such a candidate the untitled degree of "Graduate" of the School in question should be given. (Each distinct branch of knowledge was, as far as practicable, assigned to an individual "School" with its own instructors.) The other, the higher degree, was to be the Doctor's degree and was to be given to the graduate in two or more Schools who had, in addition, exhibited well developed powers of research. The first faculty, however, soon substituted (in 1831) the Master's degree, common in England, and for more than half a century the degree "Master of Arts of the University of Virginia" was the leading titled degree con- ferred by the University of Virginia. For the degree of graduate of any School the faculty required: "In all cases the candidate shall give the Faculty satisfactory proof of his ability to write the English language correctly." 318 A BE ACTION ART DEPARTURE Only two of the six may be courses open to Freshmen or distinctly elemen- tary in character. [Twelve pages of fine print in the Catalogue state some of the provi- sions alluded to in the words "recognized fields for distinction."] "II. For purposes of distribution all the courses open to undergraduates shal be divided among the following four general groups. Every student shall distribute at least six of his courses among the three general groups in which his chief work does not lie, and he shall take in each group not less than one course, and not less than three in any two groups. He shall not count for purposes of distribution more than two courses which are also listed in the group in which his main work lies. [The four groups regulating the scattering of 6 courses, leaving 5 courses unconditionally elective.] "III. Prescribed work shall not count either for concentration or dis- tribution." [Upon various conditions, one, one and a half, two, two and a half courses may be prescribed.] Dean Briggs has explained that Harvard's "new scheme of col- lege instruction is more radical in principle than in its probable effect on the elective studies of the general student body, and is not meant to be violently revolutionary." He values the new scheme (i. e., new at Harvard) "as a guide and regulator to the student entangled in the elective pamphlet." I offer no objection to the new Harvard program "as a guide." As a hortative proposal, let us grant it substantial merit. But it is not a guide. It is a compulsory law. Its vice lies in its imperative mood. The voice of the Faculty is not speaking in calm counsel "Every student is advised to take"; the utterance is peremptory "Every student shall take at least six courses in one department." The wise spirit and art of persuasion and guidance have been crowded aside in every sphere of our social life by an overweening disposition to enforce opinions by law. If one does not regard the spirit of this matter of degree require- ments, its importance is diminished almost to a vanishing point. It would surprise those who are agitating themselves and their fellow citizens on the subject, if they paused to find out how STATISTICAL COMPAKISONS 319 little their adored averages are changed by the reek of law-making. President Foster exposes the practical ineffectiveness of the devices for compulsory concentration and compulsory scattering by com- parisons with the actual choices of students under free election in the same and other institutions. He says: "The best available evidence on this question is the programs of study actually chosen under the Elective System. ... Of one thousand men from the Classes of 1908 and 1909 in Harvard College, only about 20 per cent met all the requirements of the new rules. Had those re- strictions been in force, about half of these students would have been compelled to change one or two courses. Only a few would have needed as many as five changes in their programs. . . . "Fifty complete programs of study taken at random, alphabetically, from the Class of 1909 at Harvard, and an equal number from the Class of 1909 at Yale, reveal the following facts. At Harvard 22 per cent, at Yale 68 per cent, did not take one-third of their work in one subject. Only one student at Harvard and only two at Yale failed to take one- fourth of their work in one subject. Seventeen men at Harvard and only one at Yale took no courses in science; ten at Harvard took no courses in philosophy or mathematics; two at Harvard elected no course in the history group. There were no other instances in either college of the omission by any student of one of the four groups of studies. This is evidence that the Harvard plan for restricting the Elective System i likely to influence but few choices at Harvard." The only serious objection to the Harvard program if it were a question of advice, rests upon the concentration requirement, which may be deemed excessive for the majority of students. The effect of the requirements for distribution is almost nil. The Harvard concentration requirement forces, in any case, more than one-third (6-17) of the four years' work to be taken in one subject with the allowance concerning "fields for distinction"; and in case a student concentrates on a subject prescribed for the freshman year, seven-seventeenths of all studies must be in one subject, as the prescribed course will not be counted. Few students in other col- leges specialize to the full extent required by the Harvard rules. A Committee on Collegiate Instruction of the Education Section 320 STATISTICAL COMPARISONS of the American Association for the Advancement of Science col- lected, in 1910, five hundred complete records of the courses taken for the baccalaureate degree by students in leading colleges. The samples from each institution were selected at random. The tables prepared by the chairman of the committee, Prof. E. L. Thorn- dike, give the individual records. They cannot be summarized. They show that "few students specialized to the extent of six three-hour courses in one subject. Of the 200 programs from Princeton, Williams, Columbia, Wabash, Beloit, Wesleyan, and Wellesley, 171 indicate no such degree of concentration." The question whether or not the students of a typical small col- lege, operating under a free elective system, show any need for such control as would be enforced by the Harvard rules, is answered by President Foster for those who, from lack of experience, need the statistical evidence. Men with adequate experience coupled with good judgment could have foretold substantially the result of the investigation: "There can be no better way to consider the need of a small college for such rules as Harvard has adopted than to examine the actual pro- grams developed under free election. A study of the entire courses of all the graduates of Bowdoin College of the Class of 1909 is therefore pro- fitable. This class of fifty-four members took its entire work under an Elective System which, for our present purposes, may be regarded as virtually unrestricted. It is true that each student was obliged to com- plete before graduation either one major and two minor subjects or two major subjects. A major subject was one pursued for three consecutive years. A minor subject was one pursued for two years. A detailed study of all the electives of five classes, however, supplemented by personal in- quiry, revealed the fact that apparently not more than one or two students in any class were limited in their choice by these rules. Above 90 per cent of all the students concentrated their work in excess of the prescribed amount. Finally, since every student took more hours in the language and literature group than the rules specified, and since he was at liberty entirely to ignore the other three groups, we can here discover to what extent the Harvard regulations, had they been operative, would have STATISTICAL COMPARISONS 321 modified the fifty-four individual programs, which were, in fact, under no such restrictions. "The concentration requirement, if interpreted literally, would have changed every program in the class. No student took one-third of his courses in one subject. Eleven took 14-19 per cent in their major sub- ject; twenty took 20-24 per cent; twenty -one took 25-30 per cent; two took 33 per cent. On the other hand, if we inquire how many elected one- third of their work from advanced courses in language and literature, we find that at Bowdoin all but four of the class chose this degree of con- centration. The student who devoted the smallest proportion of his time to his major group gave 36 per cent to natural sciences and 29 per cent to language and literature. Three of the four exceptions just noted were students who received honors from the faculty and whose electives would have been approved by any committee instructed "to make exceptions to the rules freely in the case of earnest men'*. . . . "With reference to the Harvard rules for distribution among the three groups other than the student's major group, the electives of these fifty- four Bowdoin men exhibit the following results: four students fell one- half course short of the requirement in natural science; four students fell one course short, and one student fell one-half course short of the requirement in history, political and social sciences; three students fell one-half course short of the requirement in philosophy and mathematics; no student failed to meet the requirement in language and literature. "To satisfy the complicated Harvard rules regarding the distribution of the six courses among the three groups, five students would have been obliged to substitute for a choice in literature a course in one of the other groups. Such are the few scattering cases that would have been slightly affected by the new Harvard rules, had these rules been operative, and had the committee not included these few cases within the excuse limits of their liberal instructions. Each of these students could have *The reference is to instructions that have been given by the Harvard Faculty to a committee: "The Committee on the Choice of Electives was instructed in admin- istering these general rules for the choice of electives by candidates for a degree in Harvard College to make exceptions to the rules freely in the case of earnest men who desire to change at a later time the plans made in their Freshman year, and to make liberal allowances for earnest stu- dents who show that their courses are well distributed, even though they may not conform exactly to the rules laid down for distribution. In making exceptions to the rules, a man's previous training and outside read- ing are to be taken into account." Dean's Report. 322 ELECTIVE SYSTEM presented adequate reasons for his slight departure from the necessarily arbitrary scheme which its devisers agree should be administered with free allowance for individual needs. Even without such allowances, less than two per cent of the units in the total schedules of this class would have been changed by the Harvard distribution rules. If, therefore, the total experience of this class is any criterion by which to judge the future, and no better one is possible, the adoption by Bowdoin of the Harvard scattering requirements would have only a negligible effect. Nearly, if not all, that the new plan for compulsory distribution of studies at Harvard aims to achieve is, in fact, already achieved under the much more restricted curriculum ["curriculum" is here used in the sense of all courses offered] and the virtually unrestricted Elective System of a typical small college." fclL- It The Elective System The curriculum requirements in the majority of American col- leges, respecting either concentration or scattering, have little or no effect for their avowed purpose. It is a statistical fact that they are more than fulfilled under free election. This fact exposes the caliber of the men who dominate the faculties that moil and stew over the concoction of such regulations. It may be said in exten- uation that there has, perhaps, been no other ready way for the better men to hold in check those who insist on making laws for everything. A tub has been thrown to the whale. Behemoth swallows, and for a while imagines himself satisfied. But his appetite for law-making soon reawakens, and the stew begins over again for a new set of rules. The general public has been misled on a question of fact by a clamor raised against the elective system by "educators" who lifted up their voices to bewail the passing of prescribed curricula. As an echo of that uproar, sporadic complaints continue to be made that students under the elective system scatter studies over so many subjects that there ought to be a return to a thoroughly prescribed curriculum. Such persons would be astonished to learn that the truth is the opposite of their assumption. Practically no student under free election scatters his studies as much as all WHY PRESCRIBED CURRICULA BROKE DOWN 323 students were compelled to do in the patchwork of the latter days of prescribed curricula after the various physical sciences re- quired recognition. The prescribed curriculum broke down of its own weight for the very reason that it forced every student to an excessively scattered schedule of meager courses. Its advocates who opposed the free election of studies never discerned what the real trouble was. Those who now regret the old prescription, and the few who still persist in practicing it, are in the same predica- ment. President Eliot testifies out of the abundance of his expe- rience and discriminating observation, that the worst choices made by negligent students under free election are merely counterparts of the old prescribed courses. The reader is referred to his inspir- ing chapter on The Elective System. I can quote only a few of his wise statements concerning several points that seem to be most frequently talked about without knowledge: "The elective system lias been described by its opponents as a wide- open, miscellaneous bazaar. . . . Nothing could be farther from the facts than this description. An elective system presupposes a well-ordered series of consecutive courses in each large subject of instruction. . . . The series of subjects is natural and plain, except for the unexplained gaps which often occur in the series, gaps due to the inadequacy of the in- stitution's resources. ... In each subject the schedule of courses should be in the highest degree orderly and consecutive*, rising from the elementary, comprehensive course, through courses of greater and greater difficulty, becoming more and more intensive, until the summit is reached in the conferences or seminars which take advanced students to the limits of knowledge in that subject. It is obvious that a university which undertakes thus to deal with all [or many] subjects of knowledge must offer a very large total of different courses, and that in a certain sense, therefore, the choice of the individual student has a large range; but it is equally obvious that in the list or schedule of courses in a given di- *"Catalogs are sometimes purposely misleading. That is a different matter. In matters, however, which it is the intention to make clear, there is often difficulty for college officials to interpret the catalog of another institution. What would the average university catalog then be for a boy just completing the high school?" Pres. Kane, University of Washington. 324 ELECTIVE SYSTEM vision or department of knowledge the choice of the individual student has strenuous limitations. Thus, the beginner must take the elementary course first, and he must then advance through the schedule of the de- partment by well-marked steps. . . . The department announcements contain numerous prescriptions concerning the sequence of courses. He cannot take two courses which occur in the time-tables at the same hour; and the time-tables may be systematically used to prevent unwise combi- nations of courses. . . . "The first effect of the elective system on the individual student who has intellectual ambition is always to get more work from him. It also makes him sooner a productive person, that is, a contributor to the sum of knowledge. This is the primary object of the elective system, to make the serious student work hard, accomplish something worth while, and so win power and happiness. . . . "But how is it with the college student who is not serious? . . . His total selection of courses will probably resemble the old prescribed course in the American college, that is, it will remain in the elements of all sub- jects, . . . and it will contain a greater variety of subjects than any ambitious student will include in his programme. It will, however, be a course which will procure from the chooser more work than such a person would ever have done under a prescribed system; because in some degree it is selected on the ground of the mental interests of the individual, or on the ground of the attractive and influential personality of some teacher or teachers. "It would be difficult to overestimate the value of an elective system for the lowest quarter of a college class. It not only gets much more work out of that quarter, but also offers them their only chance of ex- periencing an intellectual awakening while in college. By following, though almost unconsciously, their natural bent, such young men have the best chance of developing some power of application, and some desire for intel- lectual achievement. The object of the elective system for a student dis- posed to follow the line of least resistance is to give him a chance to get roused from his childish state of mind and will, and to feel stirring within him the motives of a considerate and fore-looking adult. "There is another class of students to whom an elective method is a great blessing, namely, the late-developing young men, and the young men whose minds are not quickened by any of the subjects usually taught in secondary schools. The old prescribed college curriculum, which was in the main a continuation of school subjects, rarely offered these men any new advantages or opportunities; but the wide-ranging elective sys- GROUP SYSTEMS 325 tern may easily give them extrance to fields in which they have some chance to excel. Here, again, an elective system brings opportunity, and with it inspiration and hope. . . . "In any college or university which undertakes to present a series of graded courses in all the common subjects of knowledge, election ol studies in some measure by the individual student, or selection for him, is absolutely inevitable; for no single student can take in three or four years more than a small fraction of the instruction in the liberal arts offered at such an institution. But if election by the individual with the natural aids works well in practice, it is of course to be preferred to any method of selection for the individual by an authority outside himself, since freemen are best trained by practice in freedom with responsibility. Now, the experience of forty years in a great variety of American institutions has proved that election by the individual works well, wherever the ad- ministrative methods which should accompany such an elective system have been well devised and well executed. Hence, the system is not only inevitable, but in the highest degree expedient and profitable." The necessity of selecting a few out of the many courses forces itself upon all who face the question in any practical way. But so obsessed by a lust for law-making are those who maneuver or dictate faculty action in many universities, that they seem unable to rest upon the proper administrative safeguards of a genuine elective curriculum. Feeling that they must make sweeping laws of some sort, they have frequently resorted to what is termed the "group system/' By this system a show of freedom is made which may deceive some unanalytical minds. But group systems, in some cases, are more injurious than any other form of prescrip- tion that would be tolerated. It is tolerated only because its effects are masked for inexpert observers. It forces the boy fresh from the high school to choose a certain set of studies out of a number of similarly prescribed sets, and confines his election of courses throughout the four years to the group picked at the start. To the thoughtless this seems a free election, but it really robs the student of his best opportunity to profit by experience in college life and work. It substantially fixes the sphere of his studies and his teachers at the outset, when he knows least about himself 326 GROUP SYSTEMS and all the subjects and teachers supposed to be made available by the college. If he should come, through experience and counsel, to desire to meet a teacher not included in the group of his first forced "election," or to take up or continue some subject not in the specifications of his group, it is always difficult and often impossible to satisfy his desire without extending his work beyond four years. If he can change at all, he must compromise on another group. Speaking of the group system, President Eliot says : "To impose upon a boy for several years an ill-fitting group of studies from which he can hardly extricate himself, is a much more serious matter than to allow him to choose amiss one or two studies which he can easily replace." I do not see how this judg- ment can be candidly disputed, and, as I have suggested, the possibility of "an ill-fitting group of studies" is not the worst feature of the group system. Its most serious menace is the prob- ability of an ill-fitting group of teachers. The fresh matriculate may know enough about subjects of study to pick a group approxi- mately satisfactory on the score of its subjects; but, generally, he knows nothing at all about the men who are to teach those and other subjects. Yet his teachers are more important for weal or woe to the ordinary student, than any arrangement of subjects. The very idea of personal and professional responsibility and com- petition appears to be abhorred by those who devise. the regulations enacted by or in the name of American professors. If mag- nanimity is not to become extinct in the institutions which ought to be its chief nurseries, prevalent rules and regulations rendering it impossible or difficult or dangerous for a student to choose his instructors (especially in the way of a change), must be abolished. In a genuine elective system no two four-years selections out of thousands of individual choices are identical. Minds left at freedom do not fall into a half-dozen or a dozen artificial groups. A thousand other combinations would (admittedly) be quite as suitable as the groups that are arbitrarily devised by a committee appointed by dean or president, and adopted at a poorly attended GROUP SYSTEMS 327 faculty meeting. If men who understand how easily all desirable concentration and distribution would be secured by a few con- servative general regulations and the proper departmental require- ments, oppose the committee report, their resistance is unavailing under the prevalent organization. The characteristic experience lias been described, and the true causes and effective remedies riave been explained in previous chapters. The group system may be justified in secondary schools for reasons that do not apply to the university. In the first place high school pupils really need a prescribed curriculum, chiefly because many parents would otherwise make choices far more prejudiced and ill-advised than any elections that could be made, after a prescribed high school course of study, by college students under a properly administered elective system. In the second place, the number of teachers and subjects in high schools is limited by economic and pedagogical conditions, and several groups may represent expedient alternatives of fully prescribed curricula. Five or six prescribed groups may thus be made out of a dozen different studies by omitting some and varying the number of years required in other subjects in the respective groups. The effect of a wide variety is produced; parents prejudiced against this or that subject as not being "practical" are pacified; and it is possible at the same time to make each group a good prescribed course. None of these conditions or considerations are rightly applicable in the university. It is impossible to have a college or university in any legitimate sense, if the intercourse between teachers and taught is kept upon the plane of the secondary school. Besides the group system, another wretched device is frequently adopted to compromise the elective system. The curriculum is prescribed for the first two years, and left elective for the last two. Some presidents and deans plume themselves upon this practice, in popular expositions of their ways and works. Those who understand know that curricula thus administered allow ad- 328 ADVANCED COURSES vanced study only in the subjects included in the prescription for the freshmen and sophomore years. It is plain that no student, under this plan, can pursue any other subject more than two years. This same result follows from the spontaneous practice of some departments in systems alleged to be freely elective. I refer to departments that refuse to admit freshmen or often even sophomore students to their first (i. e., most elementary) courses. The heads of such departments sometimes exhibit a fatuous pride in the inaccessibility of their departments to all but "advanced" stu- dents. It should be evident that they make truly advanced work in their departments impossible for undergraduate students. Dur- ing the first twenty years of the elective system at Harvard (until 1890) the departments of economics and philosophy refused to admit freshmen. "Accordingly," says President Eliot, "the stu- dents who were attracted towards those subjects found themselves compelled to begin them in the Sophomore or even in the Junior year. Yet the advanced courses could not be attacked until the long elementary courses had been mastered. Experience of the difficulty of producing advanced students of these subjects under such conditions within the period of college residence, finally led the faculty to abandon its theory. ... By trial they made the encouraging discovery that some Freshmen are more mature than some Seniors." The college teacher who is not aware of the truth of the words I have underscored, has been blind to the most obvious facts in his experience. I do not believe that any department organized as I have recommended* would ever show this blindness. In the particular subjects named, academic prep- aration has the minimum, and native quality of mind the maxi- mum bearing upon true eligibility. Some conspicuous political careers among us should have demonstrated that economics may be studied for a great many years without learning its A B C's; and philosophy is not likely to be chosen except by a student whose 'See pp. 247 to 252. Cf., also, p. 270. A SUGGESTIVE INSTANCE 329 interest in the subject is ample justification for an attempt to study it. Any genuine scholar in philosophy would rather teach pure philosophy to an absolutely illiterate man endowed with native ability to think, than to a master of arts weak or blunted in his intuitive and logical powers. I remark, in passing, that natural aptitude for the study of philosophy is stifled by the quality and mode of teaching that prevails at every stage of our systematic school-teaching. Perhaps fifty per centum of all children are little philosophers. The latent aptitude appears even after ten years of antagonistic schooling if free access is opened to a gifted teacher of philosophy. For example, the young instructor whose lectures at Cornell used to be attended, as I have told, by so many hearers receiving no "credits" for attendance, to-day, as professor of philosophy in a great state university, has enrolled in three 'stiff' courses (logic, ethics, history of philosophy), taught by him- self, one-fourth of all the undergraduate students in the college of arts and sciences. In two graduate courses, also conducted by him,* more than one-fourth of all graduate students are enrolled. If these facts are paralleled in any other university in America, I do not know of the instance; yet I believe the experience cited would be repeated anywhere under like conditions. I mean that the causes are not to be sought in any exceptional preparation of the young men who are attending the university in question, but in the facts that a deep and vital subject is worthily taught; that credit for the course is not given to an absurdly large portion of the class, and is therefore truly creditable; and that no abusive administration of "discipline" ejects a student for failing in two or three courses to win credits, although all lectures have been at- tended and every exercise honestly attempted.** "There is a tendency (which should be corrected) in that noble but impecunious university to drive free horses to death. Both faculty and students seem to me to work harder (though none more happily) than anywhere else. **Cf. p. 329 et sq. 330 ELECTIVE SYSTEM In respect to the elective system in general, President Eliot's testimony will .apply wherever the individual courses have been properly guarded: "What occurs may now be plainly seen by any competent person who will patiently examine the records of the students' choices at Harvard College during the last thirty-five years. Careful inspection of the records will satisfy any candid mind that the elective system does not produce the evil imagined; but, on the contrary, results in almost all cases in consistent plans of individual study throughout the college course. Incon- secutive or aimless selections are hard to find. More than twenty years ago, three experts, all familiar with the relations and sequences of the courses of instruction given during the period of 1881 to 1885, carefully examined the entire series of three hundred and fifty choices made by the students of that time, being the entire classes of 1884 and 1885 in Harvard College. They endeavored, independently of each other, to pick out those selections which, in their judgment, lacked coherency or consecutiveness. These three agreed upon only six cases of incoherence three in the Class of '84, and three in the Class of '85. . . . When three experts cannot agree that a given selection of studies lacks coherency, it may well be that knowledge of the circumstances and conditions under which the individual selection was made would fully explain or indeed justify it. The general result of this particular examination was that incoherent choices were very few, and that the intelligence in selection was nearly as great in the lower half of a class as in the upper. This verdict would stand unchanged today, except that the recent gross exaggeration of athletic sports has added slightly to the number of incoherent or wrong-motived elections of studies." I am aware that there is a quota of men (sometimes men and women) in the faculty of every state university and every sectarian college, who, even though they were forced to admit the full truth of the facts stated by President Eliot, would still strive to impose prohibitions and prescriptions upon all, lest some football player might pick out "wrong-motived elections of studies." The alternative of correcting directly "the recent gross exaggeration of athletic sports," on the intrinsic merits of that question, would not appeal to them. If any proper argument can bring such char- INHERENT SAFEGUARDS FOR FREE ELECTION 331 acters to moral sanity, I have never witnessed or heard of the feat. If they cannot be outvoted in faculty meetings there is no hope for present remedy. The great trouble is that such characters (in the body politic as well as in university faculties) act and vote in packs, whereas the better sorts of men are prone to hold too stubbornly to minor differences in their individual ideas. It is the characteristic fault of the courageous man who is thoughtless, that he is too ready to stand alone. As an epigrammatic friend of mine once expressed it : "True men ought to stand together better than they do, because the mean fellows seem to have signs and passwords." Of course, no reader will imagine that the fairly coherent and judicious choices made by thousands of youths depend upon any mysterious wellsprings of wisdom. The facts are a simple con- sequence of the inherent guidance given by the logical needs of the courses in every department and by the requirement of a proper number of advanced courses for a, degree. A valid sequence within each department is plain. But the student soon discovers that advanced courses cannot be pursued without previous study in other departments. He cannot go forward in chemistry without some physics; he cannot go far in either without some German and French. Nothing at all can be done in physics without mathe- matics ; nothing in agriculture without botany. Biology necessitates some chemistry, and so on. If the courses in every department approximate what they ought to be, coherence and sufficient distri- bution takes care of itself for every student who would graduate. If a genuine elective system does not work well in such regards, then, either intrinsically weak and worthless courses are being offered, or credits are given for attendance instead of for attain- ment. The simple requirement that there must be a minimum number of advanced courses offered for the degree, secures as much concentration as need be compulsory. When degrees are given with distinction, the requirments for distinction in each field afford additional guides: thus, no college worthy the name 332 EFFECT OF ELECTIVE SYSTEM ON SCHOLARSHIP would confer a degree with Honors in Literature for an election including less than a good knowledge of at least two languages and two literatures, of which one should be ancient and one modern, as at Harvard. Let the candidate offering less take his degree without distinction in literature. Much ink and talk has been spilled over the question of confer- ing the same degree for various undergraduate courses of study. I do not deem the question of sufficient moment to require more than passing mention in a study of things deemed to be vitally im- portant. Education could be conducted very well (and is so con- ducted in many countries) without any degree corresponding to our B. A.'s, B. S.'s, B. Lit.'s, B. Ph.'s, etc. I see only a respectable but misapplied sentiment in objections to allowing A. B. to stand for the completion of any reputable undergraduate college curric- ulum. No variations are demanded for the title of the university degree, Ph. D., where much more definite distinctions could be shown, were there any need. The vital point is that neither under- graduate nor graduate degree be conferred for less than truly creditable work on the part of the student in every course for which he receives credit, and that a strong and ample course be offered in every case (as far as possible) on the part of the teacher. An aggregate of eighteen such credits for eighteen such courses, under the system of free election properly required by modern conditions, would constitute more meritorious ground for the A. B. degree than any schedule of courses in particular subjects that was ever prescribed. The reader must be referred to President Eliot's book for an appreciation of the effect of the elective system upon the college teacher and professional scholarship in America. As he says, "The attention of faculties and the public has been too often con- centrated on the effects of the elective system on young students; whereas its effects on teachers, and on the development of real scholarship throughout the country ought to have received more PROPER PROTECTION OF COURSES 333 attention, for it is there that its effects have been the most benef- icent." It is hardly necessary to explain that the proper sphere for the elective system is limited to the college of arts and sciences the "philosophical faculty," as it is called in Europe. In the profes- sional schools, curricula are necessarily prescribed. Freedom for specialization is even there allowable in undergraduate studies to a small extent ; but the very nature of the work requires that curric- ula leading to first degrees in law, medicine, engineering, etc., be prescribed in the main. Specialization within these professions must follow a common professional foundation. Mistaken Devices The main principle for general administration in the matter of the teaching work performed by the philosophical faculty of a university, is reliance on the maintenance of a proper self-pro- tection by each course of instruction. The proper self-protection for any course consists in (1) only logical prerequisites for ad- mission, and (2) the requirement of genuine comprehension of the subject-matter of the course as the condition for crediting it in a student's record. It appears plainly to me that "what is more than these cometh of evil." Such self-defense is, also, the only sub- stantial protection of students against waste of time and deteriora- tion of character, and the only secure basis for intrinsically good and vigorous courses. A great variety of infractions of the principles I have just stated might be cited. The illogical requirement "open only to juniors and seniors," has been discussed.* The most widespread and deepest evils result from the arbitrary administrative interference in many colleges and universities, whereby a student is expelled** if he fails to receive credit in more than half of his courses. Anv such 'Page 328. r *The word "expelled" is not used, but he is cast out. 334 MISTAKEN DEVICES regulation inevitably debases the spirit and plane of teaching in the majority of the courses. If a student attends all lectures and hon- estly attempts all assigned exercises, failure to master the course is not a proper subject for discipline. To treat it as such almost jus- tifies the usual consequent practice on the part of instructors, by which credit for a course conies to mean the minimum for toleration in residence. The effects are shameful and injurious at all stages, but they are pitiable for freshmen. It is upon the freshman that many abuses of the law-making power bear most heavily. He usually takes five courses. If he fails to make two or three, he may be expelled. In nine cases out of ten, he evidently deserves no such treatment. It is creditable to human nature that foolish laws are commonly evaded in favor of concrete justice. The fresh- man on 'the ragged edge' tells his instructor that he is failing in another course; the instructor must decide the concrete issue expel the youth, or credit him with the course. Under a genuine standard for credits, sensible men would expect nearly the extent of failure by first-year students that the laws of some universities make a ground for ejection. If the student, through his first year's experience learns how to work effectively on his own respon- sibility he has done well. Many a freshman is ill-prepared, although graduated from the most over-regulated of affiliated schools. He may fail for the first term before he has at all 'found himself/ Such a failure in all courses should put him on probation, but need be no indication that he should be cast out. He may pass in several courses and the marks for several others may be so low that he cannot hope to lift them to the passing average by less than perfection during the next term. If he seeks the Dean's coun- sel, what do we do? They come to us for bread and we give them stones; they ask for an egg and we give them a scorpion. In the numerous universities where such laws govern, crowds of students, especially first-year men during and at the end of the first term, are dropped from courses solely because of marks "DROPPING" 335 received. If the number of courses retained be insufficient or on the danger line under the rule, the Dean helps them to shuffle into such fractional courses as may be offered and open to them under "group" and other regulations. At the same time, all such institu- tions commonly prohibit the student (even a senior) from dropping a course at his own option for valid reasons, such as the discovery that it is net at all what he wanted, or that it is weak and empty, or that personal antagonism has developed between student and teacher. Of course, in some cases it may be expedient for a student to drop, for the remainder of the year, a course in which he is not passing. But this will be the case for a freshman student (if the course was intrinsically desirable for him), only when the number of his class hours is too large for his ability, and in such a case there should be no shuffle to a substitute course. Where the first course in a department is taught in three or more sections, one of the sections might well begin over again at the end of the first term for the benefit of students who fail to 'catch on' and *hit the pace* promptly. That predicament will probably obtain for at least one-third of the class, if the course is approximately what it ought to be. Differences in native ability, in preparation, in versatility for adaptation to new environments, in accidental circumstances of getting settled or of first associations, and in various other conditions, make the start of freshmen very uneven. I conceive no reason why college faculties legislate with such apparent ignorance or disregard of palpable facts, except that the form of organization and administrative practices I have criticized conspire to stifle the counsels of the best men in the faculties, and cause natural leaders to be unheeded. In nine cases out of ten, the rational and morally sound advice to the young student who is failing to win passing marks would be : "Stick to it. To fail is no shame; only to fail to do your best is disgraceful. Failure in a first attempt, should teach you how to 336 NEGLECT OF WEIGHTIER MATTERS succeed ; and that is a great lesson. On the other hand, if the under- taking was a proper one, to give it up at a first failure leads to the most weakening habit you could fall into. If you fail in a course this year, do not accept permanent defeat. Take it over again, until you have mastered it. There is no other way to become a strong man." This is the morality and life-disipline approved by the conscience and experience of mankind. Yet the very opposite is taught by precept and by practice in many state universities. Those who should be guardians of a bright flame of inner truth and fortitude, are turning the eyes and hearts of youth to external measures of success: If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness? "You must win the umpire's score," they say, "twist and turn, but procure the mark." Is there any reason to wonder why it is hard for such colleges to prevent scandalous breaches of good faith on athletic fields; or that young men who might have been turned to honor and to the true joy of honorable sport, exult if they get the winning score no matter how ? The persons who have brought many of our institutions of higher education to such a pass, are very loud and pugnacious about what they call morality. In every sphere they seek to impose their opinions by force. They usually dominate the college Y. M. C. A/s, heeding little or naught the principles of Him whose name they invoke. They talk as if a glass of beer led to perdition, and denounce penalties as fierce as they dare -to inflict for every infringement of their negative ideas of virtue. The weightier positive matters of justice, mercy, and truth, temperance, and courage, they ignore; they "strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel." If either scholarship or manly character is to survive in institutions where such persons have had free swing, the time has come when there must be poured out upon them vials of such scorn as was poured upon those other "blind guides," who in their day and generation did their works to be seen of men, and made broad their phylacteries, and loved the chief seats in the synagogues, MISTAKEN DEVICES 337 and the salutations in the market places, and to be called of men, Doctor. As I have said, the theory which lowers the credit for a course of instruction to the minimum of tolerance for residence (and thereby tends to lower the courses to emptiness or to "easy things to understand") bears heaviest on the freshmen. The burdens put upon their shoulders are, verily, grievous to be borne. It is only by incessant compromising and evading of ostensible standards and explicit laws, that this theory leaves many freshmen survi- vors. In practice, the first-year men are driven to exertions which are often frantic and commonly exceed the effort required in any succeeding year. Where administration of the character referred to has accomplished its perfect work, the habit of offering easily passed courses has spread to the advanced courses; and the lesson freshmen (and freshmaids) retain most vividly to their senior year, is the efficacy of 'cry-baby acts' when marks sink to the danger line. In the typical case, accordingly, freshmen toil and moil, sophomores ease up a bit, juniors get gay, and seniors walk at leisure. I am reminded of the school in the sea attended by the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon: "And how many hours a day did you do lessons?" said Alice. "Ten hours the first day," said the Mock Turtle, "nine the next, and so on." "What a curious plan!" exclaimed Alice. "That's the reason they're called lessons," the Gryphon remarked: "be- cause they lessen from day today." This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a little before she made her next remark. "Then the eleventh day must have been a holiday?" "Of course it was," said the Mock Turtle. "And how did you manage on the twelfth?" Alice went on eagerly. "That's enough about lessons," the Gryphon interrupted in a very de- cided tone; "tell her something about the games now." 338 WONDERLAND This similitude from Wonderland is not fortuitous. If there were gods who did "smile in secret" as they "lie beside their nectar" beholding what befalls "far below them in the valleys," what laughter would have filled the dome of Olympus when the Anglo- Saxon stolidly handed Gulliver's Travels and, again, Alice in Won- derland to his babes and sucklings ! They never touched him. The most blistering satire that was ever penned with the gall and bitterness of an indignant soul, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the most delicate shafts of raillery that ever a kindly spirit aimed at a people's follies, have been received by the English- speaking peoples without general perception of the purport of either. Both John Bull and Jonathan did, indeed, see that Dean Swift and Professor Dodgson had each written something to be noticed; but self-complacency or lack of humor proved impenetra- ble. So they printed both books by hundreds of thousands (some too bitter words of the Dean's and some embarrassing queries of the Professor's being cut out) in the dress of nursery manuals ; and these please our children, "like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong." They are, verily, excellent reading for children "hoher Sinn liegt oft in Tcindschem Spiel," but it is a pity that the grownups have left such shrewd views of their own mistakes and inconsistencies for the exclusive relish and profit of children. Let the little philosophers laugh and wag their heads over half- caught significances in Alice's adventures ; but it were well if their elders would consider the kindly quizzing with more discrimina- tion and some intro-spection. If I could obtain effective influence with a professor of pedagogy, or with a professor of the art of education, or with a professor of the science of education, or with a professor of the art and science of education, I would induce him to offer a course in which the class would read Alice in Wonderland looking for the points. Mean- while I commend to students in American universities a perusal of the book. Wits will differ about particulars of the allegory; but if they merely read cursorily with the perception that the puzzled WONDERLAND 339 and inquisitive Alice is the perplexed and inquiring Public, and that some of the wonders encountered in her explorations are the doings of various parties to our Educational System, some bright glimpses will surely appear. For an experienced and reflective reader, with suitable mental endowments, the entire quizzical al- legory would render up its intended effect. Not everything is to be interpreted: much is atmosphere and niiance, more is medium; but all is benign, and the intended result will be realized in the way you feel about many processes that have been adopted as educational and about the ensuing attitudes and reactions of naive good sense. For instance (opening at random) : "Everybody says 'come on!' here," thought Alice, as she went slowly after it: "I never was so ordered about before in all my life, never!" Considering who and where Alice is, perhaps some sympathy with a long-suffering public may awake in you. Or (choosing something fairly definite), surely the Caucus Race has a bearing on the theory, prevailing in many regions of our wonderland, that every student ought to win credit for every course he takes at his first attempt, and that courses are not to be thought of which have not been adapted to the 'prizes for all' theory. Is it sensible to assume that every course of instruction should be within the mas- tery of every student who attends regularly and gives to it one- fifth of his time ; or to hold that the Professor ought not to tolerate in his presence a dutiful student who is failing to master the sub- ject-matter sufficiently to merit credit for the entire course, and that the Dean ought to expell such a student thus failing in half of his work? Maybe so; but if so, the Dodo was intelligent in inventing and deciding the Caucus Race, and Alice was silly to wonder at its prizes: ''What I was going to say," said the Dodo in an offended tone, "was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race." "What is a Caucus-race?" said Alice; not that she much wanted to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that somebody ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything. 340 PRIZES FOR ALL "Why," said the Dodo, "the best way to explain it is to do it." First it marked out a race -course, in a sort of circle ("the exact shape doesn't matter," it said), and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no "one, two, three and away," but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half-an-hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out, "The race is over!" and they all crowded 'round it, panting, and asking, "But who has won?" This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its fore- head (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, "Every- body has won, and all must have prizes." "But who is to give the prizes?" quite a chorus of voices asked. "Why, she, of course," said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one finger; and the whole party at once crowded 'round her, calling out in a confused way, "Prizes! Prizes!" Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits, and handed them 'round as prizes. There was exactly one apiece, all 'round. "But she must have a prize herself, you know," said the Mouse. "Of course," the Dodo replied very gravely. "What else have you got in your pocket?" he went on, turning to Alice. "Only a thimble," said Alice sadly. "Hand it over here," said the Dodo. Then they all crowded 'round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly presented the thimble, saying, "We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble"; and, when it had finished this short speech, they all cheered. Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh, and as she could not think of any- thing to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as she could. The next thing was to eat the comfits; this caused some noise and confusion, as the large birds complained that they could not taste theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be patted on the back. It may be probable that Professor Dodgson had in mind the elective system in describing the shape of the track for the Caucus PRIZES FOR ALL 341 Race and its lack of the "one-two-three" start and straight-away of a prescribed curriculum; but the main subject for frank con- templation is the idea prizes for all. Dodgson may have so mis- understood the elective system that he imagined it conduced to prizes (degrees) for everybody; but there is no reason why elected courses should be credited more loosely than prescribed courses, and, as has been clearly shown, there may be effective constraints to coherent elections. The fact is, a genuine elective system arouses or reinforces every tendency to eschew perfunctory crediting. It is evidently easier to deny credit, if need be, for a freely chosen course, than for a course the student was compelled to take; also, students will exert themselves more in order to make good their own choice, than they would if they were in a position to make the excuse of having been forced to distasteful work. The whole is made up of its parts, and a degree is simply the aggregation of credits for, say, twenty courses. If each course is strong and cred- ited only for approximate mastery, the degree will take care of itself as an honorable and significant prize. All good races need not be run over one and the same track. On the contrary, if it be deemed a reasonable aim (while making present allowance for evasion) that all who are permitted to hear a course should be winning full credit for it, then it is a practically necessary consequence that the degree approaches, pari passu as that aim is approximated, the character of a mere certificate of residence. The degrees of a college thus administered are very like the prizes of the Caucus Race. If the preceding argument be candidly resisted, I believe it will be found that the resistance is based upon a tacit assumption that preparation may be made so nearly equivalent for all students that the ability of all to master any new undertaking will become nearly equal. Nothing of the sort is possible except for a group of picked men picked by processes of elimination infinitely more severe than could be considered in this matter. Practically, there is a double fallacy in the assumption: (1) preparation can never 342 SCAPEGOATS become so nearly equivalent for college students, and (2) if their preparation were supposed to be (by some magic) identical, still every new undertaking would bring out wide differences. Native ability, application, interest, extraneous circumstances, must cause differences nowise properly subject to disciplinary measures, which nevertheless would cause many to fall short of fairly mastering courses that required the mental attitude and activity which must distinguish the college student from the high school pupil if any proper advance is made beyond the stage of secondary schools. The only way to fit courses of instruction to the theory and practice I have exposed is to give courses not fit to be offered. How is it possible continually to pass off any intellectual per- formance as a creditable distinction, if you make failure to achieve it a ground of suspicion and censure ? I say censure, not disgrace, because some state universities in this nation have put it beyond their power to disgrace a man. If professors refuse to let respectful students listen to them, and faculties eject for mere failure to pass, expulsion from such a university is no more a disgrace than its degree is a distinction. There are States in which no more is thought of a young man's being sent home from the University than of a boy's exclusion from a boarding school; and the public opinion in the matter is correct. Moreover, laws of this sort are never squarely executed. There is no escape from the dilemma. If the rules of some catalogs were honestly carried out the institu- tions would forthwith be emptied of a third part of their boasted enrollments. Ugly details need not be depicted: the reader may imagine how students and instructors and deans twist and squirm to evade the expulsion ("dropping") alleged to be consequent upon a student's failure to pass in half of his work. Under such a regime, those who are cast out are mere scapegoats. American universities are approaching, or have arrived at, a fateful dividing of ways. They must decide and decide quickly. Will they proceed on the theory that every young man properly PARTING WAYS 343 graduated from a college-regulated high school should (on pain of ejection) by average application and docile obedience to rules re- ceive a titled degree in four years; or, will they decide that their degrees shall have a different meaning? They may choose as they please, but, having chosen, it is fatuous to nurse the delusion that either the public or their students can be permanently hoodwinked. Graduation from the high school means nothing individually for the very reason that common dilligence and docility secure the issue. The class graduates. The high school method is not unsuitable for its stage; but if a "university" tries to lure its thousands upon any such terms, it must ultimately come to be known for what it so chooses to be a preposterous high-high school, a retarder of natural growth to manhood and to manhood's responsibilities. On the other hand, a university might say : We offer courses of instruction which may be profitably attended without reaching the standard upon which we certify a fair mastery of the subject-matter of a course; it should not be assumed that every dutiful student will win on schedule time the title of our degree; our degree signifies a genuine, substantial distinction that may be relied upon as a certificate of the ability and achievement for which it vouches. The titled graduates of such a university would not write letters that should shame a school boy, such as are from time to time published by investigators in illustration of existing conditions, and are familiar to everyone who receives many letters from college graduates. The grammatical errors of many typical letters are their least censurable feature, and lack of logical and conventional arrangement is not their worst deficiency. The gross misuse of words and the inconsequent thought exposed in such letters, man- ifest deficiencies and incapacity that ought never to pass muster in any course on any subject in a university. As a matter of fact, the degrees of some institutions of large size and rich resources are coming to have no creditable signification. An individual holder of such a degree may have the attainments it purports to certify, 344 STRONGER COURSES but many others offer the same certification who have never done anything that would have earned credit for one course, much less twenty courses, in more honestly and more skillfully administered universities. The fundamental need for improved administration of the cur- riculum is stronger courses, and the main obstacles to the strength- ening of courses are such rules and regulations as have been ex- posed in this chapter. In advising stronger courses I refer to all courses that should be credited toward degrees. Under existing administration all courses offered are so credited, and it is alleged by most college presidents and deans (I believe libellously) that students will listen to nothing for which credit toward degrees is not given. It was not so in my day, and the change is probably more in the men who constitute the faculties, or in the rulers thereof, than in the young men. Deans and course committees would be saved some woeful perplexities in these days, if some of the courses now credited toward degrees were offerd merely as help- full diversions interesting to some individuals. If not attended on such terms, such courses ought not to be offered at all. I be- lieve they would be attended by those who should attend them, if they were really worth attending. For instance, if it be deemed serviceable to offer information about the boy-scout "movement" (which appears to be a coming favorite in state universities), let a few lectures on the subject be offered without setting the bait and temptation of a credit toward degrees, and without stretch- ing them out through a whole year. So many courses of this sort have crept into the curricula of state universities within the last few years that their degrees need heavy discounting in many cases, and, what is worse, a deplorable demoralization has set in, al- though I do not believe it has reached the depth alleged by those who assert that students would no longer give heed to anything without credit marks for it in the registrar's office. If the accu- sation be true, it but adds a most urgent reason for instituting without delay the reform I have counseled. STRONGER COURSES 345 I believe it is a mistake to suppose that the number of desir- able students would be diminished, if the lure of prizes for all (who will be good) were not held out. If the true conditions were generally comprehended, the most important part of the public would not desire any such machine methods or results in the sphere of higher education. The characters of teachers and students and the quality of their work would surely be improved, and I believe the number of suitable students would be increased, if colleges ceased to treat failure to win credit for a course as if it implied either some disreputable fault or sad misfortune. Give congratulations for winning the credit ; say nothing about failure, if attendance and exercises have been regular except to speak some word of encouragement or helpful criticism . There is no need to fear that students would often continue indefinitely, mastering nothing. Not many students are going to spend time and money unless they get something they suppose will be worth while. At the least, the truly disqualified would eliminate themselves from stronger courses far more effectively, than deans eliminate them from cheapened courses by "dropping" a few scapegoats. Failure per se is not a proper subject for disciplinary regulations in a uni- versity. If any instructor does not know how to teach unless all his hearers are mastering the entire course, drop him at the end of his engagement unless his abilities for some needed research warrant assigning him to work of that kind. If the issue thus raised is to be comprehended, it must not be confused with the altogether separate question of discipline for neglect of duties. Disciplinary rules dealing with legitimate sub- jects are, indeed, frequently injudicious puerile, too arbitrary, too numerous; but that is a question totally apart from the mat- ter here considered. At every point I have made the proviso, if attendance and exercises have been regular. In discussions of this matter with members of university faculties, it has some- times seemed to be impossible for my interlocutors to make the distinction absolutely necessary for understanding what the ques- 346 IRRELEVANT OBJECTIONS tion was. In spite of the most explicit statement to the contrary, many have appeared to fancy that license to cut lectures and neglect exercises was advocated by the critic of their rules and practice. I have more than once been oppressed by a feeling of almost despairing pity for society, in view of the sheer intellectual impotence to comprehend the terms of a logical alternative (aside from the question of wise choice) manifested by some of the mature men called to be intellectual guides for the young men of the nation. The subject matter of the question being familar to them, if honesty in argument be assumed, the tenor of their arguments in private discussions and in printed essays, exposes an abnormal weakness of mind. If such a degree of infirmity of reason be incredible, the assumed honesty must be denied. I hope and believe that even non-professional readers will generally be able to see that the matter here submitted has nothing to do with the totally different question of how idle and delinquent students should be dealt with. One may differ from me on the other grounds, and I will patiently reinforce my arguments, but if one differs by alleging that I propose to do away with all restraint against idling, there is nothing to say except that such an allega- tion is foolish if candid, and at all events untrue. The astonishing irrelevancy of many alleged arguments in be- half of the theory that a student who is not winning passing marks in a course should not be allowed to attend it, and if he is failing to win credit in half of his courses ought to be ejected from the university, will excuse the superfluity of a. particular illustration, in case it may assist some readers. Suppose a freshman student is carrying five courses including Latin, French, and German, and that these subjects are needed in a proper preparation for his in- tended life work. Suppose he has been perfectly regular in at- tendance, and diligent in effort for every exercise. One of the secrets of the educational efficacy of work in a foreign language is the fact that lack of accuracy is exposed relentlessly. In litera- ture, history, economics, etc., a student may be vague and yet pass ACCURACY 347 muster. In writing a foreign language inaccuracy will cause hun- dreds of definite errors. Each stands out. It cannot hide. It is a fault of commission. There is no room for uncertainty or hesi- tation about estimating the gravity of faults of omission. Now suppose the student has some genuine talents which have carried him along swimmingly until he is confronted with the sterner demands befitting his increased age. It is true that the elemen- tary school and high school ought to have thought more of quality and less of quantity in their share of his schooling; but it may at least be said that the universities do not encourage them to do so. The day of reckoning must come. If postponed beyond college, it will come rather in wrath than in mercy. Certainly many freshmen students, whom it would be criminally absurd to send back to the high school and foolishly unjust to exclude from col- lege, have not learned the accuracy of thought and power of sus- tained attention required to win genuine credits for their first at- tempts at college courses in which accuracy is directly tested. Some persons, also, are naturally slow to develop linguistic adapt- ability if the period of childhood is not utilized (as it should be) for that purpose. Many begin to study the modern languages they need after coming to college. From one cause or another the student we are considering has his exercises returned to him cov- ered with red ink. He tries to do better, but loose habits are hard to replace by the steadfastly alert attention and critically logical analysis which are the only means of accuracy in any sphere. In this business every mistake brings immediate accountability, and herein is a great mercy. Many a student choosing some History- and-Political-and-Social- Sciences group, never discovers that in- accuracy is so confirmed in him by the time he receives the col- lege degree, that he could not make an exact copy of a printed paragraph even though aware that he was on trial.* If our stu- *This is no imaginary supposition. I have tested many stenographers, some of them college graduates, by asking them to copy accurately a printed page. I have never found one who passed the ordeal disregard- 348 VALUE OF PERSEVERANCE dent is thus failing in one of his courses, why should he be forced to drop it? By hypothesis he is not overburdened in respect to health, or anything of that sort. There is no way by which he can learn to be accurate except by practice. His infirmity is not to be cured by repentance or postponement.* Morality and pru- dence would counsel him to persevere through the year, and he should be encouraged to see that he may thereby acquire the needed control of his faculties and carry the course easily next year as an extra. If the student were failing in like manner in more than half of his courses, why should he be ejected from the university? By hypothesis he is prepared for the university by age and in every respect except discipline of mind. The uni- versity is the place and no other, and the present the time, for repairing the deficiencies in his training. His presence in a class interferes with nobody unless the instructor is very incompetent, preposterously irritable and egotistical, or stupidly cruel. The only complaint that arrant selfishness could reasonably make would the the instructor's loss of time in correcting poor exercises. It deserves no other answer than the remark that perhaps none of his teaching time is spent to much better advantage, and the re- tort that in the universities in which such abuses are m|ost pro- nounced the custom is springing up of turning over all exercises to be examined and corrected (?) by student assistants. In my experience the men who cry out most loudly against dull or ill- prepared students in their classes contrive to shirk work of every sort, and waste much of the time they do give to teaching in ing typographical slips on letters in the body of words. Words or punc- tuation marks have always been changed or omitted, or syllables omitted or changed (such as -ed for -es in tense forms of verbs). I expected no better, and have simply directed the young man's attention to his infirmity and explained that it could be remedied only by a constant vigilance, adding that he must be handing in whole pages free from such slips within three months, or he would not be satisfactory. *If the truth is to be told, members of the faculty, not a few, share his fault as is well known to everyone who has edited their contributions for cold print. ACCESSOEY SYMPTOMS 349 querulous and often insulting talk. Where such men or women flourish you always find rules prohibiting students from dropping a course or going to another section without the instructor's per- mission, else self-respecting students would leave the room of such a teacher. It is not possible to describe every significant symptom of the diseases which it is the main purpose of this work to diagnose. (In such matters a true diagnosis indicates the remedy.) Men- tion should be made, however, of a practice recently adopted in some universities whereby an instructor may turn over one of the three hours of each course, nominally offered by him, for a quiz conducted by a student who receives some petty pay for the work, e. g., $15 a month. Of course, the best men rarely take advantage of this permission; but those to whose unwisdom the enactment of injuriously restrictive laws for students and for secondary schools is largely due, avail themselves of the unseemly privilege very complacently. I say unseemly, because it reduces the legiti- mate time meaning of a "course," and substantially breaks an ex- press or implied pledge and agreement with other universities. To give many examples of the litter of minor statutes usually spawned by the main idea, would consume too much space. Such as the following are typical. They are taken from the catalog of a state university (claiming to be the greatest in a vast section of the United States) which began a departure from noble internal principles about fifteen years ago and has now accumulated nearly all the errors of organization and administration referred to in this book. Within recent years it has developed, in what the pathologists would call a pathognomonic case, nearly every known symptom of the causative disorders. (1) "Attendance on a course without ^eing registered for it is not allowed." No question of fees is involved in this rule, for "tuition is free in all departments of the University." Consider what conceptions of scholarship, of intellectual life, of uni- versity spirit must prevail in the administrative authorities, and in the 350 ACCESSORY SYMPTOMS faculty committee created by them, who demanded the enactment of such a law. Imagine how profoundly discouraged and silenced must be the enlightened spirits in the faculty. Change the prevalent mode of organi- zation, and all this would quickly be changed. I have heard that the deans in this university recently discussed whether a member of the faculty might attend the lectures of a colleague.* The spiritual nausea suffered as I heard the account may have confused memory, but my memory is that it was said they decided it had better not be permitted. Probably no action was taken; the question could only have arisen in respect to some yet undampened spirit, new to the atmosphere of the place, who could easily be managed by suggestion. (2) "Such students are called special students, and may remain in the university only if they pass in all their courses." This refers to students over twenty-one years old who are permitted to take as few as three courses. I direct attention to this bit of law-making as a specimen for the student of morbid psychology. The law-making appetite grows by what it feeds on. One not addicted to this vice would naturally assume that special students, over twenty-one, might labor under deficiencies of regular prep- aration which might prevent success in the first attempt at some strong serious course. Having admitted such a man for an opportunity to get later in life instruction enjoyed by others at earlier periods, it is atrocious to forbid him to persevere for the conquest of a course in which he is failing at his first attempt. And what is it to declare that, on account of failure in one course, he shall not be allowed to complete other courses in which he may be gaining admirable results? As I have pointed out such a law is commonly evaded either by crediting the man with the course in which he is failing, rather than eject from the university a worthy man who is perhaps doing brilliantly in another course; or by the general weakening of courses and lowering of real standards until any student, however impotent, who attends regularly and hands in something for every exercise may be "passed." Those who attempt to justify this law will probably say that men over twenty-one years of age might, if permitted to fail in a single course, attend the university only to be on its football team. That argument need not be characterized. Evidently it is not necessary to eject from the university in order to remove from C/. p. 218; also p. 228. MEETING THE ISSUE 351 a ball team. The latter question should be dealt with directly, and, indeed, is so dealt with by the rules governing athletics. The purpose and just purport of the references to existing con- ditions here presented, would be totally misunderstood if any reader should be incited by the information either to helpless de- spair, or to impatient retributive measures. If members of gov- erning boards, for instance, were to undertake to replace faculty regulations with which they are disgusted by new rules drafted by the regents, a worse disorganization would be consummated than that which is the originating cause of the present evils. A college or university which has erred from right paths can be put in the way of genuine reformation and progress only by reorgan- izing measures such as have been indicated in previous chapters, and by securing a competent and magnanimous executive officer of the governing board. If the regents will act strictly within their proper sphere, if the president will not overstep his proper authority (preferring leadership to dictatorship), and if the fac- ulty be required to meet its proper responsibilty after powers usurped from it have been restored, then, deans would be faculty officers, not presidential lieutenants ; committees would consult wise heads and deliberate candidly, and would not be flaccid conduits whereby extraneous designs may appear to arise in and from the faculty; and individuals would gradually acknowledge and meet their proper responsibilities, and no longer would members of the faculty who should be leaders neglect initiative and avoid debate. Meanwhile, there can be no successful skulking about the issues that have arisen. Every self-styled university must sooner or later come to be known for what it chooses to be. As yet, the public and governing boards generally only know that something is wrong; but a spreading and deepening dissatisfaction will pre- cipitate discussion in which the fact is going to come to light that many of the best young men who graduate from some universities are grieving over or resentful of a maladministration which they 352 FUNDAMENTAL REMEDY feel has caused great personal loss to themselves and may deprive their own progeny and society in general of the benefits they sought and expected to receive when they went to college. The main danger lies in the propensity of the people to demand remedies from legislatures, and from the impulse of members of governing boards when dissatisfied with the work of administra- tive officers to perform themselves things that belong to the faculty or ought to be done by an executive officer. Usurped authority is almost never exercised wisely. If the proper responsibility and corresponding authority of the faculty is not recognized by gov- erning board and chief executive, disorder follows in all spheres. The faculty deteriorates and seldom even attempts to meet its unrecognized responsibilities. The governing board is incompetent to discharge the function of a faculty, nor can its executive offi- cers be harmlessly substituted for the faculty. It would be utterly intemperate to make the existence of the present evils a reason for refusing to establish conditions from which good results could grow. The worse anyone thinks of some present circumstance, the more urgent he ought to be for the estab- lishment of a proper organization the only foundation for true improvement. There is no instant remedy for accumulated conse- quences of wrong organization and erroneous administration. The governing power can help only by establishing organic conditions that favor the healthful functioning of the faculty and of admin- istrative officers in their respectively proper spheres. If given fair opportunity, competent knowledge and good judgment should pre- vail.* Time will be required; but to deny the reasonableness of *A notable example of the manner in which wise recommendations and pleas by college faculties have often been ignored by governing boards in the history of the American college, is afforded by a report of the faculty of Amherst College in 1826. If that report had been duly regarded it would have advanced the institution by more than half a century. Full extracts from the report are given in Foster's Administration of the Col- lege Curriculum. Instead of promptly following Virginia's lead, all that Amherst's faculty could secure "was a single option in the second term of CREDIT FOR QUALITY 353 this hope would be absolute pessimism. To the confirmed pessim- ist there is nothing to say. Under proper conditions, the faculty's best resources of skill and wisdom would spring into activity, and if a wise influence on the part of the chief executive be added right progress will be assured. Beyond the sphere of the legitimate executive authority (i. e., the execution of the legislative acts of the governing board) the mode of the president's leadership of the faculty must be that of honorable counsel, without suspiciou of dictatorial purpose or implicit coercion. As for the methods of intrigue he must be above suspicion. On no other terms is it possible for faculty meetings to be other than shams feared or resented by all members who are both upright and intelligent. Credit for Quality From the beginning some open-eyed spirits have recognized that in American colleges, "the good scholar is placed nearly on a level with the sluggard; for, whatever may be his exertions, he can gain nothing in respect to time, and the latter has, in conse- quence of this, less stimulus for exertion." The words quoted were written in 1826 by Captain Partridge who had opened his Academy* at Northfield, Vermont, in 1820 with an elective system five years before the University of Virginia was opened to stu- dents. The Harvard faculty once made a proposal for recogniz- senior year, Hebrew or Fluxions." By 1834, even that single elective had disappeared. "Thus perished," comments President Foster, "in the west of Massachusetts the hopes that were already blighted in the east [Refer- ring to Ticknor's attempt in 1823 to institute the elective system and lecturing at Harvard]. They were to rise again only with the rise of a new generation." *Foster tells of the "great and immediate popularity" of the worthy institution, in which, within a period of three years, "nearly twelve hun- dred students enrolled, of whom there were over one hundred from South Carolina alone." Evidently its scientific studies and elective system met a need that the then existing college ignored. "Yet," says Foster, "Yale and Trinity appear to have prevented Captain Partridge from securing a Connecticut charter and the privilege of granting degrees." 354 CREDIT FOR QUALITY ing the principle: "A man whose work is of high grade should not be required to take so many courses as a man whose work is of low grade/' That quality ought to be recognized and appreciated as an in- trinsic fact is to my mind a fundamental principle, which will scarcely be openly disputed. Even this general principle is covertly resisted by those foes of genuine education (and of genuineness in every sphere) who are either the originating or the instrumental causes of all the worst features of the inner work and life of our colleges and universities; but there may be difference of opinion among better men, whether recognized good quality of a student's work should have the particular effect of reducing the number of courses required for a degree. In the great majority of institu- tions there is no regard for quality in respect to the number of courses required for the undergraduate degree. Everyone who comprehends the facts knows that the grade marks A and B ought to signify and generally do signify not only immensely better qual- ity of work, but also much greater quantity of work than marks C and D; nevertheless, usually the fixed number of C's and D's or of A's and B's indifferently brings the same degree. In some in- stitutions degrees are given with and without distinction, or "honors"; but with several exceptions excellence has no effect upon the time required to make the degree. Indeed, the prevalent practice often leads to superficiality on the part of those who take the degree in less than four years, because time may be reduced by doing passable work in an extra number of courses, but cannot be reduced by doing work of better quality and greater quantity in fewer courses. Harvard offeres a slight credit-for-quality by excusing students who get C, or higher grade, in freshman English from the half- course in English Composition exacted of all others. The University of North Dakota tried for six years the follow- ing plan similar to the Chicago plan and then abandoned it: Every student, to graduate, must win a number of "honor points" CREDIT FOR QUALITY 355 equal to the number of semester-hours required for the dgeree. Each A carries three honor points per semester-hour; B, two; C, one; D, none. This demands an average of C for graduation. Students averaging B are allowed to take 18 hours a week, or six courses a year ; but there is no credit-f or-quality in this plan. The time of residence is not reduced by high marks. one is merely permitted to reduce the time by a part of one year if he can carry always one extra course. The University of North Dakota abandoned its attempt to ex- act good quality of work for the alleged reason that members of its faculty "gave to an absurdly large number of students the 'surplus credit' marks of A or B."* This reminds me, as Presi- dent Foster remarks, of the argument against the elective system, that students, free to choose, take snap courses, as though the fact, if true, were to be charged to the elective system and not to an administration which suffers weak or worthless courses to be offered. I shall point out improvements in adminstration that tend to correct the substantial fault. A genuine credit-for-quality plan involves such credit for excel- lent marks as may reduce the time to three years for students of best ability. Suppose 20 courses pursued with medium ability be required for the degree. If these be valued, say, at 160 credit points, then 0= 8 points. If A=12, B=10, 0=8, D=6, E=0; then 20 courses, each made with grade C would give 160 points, or 5 A's and 10 B's, or 1 A and 14 B's and 1 C, or 3 A's and 8 B's and 4 C's and 2 D's, etc. It might be advantageous to refuse to give any credit for more than 2 D's in one year. There would be almost as many combinations as students, and some would find themselves with slight surplus credits. The latter fact would do no harm : it will seem objectionable only to trivial minds. Systems of this kind have been adopted by several colleges notably by the University of Iowa and Eeed College, and it may *Prof. E. F. Chandler of N. D. Univ., quoted by Foster. 356 CREDIT FOR QUALITY be hoped that the example and experience of the University of Missouri will have a growing influence. The University of Missouri has, I believe, the best administered genuine credit-for-quality system. The plan is substantially the same as the plan I have suggested in more familiar terms, and in, perhaps, more clearly expressed numerical relations. In the Uni- versity of Missouri the marks in undergraduate courses are E, S, M, I, F (Graduate students are reported simply "passed" or "not passed") : "E means that the individual is one of the few most excellent students. . . . The grade of Excellent will be given to the few students who have manifested unusual ability in a particular branch of study. ... S is given to those students who impress the instructor as being superior to approximately 75 per cent of all students who have pursued this study during recent years. . . . M means that the student ranks among the medium students, approximating 50 per cent of each class. . . . Below the grade of M, the grade of I means that a student is somewhat below the medium, ... a student who impresses his teacher as being inferior to 75 per cent of all students in this particular branch of study. The grade of F [failure] places the student among those ranking lowest. . . . Students may not be permitted to take up work for which their inferior work is preliminary. The professor of the department in which the student wishes to take the new course will decide upon such cases individually. He may require additional preparation, but the grade orig- inally recorded on the student's grade card will not be changed. . . . "For each recitation hour for which the grade of Excellent is recorded, the student will receive 30 per cent additional credit [50 per cent in the scheme above]. For each recitation hour for which the grade of Superior is recorded he will receive 15 per cent [25 per cent in the scheme above] additional credit towards graduation. The faculty further recognizes that those students who are inferior to seventy-five in a hundred, but whose work is not estimated by the teacher as a complete failure, are entitled to some credit. Students will, therefore, be given four-fifths [75 per cent in scheme above] of the normal credit towards graduation for each reci- tation hour for which the grade of Inferior is recorded."* University of Missouri Catalogue, 1911-12 (or 1912-13). GRADING 357 Moral reasons of deep and far-reaching nature support such a system, while its most immediate objects are to encourage students to do the best work of which they are capable, and to permit the most capable to graduate in three years. How vastly better is this way of meeting the public's justified dissatisfaction with the uniform requirement of four years, than President Butler's proposal to reduce the college period for all stu- dents, or than Harvard's ineffectual steps in reducing the number of courses required (from 20 to 17) and attempted raising of en- trance requirements. In the latter plan, neither half-step goes far enough to be effectual from its side. Moreover, a real raising of entrance requirements properly covering a year's study would not truly reduce the required time at all; three and one make four as well as two and two. The inordinate time consumed by the American system of public education is due to spending eight years in the elementary school on ground that would be better covered in six years.* Grading Many articles and some books have recently appeared discussing what the writers have called "scientific" distribution of grades. The prominence given to talk about the normal probability curve embellished with diagrams of that curve associated with other curves skewed according to various hypotheses has obscured a plain common-sense matter. It has led to misconceived proposals in many faculties, and may lead some of them to injurious action. Not long ago the "Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences"** of a large state university called a meeting of the college faculty to explain scientific grading. He announced that the method he would expound had been practiced for some years very successfully by the University of Missouri, citing also Eeed College and Presi- *See Note on Elementary Schools at the end of this chapter. **See pages 239-240. 358 GRADING dent Foster's book. He proceeded with a jaunty attempt to startle benighted minds into conceiving the sway of Probability over all mundane events. (Some of his hearers understood as well as he the mathematical formula? of probability, and it may be hoped that the majority of them understood better than he the proper signifi- cance and applicability of the doctrine.) In the manner of men who think they know how to make school boys 'sit up and listen,' he told them that they could calculate the value of Pi by throwing silver dollars at a crack in the floor. His exordium need not be further described. He proceeded to tell them that at the Uni- versity of Missouri the highest mark was given to a fixed per- centage of each class, the next mark to another fixed percentage, and so on, maintaining the propriety of such a method with vari- ous jokes and serious invocation of probability curves. A few members of that faculty still make dwindling endeavors to debate committee reports and even to question the proposals of appointed deans. But to several protests, that the proposed performance would frequently be both unreasonable and immoral, and that often a class had no member who deserved A and sometimes none who deserved E, the smiling dean replied that he could see no question of morals and that the Professor was forgetting the scien- tific character of the marks. He actually went on to say that it would make no difference whether the instructor or the registrar gave the marks ; that the instructor might simply report the names of the students in the order of their class standing and the regis- trar could give the A's, B's, C's, D's, and E's in the fixed propor- tions. In this peculiar exaggeration, the Dean may have been carried beyond his intention, but the matter was not elucidated and there was no further discussion. The Dean made a few more jokes and vouchsafed a few more crumbs of information about probability and curves, in a rather disheartened way (being by nature kindly and accommodating) as if discouraged by the slow- ness of his hearers. He then brought the meeting to an end by asking a member lately called from Missouri to tell them before THE MISSOURI PLAN 359 adjourning how the Missouri faculty liked its system. Whether from lack of knowledge or from timidity the man called upon did not correct the Dean's misstatement of the University of Mis- souri's practice. He merely answered that he believed the great majority approved the plan and that it worked satisfactorily. I witnessed this humiliating scene, as a visitor at the invitation of the President. The President presided over the meeting, but made no comment except to thank the Dean for his instructive explana- tion of a vexed question. It is true (as some one has said) that it is every man's busi- ness to know his business and if he does not he hasn't any business to be in his business, but the disorganization and arbitrary admin- istration of most American universities renders ignorant or foolish proposals in their faculties as dangerous as they are in political campaigns and before legislatures. In this instance probably few of the Dean's hearers will give any careful thought to the matter, or even discover his misrepresentation of the Missouri plan. Mean- while, the growing good repute and prestige of the University of Missouri commend measures attributed to it, and some good men, yet too indolent to examine things for themselves, would support a measure so recommended. Let us understand the simple facts as to what is done in the Universit}' of Missouri, whose practice President Foster avers constitutes "the most scientific distribution of actual college credits ever made," which, he says, "means that we come nearer to know- ing what a grade stands for at the University of Missouri than at any other institution in the country." The gist of this state- ment is doubtless true, but there is little or no propriety in the talk about "scientific" grading. It would be clearer and more appropriate, to say that the plan is more intelligent and more in- telligible than others and yields results more nearly just and true. But what is this sensible way? The exposition by the Dean is no less absurd though less monstrous than if he had advised a leg- islature to adjust the death rate of citizens of respective ages to 360 THE MISSOURI PLAN foreordained probabilities. The University of Missouri does no such thing. In the first place the proportion of no mark is fixed for every class, but, as stated in the catalog the Dean claimed to be explain- ing, the proportions refer to the experience of each instructor with "all students who have pursued this study during recent years." In the second place, no proportion at all is assigned for the mark meaning excellent: "E means that the individual is one of the few most excellent students; the grade of Excellent will be given to the few students who have manifested unusual ability in a par- ticular branch of study." This second point is perfectly clear in Foster's description of "Scientific Grading at the University of Missouri," in the book cited by the Dean. In regard to the first mentioned misrepresentation, Foster's book might seem in one sentence to fall into the Dean's error, but the facts are restated several times correctly in the following pages. The sentence re- ferred to reads: "According to the definitions adopted in 1908, grades A+B must equal 25 per cent; grade C, 50 per cent; and grades D-f-E, 25 per cent of the total number given by each in- structor."* But Foster immediately makes it evident** that by the 25 per cent which A-j-B "must equal," he means only to refer to the fact that except for the "few most excellent students" who may receive A, "S [i. e., B] is given to those students who impress the instructor as being superior to approximately 75 per cent of all students who have pursued this study during recent years." Finally, for small classes reasonable and honest grading seldom approximates the scale adopted as a general norm. Mathematical *He makes the footnote: "The symbols used at the University of Mis- souri are E, S, M, I, F." See page 356, supra. "Foster's account of the grading in the University of Missouri is ap- proximately correct; but the story told on page 288 is an absurdity, and must have been somehow confused by him. It could hardly have been told to him as a joke. Neither the governing board nor the faculty of the Uni- versity of Missouri ever passed a man not passed by his instructor. THE MISSOURI PLAN 361 probability comes into this matter only in the sense that the scale adopted was tentatively determined from an examination of the records of four previous years. I say tentatively, because future experience may indicate need of altering the apportionments. This, indeed, is probable unless it happened that in the averages for the past the errors of unchecked individuals so compensated each other that careful attention to the matter will discover no need of adjustments. In any event, it seems likely that reasons for some difference between the normal apportionments for fresh- men and the apportionments for higher classes may appear. The most important feature in the administration as distin- guished from the design of the Missouri plan has not yet been mentioned: The statistics of the grading of each teacher are compiled and reported to all members of the faculty. Each is ex- pected to explain and justify (to himself) or to amend any con- siderable deviation from the proportions adopted as normal. If some "easy" grader should imagine that a group of very superior students had chosen to attend a course in which he has given an abnormal proportion of high marks, he can find out how the same students are doing in their other courses, or vice versa. This reasonable and worthy administration of the plan has secured con- tinually improving results. Perhaps there are members of the faculty who could not explain, and still do not understand, the plan by which each is supposed to test and criticise his own im- pressions ; but comprehension and approval have grown since Foster reported that, although about 90 per cent of the members of the faculty who in 1910 answered his inquiry approved the plan after several years experience, fifteen "think that the effect is to dis- courage the efforts of some students." It need only be remarked that, if any students were discouraged, it was because they were allowed to imagine that the marks would be given to fixed por- tions of the class. Intelligent young men with high principles would, indeed, if they were free to act, leave an institution under- stood to be committed to such stupid misrepresentation. 362 GRADING The fundamental principles which must be made clear and heeded, if benefits are to be secured, are : 1. The matter must be dealt with reasonably. The proportions adopted as normal must be treated as tentative, and adjustments should be made if well supported tendencies appear to per- sist in deliberately justified variation from the normal. Of course, the truth in each individual case, if discerned, must be reported without regard to the assumed probability. 2. The work to be graded must mean attainment, not effort. This vital principle is grievously sinned against in America at all edu- cational stages. Emasculated morals, in which false sentiment has been engendered, induce many university professors to vouch for proficiency in mathematics or chemistry or history because the student keeps regular hours and is submissive to all rules intended to govern conduct. The vice has so grown by what it feeds on that professors are not scarce who, con- versely, bear false witness against the real attainments of students who cut lectures as far as permissible, or are suspected of indulgences in any sort of frowned-upon escapades. Whatever may be alleged against college athletic sports in America, they uphold the truth in the important sphere of life and morals in which intentions cannot be honestly substituted for achievement. Diligent effort and dutiful conduct without the required prowess do not win places on football teams, conduct and attainment are not confused or falsely reported. 3. The grading of every teacher and the general averages must be pub- lished within the faculty, and each member should compare the facts and justify (to himself) or amend his practice. There is no legitimate obstacle to the immediate trial of such a plan. The practical obstacles, I believe are (a) Lack of interest in the administration of the curriculum on the part of faculties consequent upon the loss of genuine responsibility and commen- surate authority, (b) Proper resistance to muddle-headed pro- posals made by quidnuncs who have heard of something new, but will not take the trouble to comprehend what they undertake to advocate. If the three fundamental principles are duly regarded, any rea- sonable normal for the frequency of the respective marks may be GRADING 363 assumed, subject to future correction or verification. In the Mis- souri plan, every instructor is admonished to justify or to adjust persistent deviation of his grading from the following normal : The "Superior" grades, plus the exceptional "Excellent" if any, approxi- mate 25 per cent of large undergraduate classes. The "Medium" approximate 50 per cent of large undergraduate classes. The "Inferior" plus the "Failure" approximate 25 per cent of large undergraduate classes. If this scale errs, as a norm, it is excessive at the top. I would prefer to let A+B approximate 20 per cent in large undergraduate classes. C approximate 50 per cent in large undergraduate classes. D+E approximate 30 per cent in large undergraduate classes. The word "definition" ought to be avoided in every statement or explanation of such a plan, lest it be taken in its strict mean- ing. President Foster opens himself to this for those who lack the modicum of common sense that would preserve them from the misunderstanding. For instance, after concluding that the nor- mal probability curve would better be "skewed as indicated in Fg- ure 20" so as to make A= 2 per cent. B=18 per cent. C=50 per cent. D=24 per cent. E= 6 per cent. he suggests "an elastic definition of the grades : "A= 6 per cent. B=15 21 per cent. C=45 55 per cent. D=20 25 per cent. E= 010 per cent." Foster does not really mean that either his "elastic" or inelastic ( ?) scale consists of definitions in the strict sense, for he says 364 GRADING that every member of the faculty should be required to adhere closely to the "adopted definition in the long run" which neces- sarily implies that the thing adopted is not a strict definition. He also says: "Every instructor should be required to justify his eccentricities, at least in a series of years." But, then, what need or room is there for the "elastic definition ?" There will be some classes in which less than 15 per cent or more than 21 per cent will be superior to the medium attainment, or in which less than 20 per cent are inferior, or in which more than 10 per cent fail. The loose use of the word definition does not obscure for an alert reader the plan he recommends, but it is a matter of fact that some writers and many talkers have misunderstood him. President Foster's exposition would have been more serviceable if he had eschewed the destriptive term "scientific/' said nothing about curves, and invoked probability merely to base an assumed normal on the experience of past years. I protest, moreover, that there is no propriety in his speculations about supplanting this method, which he advocates for the nonce, through "the discovery of units of measurement in every school subject, and the construc- tion, by scientific methods, of scales that can be applied as the foot-rule is now applied, regardless of time, or place, or persons/'* He is of the opinion : "Measurements of results [i. e. the attain- ments of college students] with quantitative precision will be made as soon as people know enough to demand such measure- ments." I do not know whether this is exaggerated "democracy" or rhapsody; but it might as soberly be said that the people will get the moon as soon as they know enough to cry for it. It is cer- tainly a far cry to base on Professor Thorndike's scientific tests and measurements a notion that "equal units" can be discovered whereby we shall measure with "precision" the concrete perform- ances of individual minds in respect to scholarly attainments. Again, with reference to the best plan we can follow until the 'Interested readers are referred for side lights to Alice in Wonderland. See pages 338-341 supra. GRADING 365 people know enough to demand the discovery of "equal units," it is true enough that, "In any group of individuals representing a single species, the distribution of any trait not then influenced by natural selection appears to he that of a chance event, and the surface of frequency for that trait approaches that of the probabil- ity integral." But what has this to do with justly appraising the actual attainments of an individual student? Mastery of a course of study is not an affair of one trait or simple sum of traits, nor has the influence of selection (as he indicates repeatedly) been eliminated. By skewing the probability curve, one can, of course, after the events, make a frequency surface to fit the mass resultant of an immense number of any sort of somewhat similar events; but it would be monstrous foolishness to confer college degrees or to withhold them according to the frequency of the degrees earned by a group of other individuals. The antecedent frequency, be it noted, was assumed to have been justly determined by intrinsic judgments upon the performances of those individuals, else the normal probability curve could not have been skewed to fit the case. Hence, the said curves, normal or skewed, refer to a prob- ability which can be intelligently employed only to check devia- tions that result from carelessness or poor judgment. Such a check is very useful, and it is for this reason that the simple plan I have described is submitted for consideration. There is nothing especially scientific about it; it belongs to the wider categories, reasonable and prudent. The most important scientific view in the matter of grading the attainments of college students is the knowledge that such marks as 69^, or even such as 83, are devoid of true discrimina- tion. I have heard of a recent instance in which a degree was de- nied to a law student, who stood well in his other courses, on account of a deficiency in an examination on one subject of one- half of a "point" below the passing grade. The professor, in sternly resisting the remonstrance of a committee of his colleagues, nursed in all sincerity a delusion of Roman virtue on his part; 366 GRADING whereas it is a fact that he probably could not regrade the papers of that class with less than an average difference of five of his points for the two sets of marks. This fact has been proved. All teachers ought to know it. The notions and practice of a great many of them involve, in some respects, such a mistake as would be made if one went through a building estimating the length and breadth of each room in inches, instead of in feet or yards. Professor Starch, of the University of Wisconsin, has reported* that the grades assigned to two English papers by 142 teachers of English ranged from 64 to 98 for one of the papers and from 50 to 98 for the other, and the grades given a mathematics paper by 118 teachers of mathematics ranged from 28 to 92. The grades given by 10 instructors of freshman English, all in one university (Unv. Wis.), to 10 papers written in a final examination showed about the same average variation from the mean, S 5. 3 as com- pared with 5.4 for the Eng. and math, papers first mentioned. Prof. Starch states that the range was also as great, but if so the minimum 28 which he gives for the paper in mathematics is a misprint. The 10 instructors referred to endeavor to have uni- formity in their sections and the same final examination is given to all. One of the tables gives grades assigned originally and again after an interval to the same papers by the same instructors, each for students in his own section. The difference between the marks assigned at different times to the same papers by the same teacher is on the average 4.4, and is about the same for all subjects mathematics, language, physical sciences. The instructor who varied least used "a purely mechanical method of grading, deduct- ing so many points for each kind of error." He thus varied less from his previous grades, but it should not be imagined that his marks were more just. We need go no further into this subject. Professor Starch in- fers that "the smallest distinguishable step that can be used with Science, Oct. 31, 1913. GRADING 367 reasonable validity is roughly 5 points." Hence the marking scale, instead of being 100, 99, 98, 97, etc., should be 100, 95, 90, 85, etc.; these, he argues, "are the smallest divisions that can be used with reasonable confidence by a teacher grading his own pupils." For my part I deem the whole idea of equal quantitative grada- tions (on any scale) inapplicable to this matter in any substantial sense. There is an important truth in the facts adduced in abundance by Professor Starch and many others, but that truth bears mainly on the falseness of impossible distinctions and on the folly of every petty way of grading. Let the teacher keep private memoranda in number symbols, if he thereby helps his memory and judgment; but let him know that he is responsible for form- ing at the end of the course a fair estimate of the quality of each student's work, or at the least for determining truthfully, without qualitative distinction, whether or not the course ought to be credited. I judge that estimates of quality will be best formed and expressed by some such system as that used in the Univer- sity of Missouri; and that the crediting of a course is rightly determined only by deciding at its end whether or not the student holds in his mental grasp a fair approximation to what miay be re- garded as the proper permanent residuum of the subject-matter of that course, I mean those essential results of the course as designed and conducted which ought to be more or less perma- nently retained, say for a year at least. The professed scholar and teacher who does not know how to discern such essentials is mis- taken in his profession and unfit for the position he occupies. It will never do to claim that a university teacher cannot find out these vital facts in the majority of cases. It is one of his respon- sibilities. If he sees the obligation and takes reasonable steps to meet it, he will succeed in proportion to his scholarship, good sense, and manliness. The abuses now prevalent have sprung from wrong conceptions imposed by custom and from the tangles of 'red tape' imposed by arbitrary legislation. 368 GRADING Two espesially demoralizing practices should be mentioned be- fore leaving this topic. In some cases from individual choice, in others from weak sub- mission to faculty resolutions or administrative requests, some col- lege teachers deduct a fixed number of points for every absence not excused on account of sickness. The effect of any absence upon the attainments testified to by a teacher when he credits a course is not a fixed quantity, but in any case is the same whatever the cause of the absence. Absences are amenable to disciplinary con- trol; but whenever they mechanically determine report on scholar- ship, it means that the teachers so reporting either do not care much whether they tell the truth or not, or consent to falsify at some impertinent request or at the behest of a majority vote. Such conduct announces to the students not only that the teacher does not desire to find out the truth, but also that he will deliberately bear false witness in certain events. There is only one way in which sound young men regard such devices; no sophisry can blind them until they have lost the virtues native in them or learned through the example and precepts of honorable associates. In some universities there are teachers of every rank who turn over the grading of all written work (exercises and examinations) to cheaply employed students often little or not at all advanced beyond students whose work they estimate. Sometimes it is ar- ranged that one of the young judges shall grade Answer No. 1 of all papers, reading no more of any paper; another, Ans. No. 2, and so on. In examinations requiring discursive answers it is necessary to read the whole paper to estimate it fairly, yet this objection is ignored, like all others, in these conscienceless prac- tices conscienceless from their roots to all their branches. Of course, the best members of faculties are not guilty of such things ; but the practice is spreading in some of our universities like a vile parasitical infection, and it is one of the distinct grounds for that moral disgust and indignant or sorrowful resentment which ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS 369 is becoming evident* in the most virile young men now attending or who have recently left such colleges. A dm ission Req uire m en ts It is not worth while to give details of the confused mass of regulations governing admission to American colleges. They are in a worse state than the requirements for graduation. The source of the trouble is the same for both misconceived ideas about uni- formity and democracy with readiness to enforce agitated opinion? by reckless legislation. Despotic extremes appear in some of the State Universities, but it will suffice to refer to the conditions that have come to pass in a comparatively conservative and carefully administered endowed university, as described in a very temperate report made in 1910 by the Chairman of the Committee on Ad- mission, of Harvard University: "In presenting my annual reports as Chairman of the Committee on Admission, it has seemed best to me to use the opportunity they give me to point out some of the ways in which the theories embodied in our rules for admission work out in actual practice. This leads me to seem, per- haps, to emphasize unduly the defects in our system; but as my work gives unusual advantages in seeing the effects of our regulations upon boys, teachers, and schools, it has seemed to me that I could be most useful by setting forth what I have learned from that experience. Without actual contact with individual applications for admission, no one, I believe, can realize the infinite variety of conditions to which our rules are applied: and that contact reveals mat college prescriptions oftentimes have quite different effects from those they are intended, and supposed, to produce. . . . For every one of its prescriptions, considered by itself, the College can plausibly urge that it is made in the interest of sound education; but any one whose work compels him to enforce these prescriptions, and who is thereby brought face to face with individual boys and teachers, soon learns that rules made for hypothetical boys do not work as they are sup- posed to work when applied to actual boys, and that the total effects of college prescriptions in actual practice may be summarized under tl;t ful- Cf. pp. 351-352. 370 ADMISSION KEQUIBEMENTS. lowing heads, no one of which can be regarded as characteristic of sound education : 1. Over-pressure among students. 2. Restraint in using the best methods among teachers. 3. Distortion of curricula. 4. General emphasis on facts and knowledge rather than on thought and power. 5. Low standards of scholarship. "It was not, however, upon these effects of our admission system that I wished to dwell. I have called attention to them merely to emphasize the point which I wish to make, that regulations which considered by themselves seem unquestionably good may, when taken together with other regulations, exert effects quite contrary to those intended, and that there is a much greater discrepancy between our theory and its practical work- ing than most people suppose. The effects to which I wish to call atten- tion this year are the effects of our admission system upon quality of scholarship in Harvard College, none of which were intended, but which follow naturally from our regulations. . . . "I wish to present some experience of the Committee on Admission which goes, I think, to show that our system tends: "1. To restrict the field from which good students may be drawn, and therefore to depress the average quality of a class. "2. To confine within a restricted field the students selected to those who have received their training in a particular type of school. "3. To restrict our students to those who have been subjected to influ- ences which help to make them look on study not as good in itself but merely for what it brings. "Anything which restricts the range of choice lowers the average quality of men chosen in each successive class. There are, of course, other reasons beside our system of admission to account for the facts shown by the fig- ures; but any one who administers correspondence about admission will soon learn that the system of admission is the most powerful fator in producing these facts. . . . The different tables given indicate, I believe, that our system of admission in its practical working tends to restrict students in Harvard College to those whose school training has been within the small part of the country which can come under the direct influence of our system of admission, and within that field to students who have been trained in the type of school known as the preparatory school. ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS 371 "In the administration of admission to college, it is very noticeable that as a class teachers in preparatory schools desire the college to specify minutely what boys must do in order to obtain admission to college, the reason being that they have found college requirements the most effective arguments in persuading boys to work. Boys in preparatory schools, therefore, have constantly put before them an end of study which is out- side the study itself. When they come to college, they look upon their college work in the same way: in school, they study to get into college; in college, they study to get a degree; in both, they economize energy by doing as little as will accomplish the purpose. Contact with many hun- dreds of these youths, both before and after they enter college, has con- vinced me that the lack of interest in intellectual pursuits of which we complain in our students is due to the fact that the majority of them spend the most impressionable years of their lives in an atmosphere in which study is regarded not as an end desirable in itself, but as a means to the practical end of getting into college. In saying this, I do not mean to blame the preparatory schools; for they are the results of a system for which I believe the present college requirements for admission are re- sponsible. "I should like to illustrate the points which I have tried to make by actual cases which will show how our methods virtually exclude excep- tionally fine students, and how difficult it is for the Committee on Admis- sion to administer a scheme which is essentially quantitative in such a way as to select for the college men of good quality. When admission requirements are discussed in the faculty, the debate usually turns on a particular subject or the way of teaching it; but the work of the Com- mittee on Admission is the practical work of selecting students. Very little of that work is necessary to convince one that you cannot select good students by prescribing what and how they shall study. To illus- trate this, I will give first the programme of a boy who attended a school whose curriculum has always been determined by our requirements for admission. The numbers at the right of the subjects indicate the school periods per week given to the study. First Year. Second Year. Third Year. Fourth Year. English 3 English 3 English T English 3 2 History 2 History. 9 Latin 4 3 French 3 3 Greek 5 6 Latin 4 Latin 4 Mathematics... 4 1 5 *, Physics 4 Mathematics... .. 4 Mathematics... 3 Mathematics... . 3 19 20 20 20 372 ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS "This boy entered Harvard easily without conditions, dividing his examinations between two years. His record was mostly made up of unsatisfactory grades he had no grade higher than C, and only three C's out of ten grades. His record thus far in college indicates that he is not a desirable student. . . . "I wish to give one more illustration which I think is even better of the way our theories work for the exclusion of brilliant students. The case I select is that of a student in a high school in Detroit. First Year Second Year. Third Year. Fourth Year. Algebra . 5 Algebra 5 Geometry . ... 5 Geometry 3 Latin . 5 Latin 5 French 5 i Coll Algebra 4 Anc. History.... . 4 Phys. Geogr 4 Chemistry 5 J Trig 4 English . 4 Mech Drawing 4 English 4 i Adv. Chem 10 $ Solid Geom.... 3 i German 5 "Of this student, the headmaster of his school writes as follows (the italics are mine) : I am enclosing at your request an outline of the work by the most brilliant pupil in our graduating class this year. You will observe that his course would not permit him to enter Harvard College. When Mr was here a year ago he asked me to notify the University of any young man here who gave promise in any particular subject, as the University would be glad to offer such a student inducement to go to Harvard. This young man is the brightest mathematician I have known during my twenty-five years in high schools. As an illustration of his ability, during the past year he has read by himself, as recreation, most of the Differential and Integral Calculus; and he has also done reading in Analytical Geometry. He has done what would be regarded as advanced work in college chemistry. "It is hard to say what this student could have done if he had wished to come to Harvard. By our examinations he could hardly have made a record of more than sixteen points, not because he had not done more work, but because our system would give him barely a chance to show what he has done in languages, and no chance at all to show wherein he is strongest. If by some lucky chance the Committee on Admission got an opportunity to pilot him through the shoals and bars of our admission requirements they would be obliged to admit him under conditions which would stamp him as inferior to dull boys like the one I mentioned first, and of whom there is a large number, and to make him work at a rate of more than twenty courses for his degree. ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS 373 "These cases are only two* of a large number which correspondence about admission continually reveals, and are examples of thousands we never hear of. From men like these, our present regulations for admission cut us off, and operate in favor of dull and indifferent students like the man whose school programme I gave first. "In view of these facts, it seems to me that one who is constantly occupied with the actual business of admitting students, or of explaining how they can or cannot be admitted to the privileges of the college, may be permitted a certain impatience and exasperation at the waste of good material he is compelled to witness. It would be perfectly possible in a few years to have as many students of the type I last mentioned as we now have indifferent students if the Committee on Admission were em- powered to admit men by merit alone. Any committee of the faculty that was free to act after collecting facts about an applicant's school record and examining him in those subjects in which he is best able to show his quality could choose for the faculty a body of students that would relieve teaching of all its drudgery, and make it a perpetual delight. The scholar- ship of Harvard College depends more on the men we choose than on anything we can do after we get them. The present method of choice, intricate and complex, working in obscure ways, cuts us off from thou- sands of good students, and depresses the quality of those we get." I ask the candid reader to answer this question: Why is it that such convincing statements are not heeded hy the faculties to which they are submitted? And I submit to all readers who are anywise responsible for the government of universities the suggestion that it would be well to accept the general diagnosis offered in this book, unless some other equally consistent deter- mination of causes and remedies is offered and adopted. *The other case was of a pupil who stood at the head of a class of 180 in a Minnesota high school, who could not be admitted to Harvard without conditions that would have exacted 21 courses for graduation, as coin- pared with the 17J courses required of the dull man first described. The excellent student probably went to Cornell. 374 RELATION TO SECONDARY SCHOOLS The Proper Relation of the American University to the American High School. In any useful consideration of a practical question, the essential principles that must underlie any wise conclusion are distinctly separated from those subordinate details which are either of tran- sitory import or of dubious effect. Some of the most injurious mistakes made by mankind proceed from the failure to attain such clarity of reasoning in the popular consideration of plans for societal action. This fact is not merely the consequence of the complexity of every concrete problem of social welfare, but it is also the result of an interference by the passions which are always involved and generally illogically involved in every matter requiring sustained co-operation. AATiatever the proper relation of the American university to the high school may be, it is certain that the men who are clamoring about antagonistic purposes or interests are darkening counsel. It is true that some damage, along with mutual service, has come from each side to the other, but there is no conflict of genuine interests. No fixed statement of the proper relation is possible or needed, but some permanent features of a proper relation may be inferred from proved errors of activity and of attitude. The most con- spicuous mistake that has been made by the higher institutions is but another manifestation of that rashness which makes men ready to enforce by law-making power every notion of virtue or expediency that may take possession of undisciplined minds. Such men have of late years exercised an abnormal influence in the per- functory acts of university faculties. Thus, partly from inad- vertence and partty from attempt to get by force of law results unattainable by such means, our universities have imposed injurious regulations upon our secondary schools. It is important to under- stand that we have herein not something done at the expense of the high schools for the good of the universities, as many are EASE OF CORRECTION 375 exclaiming; but that, on the contrary, all true interests of the universities suffer even more from these mistakes than do the high schools. While the high schools may well lift aloud the voice of protest against some injurious compulsions and restrictions im- posed upon them, they are in a position to make the retort: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for your- selves and for your children." The abuses referred to are characterized by the absence of evil intention, by their accidental nature, and by the ease with which they could be corrected. It is only necessary for the universities to recognize that they ought not to dictate beyond minimum requirements for profitable attendance in the first courses of study offered by them. They may and ought to give advice far beyond their peremptory requirements, but it is neither possible nor desirable for them to inspect authoritatively everything that an affiliated high school undertakes to do. Wjithin the sphere of legitimate demands for admission it would be well to establish more thoroughly the authority of the university, but the attempt to spread authority over everything and for all purposes weakens it where it is legitimate and would be beneficial. The universities should thank their stars that the burden and responsibility of legislating for the general good of the high schools, as distinguished from their own legitimate requirements, does not rest upon them. On the other hand, I would have the universities become far more sensible of their true responsibility for wise counsel in this and in many other spheres. A good basis for the development of the proper relation between colleges and secondary schools would be provided by two easy reforms, towit: the repeal of supererogatory regulations, and recog- nition of the fact that advice is better not given unless it be wise advice. If these remarks were left without concrete illustration, it is probable that their bearings might not be understood by some. For that reason I cite two examples: 376 TWO SPECIMENS One of the largest universities in the United States (not a state university) has undertaken the direct government except for "independent business management/' which is solemnly per- mitted of "all academies and other secondary schools" that aspire to be "affiliated." Only those schools are admitted to that high adoption which place themselves "under the advisory management of the university in respect to faculties, curricula, and educational methods." The usual relation of "inspecting" everything and "recognizing" or not recognizing, is also maintained with other schools, which is designated by the term "co-operation"; but this term, all are advised, is to be "carefully distinguished from 'affil- iation'." To such an extreme has one enormous university been precipitated. Another institution (a state university) promulgated in 1910 the requirement that for full credit in the subject of English, "at least one-fourth of all the pupil's school work in each year of a four years' high school course must be done in English." Some other college may have made the same law, but as far as I know this particular fatuity is unique, it was, indeed, quietly revoked after protest from high school men, nevertheless it aptly illustrates the sort of thing that the mistaken attitude I am indicating is likely to cause a university to stumble into. It would be well to offer different degrees of approbation or credit; but excellence of results is the only rational ground for the highest credit. To make the devotion of some absolute amount of time a requisite, might not be absurd ; but to demand an absolute ratio to the time devoted to all other activities, is not only preposterous in the abstract but would interfere with many desirable possibilities. For instance, a pupil who in even one of his four years had taken five studies would, under this rule, forfeit a degree of credit in English to which, by hypothesis, he would be entitled by the amount and quality of his knowledge of English, if he had not taken that fifth study. Five years ago I would not have believed that such a rule could THE "UNIT" 377 be enacted by a respectable faculty, except through inattention to a thoughtless proposal by some individual who had been intrusted with matters too wonderful for him. But I learned through experience that clear statements of objections were not only uncon- vincing, but apparently unintelligible to some presumed experts. I may, therefore, without apology, point out several more self- evident facts: (1) It is impossible to estimate the amount of time a pupil devotes to any one study by the number of "recita- tions." (2) English is learned best in a school where the precepts of the English class-room are practically enforced in every other room, and through proper study of some other language. (3) If the university's influence were strong enough to excite ambition to win its maximum approval in this subject, some almost indis- pensable studies would be crowded out of reach. This would necessarily follow in the particular case referred to, because of a simultaneous regulation compelling every subject to be taught every day. That is to say, five recitations a week throughout the year must be devoted to a subject, or credit for a year's study is refused. The whole obliquity of the rule for full credit in English is not apparent until this other presumptuous rule requiring five periods a week in every subject is taken into account. The colleges of this country might be classified as to their rela- tions with secondary schools, into those that define a "unit" of credit for admission as (1) not less than three recitations a week for a year; (2) not less than four a week; (3) those who do not allow any elbow room at all, but require recitations every day in every subject, on pain of exacting two years' work for one year's credit. This order 1, 2, and 3 corresponds to a decreasing com- prehension of the subject-matter of the legislation. I do not mean to suggest the preferability of the minimum for all subjects; but latitude is needed for the very reason that different allotments ought to be made for different subjects, or for the same subject under different conditions. 378 PROPER ALTERNATIVES There are two ways whereby proper relations of our high schools to our universities might be established so as to safeguard legiti- mate requirements for entrance, and so as to set and keep the high schools free to discharge their manifold functions. One way is for the universities to admit through their own examinations, offering the same examination at every high school requesting it, and at their own doors as many universities as possible adopting the same examination.* This is the simplest way of avoiding the existing evils. It should be followed unless the preferable but more difficult way be cleared of present obstruc- tions. The other way is for the universities to recede from their vain attempt to control, by requirements for "recognition," everything that the high schools do. Xo such task is imposed upon them either by duty or necessity. On the contrary, the attempt dis- sipates their legitimate and much needed influence, and demoral- izes the secondary schools. The universities may justly and prudently require for admission to their courses of instruction (1) a fair quota of the proper results of what is called "formal education"; (?) sufficient dis- cipline of mind to proceed firmly and swiftly in new advances contemplated in the college curriculum, and (3) in several sub- jects a definite minimum of accurate knowledge which is pre- supposed by the corresponding college courses. This they could *The advantage of such a system competently administered may be considered by reading a discussion of the question by President Edward McQueen Gray of the University of New Mexico, issued as a bulletin of that university, entitled "How the Curriculum of the Secondary Schools Might be Reconstructed." Aside from its direct bearings, I recommend that paper to every teacher for its exposition of the nature of a good examination. Of one thing we may be sure: the disrepute into which all examinations have fallen among the American people is the result of the fact that most of the examinations within their experience have not had the characteristics of a good examination. As with everything else, the worth of an examination depends upon its quality. AFFILIATION 379 successfully exact, and it is far more than they now get. By attending to too many things, they are missing the things most essential to their own primary responsibility upon which even the higher developments of their great enterprises rest. The system of inspection and affiliation, with all its alluring and noble possibilities, will survive only through genuine useful- ness. And it can become genuinely useful only if the universities maintain a temperate and high-minded self-restraint. The university should offer counsel upon any subject whenever it has ripened counsel to offer; but in the matter of requirements for admission it ought to restrain itself to a demand for good quality in the results of a few studies. And that demand must leave perfectly free a considerable margin of time for such appli- cation as the individual high school may deem best. For the marginal part of the pupiFs time, the university need feel no responsible concern. There ought to be no running to the uni- versity for "recognition" of this or that vocational instruction, manual training, or exercises in physical culture. Let the high school do all this, let the university give all good advice about it than it can command; but separate such matters from university regulation. If the university were attending directly to its own affair of entrance requirements, it would choose a rational range of sub- jects in which examination for admission would be acceptable. The sole purpose would be to insure ability to profit from instruc- tion offered in the university. Nothing else needs to be or ought to be considered. The same subjects would be enough to legislate about in co-operation with affiliated schools, in order to admit their graduates without examination. It ought to have been known in advance, but experience has demonstrated that to attempt more is to secure less. I shall say little about the shortcomings or duties of the high schools because little that bears upon the present subject needs 380 to be said.* That the results of our educational activities at every stage are a mixture of good and evil, is to say no more than that those activities are social undertakings. The achievement of an individual** mind and character may in rare instances approximate perfection; but no social undertaking has ever at- tained any such result. That secondary schools may just now be guilty of extraordinary shortcomings is merely the consequence of the extraordinary difficulties and disturbances that have beset them during recent years. Such is the point of view of every sympathetic critic, and every critic ought to be sympathetic. On the other hand, high school teachers and administrators might well take for the text of a profitable self-examination Coventry Pat- more's loving reproach to womankind: "Ah! wasteful woman! . . . How lias she cheapened paradise; How spoiled the bread and spilled the wine, Which spent with due respective thrift Had made brutes men and men divine." It may be assumed, then, that there is room for infinite improve- ment in both ideas and execution; but much improvement would follow the establishment of a proper relation with the universities. All questions could then be considered upon their merits. There would be no more bungling attempts to stretch out this and lop off that in order to make the same "unit'* of each. The very men who have proved themselves such poor legislators would often be *The high schools have, in their turn, injuriously coerced the elemen- tary schools, thus after a fashion as ancient as it is craven passing on to subordinates unjust treatment suffered from superiors. See Note on Elementary Schools, at end of this chapter. **It may be well to explain that I refer to individuals who have been guided and helped and supported by the wisdom of the ages; and that, in my opinion, the modern reforming individualism which sets up the dicta of isolated specialists ignorant and defiant of the consensus sapien- tium, never has reached and never can achieve just conclusions in any matter of fundamental or broad import. THE NEED FOR LATITUDE 381 good advisers. Certain it is that much of the teaching under prevalent arrangements is as loose and long drawn out as if the main purpose were to consumse time. Subjects of study and allotments of time, best for one school, do not suit another. Vital organisms and quasi organisms such as social institutions have but one known way of improvement by spontaneous variations and the selection of the fittest. Uni- formity means deterioration, and it is possible only under arbi- trary control. The situation of the secondary schools at the present time is such that it seems to me of peculiar, I may say vital importance that they be set free to adjust themselves to a changing order. If the bonds are not speedily loosed, they will be burst with reactionary violence. In the relation of seekers and givers of counsel, the high schools and universities could find safe courses of action ; but there is an especial importance in the present circumstances that every law or requirement should be framed to allow the greatest latitude consistent with efficiency. Let any man argue for his opinion that it is a mistake to study more than four subjects in one year, but let him not dare to enforce that opinion by an arbitrary requirement. Perhaps it may be discovered that there is no way to meet modern needs without sacrificing paramount interests of the individual and society, except by carrying five "unit" subjects in some year, or by giving even only one class-room hour a week to some supplemental subject. Whatever experience with free variations may prove to be best, we may be sure that it is a mis- take to give the same time to every subject. A clear mind would deem it very extraordinary if it should not prove to be better to give five periods a week to some subjects, four to another, three to another, and so on. It is almost unthinkable to a disciplined mind that the same time for all could be best. It is at least an obvious fact that in some schools classes do more and better work in three periods a week than is done in others in five; or more 382 CORROBORATIVE OPINIONS and better in one year than results elsewhere in two years. Let us get away from the idea that school work can be measured by the clock. But the important thing is for the universities to get it out of their heads that it is incumbent upon them to legislate on such questions. Let them inspect and test results to their satisfaction, and more keenly than they do; but let them forego the dictation of programs. The fundamental principles to which I have appealed in these remarks stand on so wide a basis of human history and are so open to the experience or observation of all men, that it is almost superfluous to cite concurrent judgments. But it may help some who do not think independently, to mention that the Report of the Committee of Nine on the Articulation of High School and College, presented in July, 1911, to the Xational Education Asso- ciation, has, as the gist of it, protests and recommendations such as I have suggested. The report does not deal much with the underlying principles, but its specific complaints and its most important demands are corollaries of what I have set forth. A few quotations will sufficiently show this: "As an illustration of the confusion in the requirements of different colleges, one requires one foreign language, counts work in a second, gives no credit for a third; another requires two foreign languages and one unit in a third, unless music or physics is presented as a substitute; and a third absolutely requires three foreign languages." "By following the usual college prescription, the best preparation for college is not secured." "A course that is good in one high school may not be suited to another. Uniformity in this subject is utterly disastrous." "Quantity should be subordinated to quality." Speaking of the minimum that high schools should themselves exact of a graduate, the committee is of the opinion that "the quantitative require- ment should be fifteen units." But the committee demands that the uni- versity must not require or supervise more than "eleven units" out of the high school's fifteen for any one course of study. Also, the com- CORROBORATIVE OPINIONS 383 mittee's "unit" represents the requirement of not less than four periods a week. "That the subjects from which the margin (i. e., beyond the eleven units subject to university requirements) may be made up should be left entirely unspecified, appears to be vital to the progressive develop- ment of secondary education." "As long as formal recognition must be sought for each new subject, so long will the high school be subservient and not fully progressive. It ought to be possible for any high school at any time to introduce a sub- ject that either meets the peculiar needs of the community or that appears to be the most appropriate vehicle for teachers of pronounced individ- uality." The gist of these demands of the National Education Asso- ciation is that the high schools should themselves require a mini- mum of fifteen units for graduation, and that the universities should exact results of good quality in eleven units of each grad- uate's course of study, leaving all work in excess of eleven units entirely free for such application as the high school may deem best to require or permit. The "unit"' chosen consisted of not less than four periods a week. It would be far better to allow at least some portion of the required units to consist of three periods- a week. Such a program, in all its bearings upon a proper relation to universities, is harmonious with my counsel. The universities would be free to exact good preparation in a few subjects and to leave the high schools free to use upwards of one-fourth of their time on instruction useful for its proper purposes but not signifi- cant as preparation for genuine university work. Such subjects the universities ought not to attempt to control, either as to what they may be or as to how many hours may be devoted to them. In regard to the self-imposed requirements of high schools, there may be the difference that I advise against whole "units" for some things offered by the high schools. Especially the margin beyond the university's requirements should be free for determination by each high school. Such, indeed, may have been the intention of the committee; but their plan might be understood to mean that 384 CONSEQUENCES OF PROPER RELATIONS the free margin of four or more units should be filled by full units or certain recognized fractions. I know it will be no easy undertaking to induce a faculty, especially of any state university, to revoke its present arbitrary laws for ruling secondary schools and fixing entrance require- ments or to abolish some similar enactments among the regu- lations for administering its own curricula. One entering upon the undertaking might well plead with the petty dictators in the words of Cromwell to the Scotch divines : "I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that ye may be mistaken." The main resistance might be found in the multifarious departments of pedagogy, the very quarter whence the strongest support ought to be forthcoming; for the narrowness of specialization in recent times, together with other causes, has developed even professors of education who are as uneducated as they are precipitate to impose their fragmentary ideas by force of law. The one-sided specialists in all departments are prone to agree with the demands of any set of proclaimed experts, and even if all such men and women taken together do not make a majority, the prevailing organization of our universities has so discouraged the better edu- cated and wiser members that it will not be easy to secure due attention to the matter. A few concluding words will indicate my conception of the potential consequences of establishing a proper relation between universities and high schools. Let us accept our American plan of advancing to a higher institution after the stage fixed by graduation from standard high schools, and of uniting in one student body the undergraduate and post-graduate students of our typical university, as probably more suitable to our needs and spirit than the German plan. If our universities will give up all attempt to rule the secondary schools beyoLd intrinsically necessary requirements for admission, and will faithfully accept the high calling of guide, counsellor, and friend, the affiliated secondary schools would respond loyally, and VISITORS OF SCHOOLS 385 the unaffiliated would sincerely seek to qualify themselves to enjoy such helpful relations. And wise decisions concerning prin- ciples and expediencies would generally be reached, if the uni- versities will recognize the prime necessity of choosing thoroughly competent visitors of schools.* Advice, as I have said, is better not given unless it be wise advice. To take upon oneself the office of a counsellor is no light responsibility. In some States universities have appointed to be the mouthpiece of their advice a visitor apparently chosen for his popularity with school men of the political sort, or because he was a '"good mixer." That is done, if the truth should be spoken, simply because the authorities have not been sensible of the respon- sibility to give good counsel when advice is voluntarily offered, and they have wanted a "drummer" for the university. The itch for numbers is a disease that noble educational institutions need today to be especially upon their guard against. It is worse than an impertinence to offer an incompetent adviser. I believe a university ought to seek more conscientiously for excel- lent qualifications in its visitor of schools than in any other of its agents and representatives. Experience, sound scholarship, ripened judgment, and a detached open-minded attitude toward all intel- lectual questions, are the essential qualifications. The "good mixer" is seldom a good adviser, simply because he is so fre- quently a flatterer; and a flatterer is an enemy according to 'President Craighead, in the able discussion quoted on page 78, pointed out the same need on the part of the American Medical Association in recognizing medical schools: "It is easy to have high entrance require- ments and comprehensive courses of study on paper. Many a backwoods college without endowment, without libraries and laboratories, without even learned teachers, has sent out in catalogues courses of study as comprehensive as were ever offered at Harvard or at the University of Virginia. This council will never know what the colleges of this country are doing either to enforce standards or to exact adequate entrance prep- aration until it is able to send out competent and impartial experts to make a thorough examination of the schools." 386 NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS Tacitus, an enemy of the worst kind pessimum genus inimicorum laudantes. In regard to state educational systems, all parts, from the ele- mentary schools to the State University, ought to co-operate as organs of a vital system. The worst affliction that could befall the entire system is paralysis or derangement at the top. The men who claim to champion the "common schools" in their opposition to higher education, if sincere, do not understand the matters they talk about. The truth is, that no part of any system of education can be healthfully independent of other parts. From the lowest "grade" to the arena of adult life, the exit from one stage should be an entrance to the next. No matter where an individual may leave the system's tutelage, at every terminus there is need for an index pointing upward. It is no argument against the mainte- nance of high schools or of universities, that comparatively small numbers reach those stages. Besides the necessity of an incentive to something beyond, nothing could be more blind than to suppose that only those who attend a school are benefited by that school. All higher education, or anything that leads thereto, is of incal- culable worth to society at large in countless ways which will suggest themselves to anyone who will take the trouble to think on the subject. Water runs down hill; yet the earth were sterile if water did not ascend to the sky. But men are prone to praise only the descending rain and the powerful down-flowing streams. And in the flow of life, the majority seem able to see only the results as life spends itself in downward- streaming activities of work and enjoyment, and are blind to the need of ascending thought and emotion. Yet from that ascent comes the force and meaning and worth of life. NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS The standard public school course of study in these United States is still commonly supposed to require eight years ("grades") of elementary school and four years of high school. Some schools, all over the country, NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 387 finding it difficult to occupy pupils for eight years with the elementary course, have reduced the number of grades to seven; but generally this half-way correction seems to be made with trepidation or apologies. (The school system of Kansas City, Mo., is, I believe, the only large public school system in the United States that never yielded to the eight-years fashion.) As a technical problem the question is of unsurpassed impor- tance to teachers and administrators of schools; but it is also of such vital importance to every parent and every child, that any competent discussion or experience bearing upon it should be considered with lively interest by men of all vocations. It is important that all educational institutions, high and low, should understand a matter which is so funda- mental. The plan of spreading the combined elementary school and high school courses over twelve years never developed from experienced needs, but it was foisted upon American schools in an attempt to imitate a misunder- stood pattern. It could be proved historically that the twelve years plan (which required eight years to precede a four-years high school), so pre- cipitately adopted and so injuriously practiced in the United States, was based upon the three years of the German vorshule and the nine years of the German gymnasium. Three plus nine does make twelve; but eager designers of educational fashions failed to observe that the German gymnasium does not correspond to the American high school, but takes the student to the point of the Standard B. A. degree of American col- leges, or well into the stage of the senior class of the best American college. Also, the three years of the vorshule and first three years of gymnasium conduct the pupils somewhat beyond the eighth grade in American systems. The progress of a pupil is not rapid when prepared in six years to enter the first-year class of a standard high school. Be it understood, therefore, that a ten years course to college entrance makes concession to the fact that the States of this nation undertake to discharge their function of public education through teachers the rank and file of whom are sunk economically below the better sort of manual laborers. If the economic basis were raised to command an equivalent of the undergraduate college course to qualify a teacher in elementary schools and an equivalent of several years of post-graduate work for high school positions, and to supply a suitable number of such teachers, we could do in America as well as is done in Germany, which would mean nine years to pass the stage of the best American high schools. Let no one suppose that I, or any well informed opponent of the twelve- 388 NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS years course, condemn it merely from a desire to increase the number of those who could seek higher education. That will take care of itself. The immediate effect upon the children during the time covered is the main point of interest and responsibility, and it is the main point of my argument. Our counsel is that all that is attempted in the eight years of elementary school courses whether well or poorly accomplished in a particular system, would be better accomplished by the same teachers in six years; and that four years is ample for the standard American high school. We accept the line of demarkation fixed by standard college entrance. Of course, if the American university were to cut out all except what we call post-graduate work, either separate colleges would have to fill the gap, or high schools and colleges be united in one new institution covering seven or eight years. For my part, I deem the American plan of advancing to a higher institution after our high school stage better adapted to our needs and spirit than any alternative; and I believe preponderance of advantage is in the union of undergraduate and post-graduate students in one student body. Isolated corrections of the eight-grades mistake have been made during the last twenty years in perhaps every State in the Union, and acceler- ated results may be hoped for in the future; but the slowness with which protests against consuming eight years in the studies of the elementary school gained a hearing, was discouraging. For nearly ten years follow- ing 1890 I saw no progress beyond the narrow reach of my own influence. One notable advantage was, indeed, gained between 1894 and 1899 as far as Texas was concerned; for during that period the University of Texas ceased to advise a twelve-years course, thus having the distinction, I believe, of being the first institution of its class to drop that off-hand prescription. Called from a school superintendency (where in 1892 I had put in six grades all and more than all of an elementary school course whose attenuated form had been stretched over eight years) to the faculty of the University of Texas in 1894, I continued there observations bearing upon the question, especially because that year, at the meeting of the State Teachers' Association, two representatives of the University had presented papers entitled "A Plea for a Uniform Twelve- Years Course." For five years 1 inquired of every student who entered the university how many years he had previously attended school. Only one was found who had been in school twelve years, and it was discovered afterwards that she had included two years spent in a kindergarten. Only a few had been in school as much as ten years. The length of previous schooling NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 389 was probably less at that time for the University of Texas than for eastern universities; but I am sure very few students have ever entered American colleges after twelve years of preparatory schooling. Note that this is in spite of the fact that standard public schools all over the country have all the while maintained twelve-years courses. Such facts and the intrinsic merits of the question were submitted to members of the faculty, and I have not since heard any representative of the Uni- versity of Texas pleading for twelve years of preparation. In 1899 it was my privilege to organize an especially interesting system of schools, and again to prove by experience that all that is attempted in twelve-years courses is easily accomplished in ten years. And the next year I was rejoiced to hear a powerful voice, one of those whose "line is gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world," raised in challenge of the inordinate length of time allotted to the course of study in American public schools; for in May, 1900, Hugh Muenster- berg, head of the philosophical department of Harvard University, pub- lished an incisive discussion of the question. He showed beyond candid dispute, that "in Germany the level of American high school graduation is attained at fifteen." Alas, why is it that so many ears have been deaf to his eloquent conclusion: "Those years which every American boy loses represent a loss for practical achievement in later life, which cannot be compensated for by an early beginning of professional training. It is a loss to the man and an incomparable loss to the nation." For the last ten years, besides some school superintendents, some of the most competent university presidents have understood this question and several of them have been urgently advising the needed correction. Of these none has been clearer or more forcible than Presidnt A. R. Hill. At the meeting of the National Association of State Universities in 1911, he, as a member of the committee on reorganization of education, brought up the subject of "such a reorganization of the curricula of our elemen- tary and secondary schools and such a readjustment of our college entrance requirements as will enable students to enter college, and thus eventually to receive their baccalaureate degrees, a.t an earlier age than is now pos- sible." President Hill said, in part: "I have not been authorized to speak for the committee, but have had some correspondence with the chairman [President W. L. Bryan] and with President Baker. . . . The opinion of the committee as a whole I am not in a position to state. President Baker's paper, presented at the 390 NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS National Education Association meeting last summer, has been read by members of the committee, and, perhaps, by other members of this asso- ciation; and I wish to say, as one member of the committee, that I think the topic one worthy of consideration by the association, and that, on the whole, I agree with President Baker. I want particularly to say just a word on one point. ... I think that President Baker is correct in believing that the college age should be from sixteen to twenty, instead of from eighteen to twenty-two, and that something ought to be done in the development of our educational system that will make it possible to obtain a B. A. degree earlier, so that the student's general culture may be completed without delaying too long the period of professional preparation for his life work. "The point that he has emphasized is the waste of time in the elemen- tary school. I am thoroughly convinced that about two years are wasted, and that we could accomplish as much in six years as we now do in eight. Students could thus enter the university at sixteen; or, with the exten- sion of the period of secondary education by two years thus made possible, they might enter at the present age and the state university could build upon a substantial basis of general culture. "Take the situation in New York state as an illustration. I will take an extreme case. In one city, they covered in six years what we would ordinarily suppose to be the work of the elementary school grades. Dur- ing the seventh and eighth years the pupils were introduced to new text- books covering the same ground they had already covered. . . . There was virtually nothing new in the last two years of the elementary cur- riculum. ... In the elementary school conducted by our school of education, we have been carrying on in seven grades all the work that is usually done in eight. I am convinced that, as soon as we can get that school thoroughly organized, the same work can be done in six years. As it is, in the seven years the pupils are abundantly fitted for high school work. "Now, if that can be done, why retain the seventh and eighth grades? If two years can be saved in the elementary schools, students could enter the university two years earlier than now, or, if secondary education be extended accordingly, we could receive students into the universities at eighteen years of age, two years further advanced in their work than they are now at the time of matriculation." It has been a strange (although foreseeable, and predicted by me ten years before it came to pass) misunderstanding which has led some men NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 391 to declare that the college course of four years must be diminished by half. President Butler is the most eminent doctor who has offered this strange prescription. For how would diminution of college courses help the boys who rightly spurn the emptiness of the elementary schools and never reach even the high schools? Also, if two years be saved at the stage where they are worse than wasted, what need for lopping off at the top? Men in real conning towers for the steering of the vessels given into their hands would see such things in their true bearings. President Butler argues that men should not spend twelve years to pass the high school, four more in college, and three or four more in study of a spe- cialty; that such a course requires a man to be twenty-six to twenty-eight years old before remunerative work is begun; and that modern demands on life will necessitate a change. All these arguments are valid and the intended conclusion would be just, if the assumed premise were true; but the premise denies the two main facts : ( 1 ) Twelve years is not needed for and cannot be profitably spent on our elementary and high school courses, and (2) of all persons who have entered American college very few, comparatively, have spent twelve years preparing to do so. Desirable statistics on this subject have never been compiled. The average age of freshmen proves part of the truth, but does not show enough because a large number of young men and women go to college after some years of working to save money or other interruption of continuous schooling. If the associations of universities or the Carnegie Foundation or the General Education Board would gather statistics on the following points and certify the facts to administrators of public schools, valuable service would be rendered: (1) In colleges, find average number of years spent in school (exclu- sive of kindergarten) previous to college entrance; and also, the per- centage of students coming from public high schools. (As no private schools have preparatory courses of twelve years, it would be significant to find their share in the body of youth who seek education beyond the high school stage. ) (2) In public high schools, find the average number of years in school previous to entering the fourth-year class of the high school. I commend the last investigation to every school superintendent in the case of his own high school. It would illuminate his view to find out how few survive his system, and to note that it is chiefly those who somehow skip his "grades" that get through at all. I beg all readers to reflect, also, upon the consequences of retaining 392 NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS pupils for more than one year in the same grade of a twelve-year course. Legitimate reasons often require such delays, but foolish practices con- cerning "promotions" make such an accident at some stage of the course rather the rule than the exception. Think of what it means to stretch out your eight years of elementary school to nine or ten years. Boys are doomed when that befalls them. Beards begin to grow before they escape from a tutelage weak and meager for little girls, often four years younger, who have skipped a grade or two. The boys are right in leaving such schools. Let us consider for a moment the inner workings of a twelve-years course. Subsequent effects, as I have said, may be left to take care of themselves. If we do what is best for the children for the time being, that will include a proper preparation for future opportunities. The last two or three years of the usual eight years of elementary school present the most troublesome problems to both the teachers and the administrators of American public schools. It is mainly in the seventh and eighth grades, and not in the high school, (as is frequently alleged by those who have not investigated the facts ) , that our boys take a disgust for studies and an undue proportion of them leave school. The almost insensible progress is stultifying as well as discouraging. It is more tiresome to mark time than to step out along the pathway. It is hard, also, to make an empty bag stand upright. No statistics can make the truth clearer than it has always been, but certain investigations of the Society of Educational Research should help reform by placing facts beyond the sphere of individual insight. For instance, some of the inves- tigations referred to have proved that children who have completed a course in arithmetic in three or four years stand identically the same examinations better than children who have been kept "studying" the same matter for six or seven years. It is hard to understand how experienced teachers can fail to see the truth for themselves; but it is a fact, howsoever long it may be before all eyes are opened to it, that pupils cannot spend on ordinary text-books the time usually spent upon them, without impairing their powers in every direction besides failing to learn the particular subject-matter. If the same matter were studied at suitable stages with reasonable dispatch, it would be mastered as far as possible for their stage of mental development. Little condensation would be required for the first four grades. All that is needed speaking approximately is to assign the work put down for fifth and sixth years to the fifth year, and that set down for the NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 393 seventh and eighth, to the sixth. It is the easiest, as well as the most needed, school reform. An alternative for consuming' the same time may be glanced at, because a few floundering school superintendents have proposed (and several have instituted) a twelve-years course with elementary school covered in seven years and a five-years high school. Even the ghost of the twelve-years rule is potent! I believe we may dismiss the proposal to spend five years instead of four on present standard high school courses as an innovation not likely to win imitators. No peculiar advantage or skill explains the success in completing in six years standard elementary courses wherever the plan has been intelligently tried. Everywhere all that is attempted in the seven or eight years would be better accomplished, by the same teachers, in six years. There are, however, some points of school management which bear especially on this question, and I will briefly indicate six such points: 1. The strongest and most scholarly (and therefore the best paid) teachers in elementary schools ought to teach the last two grades. Only one critical point seems generally recognized the first grade. The impor- tance of the initial stage is indeed great (though we often hear extrava- gant over-statements about this) and skill for that work is recognized in the matter of salaries; but the last two years of the elementary school, especially the last year, is a stage critical for still more momentous issues, and the requisite force, skill, and scholarship are far more rare among teachers than talent to teach the little beginners as they ought to be taught. 2. It is of prime importance that the question we are considering should not be confounded with the grounds upon which schools are so much censured by physicians. The doctors are right in blaming some schools for injury to the health of pupils; but they are mistaken in the off-hand allegation that the cause is too much learning, over-burdened intellects. I am opposed to "overcrowded" courses and firmly advocate substantial study of essential subjects, instead of dabbling in multiplied subdivisions of topics; but the doctors err when they allege that the crowding of such topics injures the health by overburdening the mind. It is the intelligence itself, not the nervous system, that suffers from such trifling. What, then, is the true cause of the facts which physicians cry out against? The truth is bluntly expressed in the statement that methods of teaching cause pupils to waste the time spent in schools and to devote to ill-guided study the time which ought to be given to play 394 NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS and domestic intercourse. In the elementary school there should be very little home study. It is best, both for health and for learning, not to require of pupils outside of school hours tasks in which they need a teacher's explanation or guidance, but only such as they are able to do without assistance; for instance, their little compositions, work of mere copying, spelling lessons. Other matter it is generally better to read, discuss, and test altogether in school. Older pupils must do more home study; but, even in the high school, the definite tasks thus assigned should not often be more than one hour's concentrated application would accomplish; for to this has to be added such work as compositions and the collateral reading belonging to some subjects of study, work which in its nature suits times of more leisure than the set periods of school hours, and which older pupils ought to regard rather as interesting and stimulating occupation for evenings and Saturdays than as a burden. Progress is not retarded, it is accelerated by such methods. It is a mistake to suppose that children can learn more studying ten hours a day than studying six or seven hours a day. On the contrary, children advance more rapidly and more thoroughly by active application during the shorter pediod, than by attempting to extend study over time prop- erly belonging to recreation and rest. Family conversation, music, games, enjoyable books ought not to be crowded out of the evenings at home. Certainly the school needs no such sacrifice. If pupils come to school each morning expecting to learn in school the greater part of the progress destined for that day, they will set to their work promptly, whether in periods for quiet study and the teacher's individual suggestions, or at times for class instruction. The habit of concentrated and rapid thought will develop. Nor will a pupil who feels that he has much to do in a short time be thinking of mischief. On the other hand, if pupils come to school with the feeling whether justified or deluded, that they have already "learned their lessons" and are ready to show the fact to an inquisitor (called teacher), or if they come with the feeling, dismayed or defiant, that they do not know the lessons they ought already to know, then, equally in either case, such pupils do not arrive at school in the attitude or spirit of learners, and only by accident and unintentionally do they learn as the hours drag along. Instead of the interest in new developments after questioning upon yesterday's work is over, felt by children who look forward to learning today's lesson, these children, who look backward to everything, sit waiting to be "called NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 395 on," either with a vain desire to display what they learned last night, or with a sinking hope that the period may end before last night's neglect is exposed both sorts tempted the while to mischievous diversions. Neither a text-book nor a teacher can think for a pupil any more than he could breathe for him. Knowledge is never, except in a faulty figure of speech, a thing received as an accretion, or to be digested and assimi- lated; but it is always an act to be performed, a power passing from potentiality into actuality, and teaching is wholly and solely prompting and guiding one to perform certain acts. These statements, trite as they are to the philosopher, express truths whose general recognition by teach- ers would work instant reform of many errors which now defeat the zealous labor of thousands. It would then be realized that it is the office of a teacher to teach today's lessons; and American homes would be relieved of the veritable blight from which they now suffer in the exces- sive "home study" required of young children. And the conditions under which weary and justly irritated parents attempt to do the teaching at home to sleepy and equally irritated children, and teachers "hear recita- tions" the next day, would soon become a curious anecdote in the history of education. The right test of satisfactory progress of a pupil is that he should always know yesterday's lesson. Today's lesson it is the busi- ness of the teacher to teach him. Having defined what is meant by "teach" this will not suggest to anyone that the teacher either should or could do for a pupil the work that the learner must do, if there is to be any real teaching and learning. 3. Give more attention to individual pupils than is commonly sup- posed to be possible with the large classes necessitated by the scant financial resources of public schools. Unless a class is overwhelmingly large it is possible for the teacher, if alertly working upon such a plan, to observe the difficulties and shortcomings of individual pupils and to give to each the needed encouragement and guidance. The plea of "no time" for such teaching is not valid, because it would be proved by the experience of a month's trial of the plan, that the progress of very nearly the entire class would equal that of its "quicker" half under methods of teaching that leave the "dull" half a hopeless drag. 4. The pitiful consequences of foolish theory and practice concerning "promotions" have been alluded to. The sole proper basis for assigning a pupil to a particular grade is his ability at the time in question. Ascertain that as best you can, and act accordingly. The application of any other criterion whatsoever is preposterous. Neither past behavior 396 NOTE ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS nor past diligence per se, is pertinent to the genuine question. Every school in which "deportment," "punctuality," etc., are used in making the "average" that decides the question of promotion, advertises thought- less mismanagement. If a pupil has been mischievous, will it help him or the general welfare to retain him in a grade where suitable occupation and interest are impossible? Unruly pupils reform spontaneously on advancing to more stimulating work. Almost all boys pass through a year or two of natural resistance to control. It is of comparatively little importance how such recalcitrants are punished for overt acts, if they are promoted according to ability to understand the studies of consecu- tive grades. On the other hand, docile deportment is in itself no quali- fication for promotion. These statements are self-evident, but they point to a widely needed quickening of dry bones. 5. Marked changes in subject-matter and methods of instruction and discipline ought to differentiate the stages of elementary school and high school. Nothing would operate more effectively to retain pupils in the high school (the stage of results) than intelligent recognition of the won- drous changes in capacities and dispositions wrought by nature about the time when the elenientary school course is finished, if an inordinate time is not required for that course. The standard of six years for elementary school, four years for high school, and four years for college or university undergraduate course, correspond admirably to natural stages of develop- ment of a normal individual entering such a system in the seventh year of age. It is especially significant how accurately six years for the ele- mentary school fits the physiological and psychological development of the normal child. Among the minor, but not unimportant means of suitable demarkation between the elementary school and high school is the stopping of the "grade" names with the end of the elementary school, and calling the high school classes first-year class, second-year class, third-year class, and fourth-year class. These simple names are more appropriate to a, high school than the collegiate terms, freshmen, sophomore, junior, and senior. This may seem a small matter, but I know by experience that it secures many practical advantages in both internal and external relations of schools. 6. Give the teachers a free hand and hold, them responsible for suc- cess. The substitution of regulation for genuine organization in the pro- fessional life and work of teachers grouped in one school or school sys- tem, is a tremendous obstacle to efficiency. This is an intensely practical NOTE ON ELEMENTAEY SCHOOLS 397 point; nothing bears more immediately upon results. In many schools each teacher feels concern for only one small segment of the school's work, having no comprehension of, responsibility for, or authority in the whole. Not infrequently lack of organized co-operatin engenders positive habits of suspicious, repellant, or antagonistic attitudes on the part of those who ought to be co-workers. The fault lies mainly, and almost always, in the superintendent or his predecessors. Its consequences are not confined to poor results in studies, but appear also in the moral atmosphere of the school. It is a sure sign of its existence if pupils conceive that no teacher except the one in whose room they "belong" has responsibility for or authority over them. If it exists, it will be conspicuous in "departmental" teaching. The only serious objection to departmental teaching at all stages is the difficulty, under the conditions referred to, of securing 'team work' and the personal harmony upon which success depends. Good results require thorough co-operation, espe- cially between teachers of consecutive grades. A superintendent is a disorganiz&r who does not lead teachers who have been long under his influence, to sincere co-operation in a natural spirit of responsibility for mutual support. Each teacher should be free in minor arrangements for executing the work assigned, being held responsible for a fair measure of success. Each should know and appreciate the standard of accom- plishment required by the system of the pupils given in charge for the year or term; but consultation with the teachers in the grades next above and next below is necessary to keep the work of each in organized adjust- ment. Beyond the prescribed course of study and standards of efficiency and such schedule arrangements as must be conformed to by all, the superintendent should be an intelligent and sympathetic adviser, not a commander. The following of daily programs carried to minute divisions of time, peremptorily imposed by superintendents, is one of the most deadening influences in over-regulated schools. Along with it goes teach- ing that is almost exclusively addressed to the class as a whole. All are familiar with the usual performance under such methods the teacher's questioning, the raising of hands and answers by insistent pupils, and the laggard rear who hardly get 'in the procession' at all, or soon fall out of it. Over-regulation is the specific symptom of disorganizing administrative control. The genuine organizer of any work for spiritual results must have the power of communicating that feeling for the dignity of manhood and womanhood and that sense of personal responsibility, which are essen- 398 NOTE ON INDUSTRIAL TRAINING tial to true success in such work. Organization means life and spon- taneous co-operation; uniformity, beyond general limits, means death and arbitrary control. I can add only one concluding comment. In order to appreciate fully the immense advantage of completing the elementary course in six years, it must be borne in mind that the vaunted benefits of education are not derivable from the childish studies of the elementary school. There a foundation is laid upon which something of supreme value may be built; but if educational processes are not somehow carried beyond that stage the benefits of enlightenment and breadth of mental horizon and disci- pline of intellectual powers, which are spoken of as the results of edu- cation, are not reached. On the other hand, a good high school should furnish the groundwork of a liberal and practical education. The powers of acquisition and reflection in youth during the years from thirteen to seventeen are underrated. Of course, no deep and specialized study is possible in the high school; but the mental horizon may be sufficiently broadened for intelligent citizenship and for individual dignity and power. The high school student cannot progress very far along any particular avenue, but the vistas of almost all sciences might be opened to him, and he might learn the trend and something of the aims and attainments of the main spheres of human activity. Unless parents will give their chil- dren the opportunities of a good high school, or some equivalent, they are deceived if they imagine that any of the benefits of education, of which they hear and talk so much, are otherwise obtainable. The ele- mentary school prepares children to reap the harvest belonging to the next four years; and a marvelously rich harvest may be garnered in those years. An experienced and observant teacher who should have the rare fortune of teaching in a high school from which the majority of the highest spirited youths have not been excluded by an inordinate require- ment of time preparatory to entering it, could not but be impressed by the quality and amount of what is attainable by unenervated pupils pur- suing a good high school course of study at the suitable ages. NOTE ON INDUSTRIAL TRAINING A few years ago the topic of this note would have been as far removed from the subject of this book as any matter of great social importance could be. The need for effective industrial training is great, but its rational function in society and for the individual has been lost sight NOTE ON INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 399 of amid a babble about "democracy" and "education" in which the latter word is used in a sense so vague and extensive that no definite or sub- stantial meaning is retained. "Not long ago," said Professor Grandgent, in December, 1912, in his presidential address to the Modern Language Association of America, "I listened to a shout of triumph from the head of a normal school. 'At last,' he cried, 'we have got the colleges where we want them! They can no longer dictate to us; they must take what we see fit to give. If we say that four years of blacksmithing make a suitable high school curriculum, then they must accept four years of blacksmithing as a preparation for college.' Here we have an absolute reductio ad absurdum. We can, of course, open our colleges to smiths, and turn them into smithies; but it is hardly necessary to point out that they will then cease to be colleges, and we shall be left with no higher education at all. . . . What should be the purpose of education in a democracy? Should it be solely to fit men and women to perform effi- ciently their daily economic task? That is, of course, an important func- tion, but it cannot be all. Otherwise progress would become impossible as far as schooling can make it so. . . . The individuals we have to deal with are not machines: they are human beings of almost infinite capabilities, destined to be citizens and parents. They must be capable of living the life of the spirit, of appreciating the good things in nature, in conduct, and in art; they must be able to cope intelligently with weighty problems of public policy; they must leave behind them descend- ants who shall be more, rather than less, competent than themselves. The higher we rise in the scale of development, the less conspicuous the purely economic aspect of the individual becomes." That man's character is poisoned at the heart of it who does not appre- ciate highly the generic dignity and worth of every human spirit, but it is folly to talk and madness to act as if every individual could realize in this mundane span of life all generic potentialities. Yet we hear on every side university leaders who stand before the people crying that the college degree is, or is soon to be, within the reach of every American boy and girl! This is sheer hysteria when it is not deceit. The right ideal is that a way to higher education should be opened by the state to all who are fit and able to walk in it; but even the high school must long remain beyond the reach of the numerical majority. It is the ene- mies, not the friends, of that majority who cozen them with banal untruths, and neglect or prevent serviceable institutions which would supply present 400 NOTE ON INDUSTRIAL TRAINING needs and uplifting tendencies. If democracy is to succeed, education must not be degraded to the lowest levels, but as large a part of the people as possible must be lifted to higher comprehension of individual life and social organization. A definite evil and a grave danger confronts us. No man should say that it cannot be corrected, unless he is willing to adopt the terrible diagnosis presented in Emile Faguet's The Cult of Incompetence. Let us hope and lead it, not as a forlorn hope that Faguet's acute and powerful analysis has omitted to take into account conserving forces which may redeem the civilization that seems to him doomed to advancing degradation. Thirteen years ago circumstances led me to make a statement on this subject, which is pertinent to-day. On July 1, 1901, Governor Joseph D. Sayers appointed me State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Texas, and on the 27th day of that month a circular was issued from which the following is quoted: Manual Training in the Regular Schools, and Industrial or Trade Schools. The problem of Industrial Education, as it is called, is just now of special importance in Texas because of the agitation for immediate legislation on the subject. If this movement can be wisely guided, benefit will result; if not, incalculable damage. To judge from the greater part of recent public writing and speaking in connection with the movement referred to, there is urgent need to discriminate clearly the distinct nature and purpose of the two things which are called, respectively, Manual Training and Industrial Training. Manual training is an educational question, to be decided pro or con as you would decide for or against the teaching of Latin or chem- istry, and on the same fundamental principles: it is for a prince's son as well as for a blacksmith's. Industrial training, on the con- trary, is not strictly an educational question at all: it is related to educational work merely as questions of hygiene, poverty, home en- vironment, etc., are related to it. On its own merits it is an affain of social economy and morals. Manual Training. I value highly the educational usefulness of manual training regarded not as a rival but as a help to other studies. I believe the effect on character may be bracing and profound; that it is a natural stimulus to the self-activity which is the aim of the whole educational regimen; that power is developed by expedients NOTE ON INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 401 not otherwise available (wood-turning requires boldness and foresight forge-work regulation and reserve of power, and so on) ; that the intellect and the artistic sense are duly stimulated and have full play; and that interest is legitimately secured and healthfully maintained. Now, it may not be a great or vital question that every school should at once enjoy the advantages of a manual training department, but the advantages are real and manifold when rationally utilized. . . . Attention might well be given to organizing and correlating with manual training the perfunctory use now made in most of our public schools of singing and drawing. Space forbids any extended discussion of the matter, but I am convinced that a means for uplift- ing and brightening social and individual life in this commonwealth has been indicated in this passing suggestion. The dearth of vocal music among us and among our children is as sad for the present as it is ominous for the future; and the stupid and insincere tasks put upon our children in jangling upon pianos only make the situation worse, so far as the true pleasure and benefits of music are concerned. Industrial Training. Industrial training is a totally different ques- tion: primarily, it looks to the teaching of handicrafts, of trades. Crafts of a more intellectual or scientific order constitute the sphere of technical schools. Trade schools have no more and no less to do with education than with religion; yet there are practical con- nections between the true schools and industrial training schools which recommend organic relations and unity of control. . . . Partial Solution of the Problem. I think industrial training can be provided where the need for it is most urgent without draining the resources of the schools. ... In all our cities where buildings and teachers are duplicated and reduplicated for the same grade, industrial training could be instituted forthwith without increasing the cost of maintenance. This plan, moreover, would positively benefit the schools proper by relieving them of pupils to whom the schools do little good, and who do harm to the schools. [There is place and need for reform schools in which trades are taught, but every stigma of any such reference should be far removed from the trade schools of which I am speaking. While it is true that many pupils who from lack of capacity or interest get no good in the regular schools, would be led to the trade schools, it is also true that many of our soundest boys would prefer genuine trade schools. Elementary trade 402 NOTE ON INDUSTRIAL TRAINING schools would in due time lead to good secondary technical schools, but could not lead directly to any good college.] Present conditions do not satisfy the needs of those who, whether from poverty or choice, will not take even the instruction of proper elementary schools; and how to render this large number true service is a difficult and dangerous question. The industrial training of such children is a subject of vast economic and social importance, and peculiarly important in regard to the negro population. But the question is most urgent in the cities, and I have pointed out an easy solution in them. Meanwhile, it is needful that all true statesmen give the most serious study and consideration to this subject, and see to it that they are not carried away by any 'half-baked' schemes to set up industrial training at the expense of the educational work of the state. . . . Our civilization needs, and needs urgently, some sub- stitute for the discarded system of apprenticeships which was the means devised and practiced by our forefathers to an end for which we must now devise some improved means. ... I trust that our city school systems may, sooner or later, and one after another, set apart such of their buildings as may suffice to begin the experiment of practical industrial training. As I have said, this need not add to the whole cost of maintenance, and it would help, not hinder, the true schools; and would, at the same time, meet one of the greatest and most urgent needs of our civilization, in providing a way for the training, as skilled laborers, of an important part of our population, which under existing conditions is left to meet this life's struggles almost wholly unaided by the educational and economic system of the society which must ever depend so largely upon the virtue, hap- piness, and efficiency of this now neglected part. Trade schools, frankly instituted as such, would be infinitely better than the introduction into elementary schools and high schools of that which is now going by the name "vocational education." Among other faults of the latter may be mentioned the fact that its vague devices are not truly vocational. The teaching in our elementary schools, espe- cially, needs thorough reformation,* and much of it should be along the lines vaguely intended in the demand for more practical teaching; but *Cf., p. 29. Also, Note on Elementary Schools, pp. 386-398. NOTE ON INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 403 the term "vocational" adopted by those who are stumbling to appease a threatening discontent is worse than a misnomer, for it represents a mis- conception of both the faults of commission which should be corrected and the omissions which should be supplied. No instruction suitable for children in the general elementary schools could be properly termed vocational. No rational conception of democracy is infringed by trade schools for those who need and prefer them. Every sane democratic feeling should be satisfied with the attendance by children of all sorts, for a few years at least, in the common school; and the regular elementary and secondary school system is open to all. It is but recognizing the inevitable to meet the need for an early divergence of lines of training. To refuse this can only mean for many no substantial training at all, and for many others ill-suited and probably injurious schooling. My hopes for occidental civil- ization are based upon prospects of the rise of what has been called the democracy of individuality; that is to say, a society, not of persons in- creasingly like each other in all respects, but of persons increasingly spe- cialized in some respects particularly in respect to efficient work for their own and the general livelihood. All present tendencies are not leveling down to the possibilities of uniformity. I see conditions that may compel even the most ignorant and the dreamers to appreciate and uphold distinctions in native ability and specialized preparation. Such inequalities are founded in nature and appear necessary for the perma- nence of any civilization. Even ranting gainsayers of all this are already talking about the present time approvingly (though with characteristic unconsciousness of their contradictions) as an "age of specialists." It has been well said that a society of equals or similars, each as complete as any, would be like a heap of sand composed of particles which do not cohere, and that any political house built upon it must fall. Whereas, a society of dissimilars is like the rock composed of particles which com- plement and cleave to each other, and a political house built upon it may stand. Within the last ten years some encouraging development of trade schools has taken place in a few public school systems; but the weak device mis- called "vocational education," after ramifying through the public elemen- tary schools and high schools, has insinuated its tentacles upwards and is now sapping the vigor of our institutions for higher education. The struggling colleges and the state universities have been most encroached 404 NOTE ON INDUSTRIAL TRAINING upon. There is no reference here to the technological departments and schools or to the professional schools of the modern university, but to the dilution of undergraduate academic curricula with a flood of "vocational" courses. Also, universities (especially those located in cities) may prop- erly encourage attendance by students of any age in any courses for which they are prepared, who work, either as apprentices or foremen, in shops and factories or other occupation; but there ought to be no thought of university degrees for such students, unless such irregular studies be con- tinued to a presentation of the full quota of legitimate courses for a degree. If external shop-work does, in any instance, really make an equivalent of genuine college study, the fact would take care of itself by reducing the time and effort required in mastering such courses. In general it is a prostitution, and commonly it is a fraud, to give credit toward degrees for industrial* occupation outside of college. The same principles apply to the so-called vocational courses, within the college, on boy-scouting, millinery, etc. Some such courses would be trivial anywhere; some ought to be left to trade schools; others, if offered, should be for voluntary attendance without "credit." If the present drift or stampede, as the case may be in many state universities is not checked and reformation begun, they will soon find themselves as bereft of confidence and esteem as lacking in usefulness. Their scramble to please "the greatest number" can end only in pleasing nobody. "What we term 'vocational training,' " says Professor Grandgent, "being the most 'practical' and offering no considerable difficulty to the pupil, is now first in favor. . . . As a supplement to education or as an apprenticeship for those who must remain uneducated, I believe it is destined to render great service ; but let us not make the mistake of calling it education. It should prepare a boy to succeed in his business; probably it will, when it is better developed. But it affords no more education than is to be derived from the business itself. When we say that 'life is a school,' we are conscious that our phrase is a figure of speech: 'voca- tional education' is another. Perhaps the worst feature of it is that 'vocational' subjects are so apt to be chosen, not from vocation, not with any intention of preparing for a career, but merely for the purpose of avoiding real study." Professor Grandgent lays the blame for these con- ditions on a "psuedo-pedagogy" and "a host of pseudo-educators too unin- structed to know any better." "An easy career," he says, "has been opened to young men not overburdened with wit or learning. Having collected NOTE ON INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 405 some information about school administration and the history of peda- gogical speculation, a set of arbitrary formulas, some bits of dubious psychology, and, above all, an imposing technical vocabulary, they are accepted as prophets by an equally ignorant public and given control of our schools." The public is, of course, not to be blamed for ignorance of technical matters which can be understood only after deep preparation and thorough study; its fault has lain in a propensity to regard all men as equally competent to execute any plan, and deem itself competent to dictate a plan for any purpose. The infatuated attempt to break continuity with the past, which in recent years has become almost hysterical, has wrought a general confusion and has submerged discrimination in all spheres. "By our neglect of the past," says Professor Grandgent, "we have cut ourselves off from standards of all kinds, and hence, like the new-born moth, are attracted by the first glare. Dante had a word to say on this, many centuries ago: 'Just as the man who has lost sight of his bodily eyes has to depend on others for the distinction of good and bad, so he who possesses not the light of discrimination always follows after the shout, be it true or false. . . . And inasmuch as the habit of any virtue, moral or intellectual, cannot be assumed at once, but must be acquired by practice, and they practice nothing but their handicraft and bestow no care on other things, it is impossible for them to have judg- ment. . . .' This is a passage to be meditated by our professional edu- cators. There was a time when schools attempted, at least, to cultivate discrimination and to furnish the material on which selection can be founded; but in these days of Vocational training,' when pupils are en- couraged 'to practice nothing but their handicraft,' it is, in Dante's words, 'impossible for them to have judgment.' And it is inevitable that in their blindness they should follow false guides; for the loudest bellow is sure to issue from the windiest prophet, the biggest blaze from those luminaries that would rather be flashlights, and dazzle for one instant, than gleam as modest but permanent stars in the sky.'They that be wise,' says a once popular book, 'shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever.' But none of this for our Futurists, Post-Futurists, and Neo'a of every description . . . The aggregate of knowledge, at the present day, is greater than ever before; but the large share-holders in this knowledge are no longer in control. Leadership has been assumed by the untrained host, which is 406 NOTE ON INDUSTRIAL TRAINING troubled by no doubt concerning its competence and therefore feels no inclination to improve its judgment. . . . Never before were condi- tions so favorable to the easy diffusion of a false semblance of information. Cheap magazines, Sunday supplements, moving pictures have taken the place of books. Quickly scanned and quickly forgotten, they leave in the mind nothing but the illusion of knowledge. . . . The more widely education has been diffused, the thinner it has been spread. We have now reached a stage where it seems to be on the verge of reverting to the old system of apprenticeship to a trade." For my part, I take heart of grace from abundant evidence that "the untrained host" is troubled by doubts perhaps of its own competence, probably of its demagogues, certainly of its educators. One thing is sure: The university abdicates its highest obligation when it merely listens for and tries to satisfy popular demands. It is an essential duty of a uni- versity to determine what is needed, and then to endeavor to lead individ- uals and the whole people to want what they need. STUDENT LIFE AND WORK 407 VII. STUDENT LIFE AND WORK. As a separate subject the title of this chapter would require an entire book for an adequate treatment. The life and work of stu- dents is the vital outgrowth of the government and administration of institutions for higher education which is at once the purpose and the test of every properly conceived plan for organization or management. I say the outgrowth, not the creature, because the spirit of nascent manhood in its matriculants and all previous in- fluences of home and school and society are not inert data to a university, but a potent reacting factor co-ordinate with its own influence. It is impossible to regulate the process by arbitrary rules, and everything pertaining to it should be conceived and conducted in that spirit of respect and delicate self-restraint proper to all dealings with living things. If educators in this country were half as respectful of the youths and young men they under- take to guide and develop, as experimenters with plants are of the objects of their developing guidance, no need for any such book as I have attempted to make would exist. Undergraduates. The American university has had, in this regard, a more difficult duty than the German university, because of the need, with us, to make a transition in one institution from a degree of control suit- able for our "freshmen" and the freedom proper for our "seniors." Here is a real difficulty, but nothing impossible. The need is absolute and the duty imperative. There is no occasion to alter the American plan of advancing to a higher institution after the stage of our standard high schools, which is doubtless better suited to our needs and spirit than the German plan would be. We have discussed this question, see page 387 et seq., especially page 391, but it may be added here that Professor Paulsen, after describing 408 UNDERGRADUATES some injurious effects of prolonging too far into the life of German youth the prescribed curricula and school-discipline of .the gymnasia and contrasting that plan with the American college, says: . "We cannot get away from the institutions which have grown up among us. But I fail to see what would prevent us from essentially approxi- mating this [the American college] system in our methods, and it seems that we are moving in that direction. . . . Let us go further, let us accentuate the division in our class system between the upper and middle classes (Unter- and Obersekunda) ; let us give more scope in our upper grade to individual talent and initiative, so that special zeal and success in one branch, or in a group of related branches, will condone for a rela- tive lack of success in other branches not so well adapted to the student's capacity and inclination. For example, let us reduce the requirements in mathematics in the gymnasia for those who do not like this branch, with the proviso, however, that they do correspondingly better work in the ancient languages; or, on the other hand, let us abate somewhat our insistence upon correct Latin in the case of those whose talents point them to mathematics and physics. Or, better still, let us form a select class in each group into which it would be an honor to be received. It is the spontaneity of acquisition which gives value to knowledge, not the extent and uniformity of its possession. . . . The university can also make an effort to bridge the chasm from its side. And here, too, the process has already begun; the constant increase of exercises, especially the estab- lishment and perfection of exercise courses for beginners, in addition to the seminars for the advanced students, will be serviceable for this purpose.'' "< This judgment of the most eminent exponent of German univer- sity work and ideals concurs with that of the great London Com- mission on University Education,* and with various facts and arguments submitted in previous chapters. It is the administra- tion, not the fundamental conception of the American college and university, that is at fault. The scope of this book must confine its concluding chapter to a few aspects of student life and work closely related to the organi- *See page 283 et seq. UNDERGRADUATES 409 zation and administration of the institution.* Aside from such considerations, there is no room for any extensive or descriptive treatment of this last topic. Many references to student life and work have occurred in previous chapters, which may be located by consulting the index under the title Students, and other titles such as Athletics, Freshmen, Elective System, Graduate Departments, Lectures, etc. I wish I could refer readers to a vital book on student life in the United States of America, but if any such book exists I am not aware of it. The best I can do is to advise all (especially students) to read Paulsen's The German, Universities, particularly its Book IV, on "Students and Academic Study/' pages 263 to 378 of the translation** by Prof. Thilly. The differences in institutional arrangements in the two countries should not obscure the essential principles, nor will differing social adjustments con- fuse, for an open mind, the universal characteristics of courageous and refined manhood. "All experience," says Frederick Denison Maurice, "is against the notion that the means to produce a supply of good ordinary men is to attempt nothing higher. I know that nine-tenths of those the university sends out must be hewers of wood and drawers of water; but if I train the ten-tenths to be such, then the wood will be badly cut, and the water will be spilt. Aim at something noble. Make ) r our system of education such that a great man may be formed by it, and there will be a manhood in your little men of which you did not dream." The value and true serviceableness of a college or university is not proportional to its bigness but to the character and durability of its inspiration. The first test of its merit is to ask, in the words of Ulrich von Hutten, whether "die Luft der Freiheit wcht?" are the winds of freedom blowing? On the part of administration, such a condition is to be secured mainly by wisdom and care in recruiting the faculty. After the *Cf., page 84. **Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. 410 FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY prerequisite scholarship, the fundamental qualification of a professor in an institution for higher education should be the character and enlightenment that restrains men from abusing legislative power; and there should be among them some who share the feeling expressed by Fichte in one of his lectures: "I frankly confess in the position in which Providence has placed me I should like to contribute something to diffuse among men a manlier mode of thought, a stronger sense of dignity and worth, a more ardent zeal to fulfill their mission . . .; so that when you will have left these halls and will have been scattered over the entire land, I shall know you to be men, in whatever parts of the world you may live, men whose chosen friend is truth; who receive her when she is driven out by the world ; who publicly protect her when she is slan- dered and culminated." It was some years ago, before matters had reached their present pass, that President Andrew D. White said: "The preliminary education which many of our strongest men have received leaves them simply beasts of prey. It has sharpened their claws and whetted their tusks/' The period of self-education, if it is ever to arrive, arrives naturally about the time of college entrance. It is most important that parents and instructors should understand this. They should, also, know that (using Paulsen's words) : "Freedom is the pre-condition of self- education and culture. Freedom from outward compulsion is, therefore, the symbol of student days." The only proper problem is how to arouse in the inner man the self-responsibility that is the counterpart of freedom. This problem can never be solved by the sort of men who have brought to pass (as distinguished from those who have weakly allowed themselves to be circumvented) the presently prevailing arbitrary, vascillating, and excessive regulation. Nor will it ever be solved by those who see in young men only their deficiencies of information and experience, and cannot discern the new-born powers: unless himself a man of rare power and genius, every DISTINCTION BETWEEN LAW AND EDICTS 411 university instructor ought to recognize in a few of his students a caliber superior to his own. It is one of the many contradictions characteristic of the present confusion that a time in which children have been cast out to an unprecedented license, is marked by excessive peremptoriness toward young men and adults in general.* Members of college faculties who do not know how to govern little daughters as to how often, at what hours, and in what company they go to picture shows, have undertaken to fix the number of times a young man may call in one month at the chapter house of a friend! Many so-called universities have surpassed the political riot of law-making. This fact, I take it, is partly due to their seclusion and lack of respon- sibility. The economic effects of the edicts of our legislatures puts some curb upon the political law-makers. I say edicts of our legislatures. It is an instance of the conse- quences of the break with the past that knowledge of what has hitherto been the meaning of law no longer remains among those who are so busily putting extemporaneous edicts in the place of *0n the other hand, discrimination has been grossly lacking in some who advocate freedom when it is unseasonable as well as when it is seasonable. If say such heedless ones the elective system and self- responsibility are good in the college, they must be good in the high school and in the elementary school. So are nurtured the little anarchists ; and when an anxious citizen protests against, for instance, a "strike" by children on account of the removal of a teacher, he is likely (often through mere inexpertness ) to extend his censure to the free election of studies in colleges. No less a man than ex-President Taft recently slipped into this identical confusion: "We are giving our boys and girls too much freedom. . . . We have had the ridiculous exhibition of school children striking because a favorite teacher was transferred and weak-minded parents looking with pride upon the courage and enterprise of their off- spring. ... A mistake of the same kind was made in our univer- sities in the adoption of the general optional system." Eminently right is his censure of the unseasonable liberties; but it may at least be said that, whether a mistake or not, freedom of study in universities is cer- tainly not the same mistake. The best general answer is given in those words of ancient wisdom: "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose." 412 DISTINCTION BETWEEN LAW AND EDICTS all law. They do not know what classic writers mean when they speak of "reverence for law," or of "a state governed by law." Constitution would be the only word in their vocabulary that might suggest the meaning of law, although our constitutions have come to deal so much with particulars, and to be, therefore, so subject to amendment, that they are almost as extemporaneous as the edicts or decrees of an arbitrary ruler. The supremacy of law means essentially the protection of the individual and minorities against the will of monarchs or majorities. This very idea has become almost incomprehensible to our politicians and teachers of civil government. Yet all tEe old phrases about reverence for law are retained, as if that could be reverenced which is always on the point of being changed.* Where laws are revered they are changed reverently. It becomes necessary from time to time to alter laws or to enact new laws, but where there is any right con- ception of law** this will be done with many precautions and due deliberation. "This distinction," says M. Faguet, "between true law, that is *Our federal Congress during the ten years ending 1909 considered 146,471 bills and enacted 15,782. During the same period the British Parliament considered 6251 bills and enacted 3822, and the Parliament considers and acts upon a great many subjects not dealt with by the Congress. Our state legislatures and direct amending of state constitu- tions add enormously to the pandemonium of emergency proclamations. Yet it should be borne in mind that the autonomy reserved for the States of the Union was the only bulwark that could protect a republic of con- tinental extent against being swept by one plebiscite into disrupting inno- vations. When rash reformers have precipitated one State into some folly, its bitter experience may save all or some of the others from the same mistake; or if the frenzy spreads from State to State, the time required allows some to be convalescing before others are infected. This principle is expounded in classic works and was understood several generations ago by all well educated men and was familiar to a great many of the unedu- cated. **"Owing to some chance arising out of the nature rather than out of the intelligence of mankind," says Montesquieu, "it is sometimes necessary to alter laws, but the case is rare and when it does arise it should be handled with a reverent touch." DISTINCTION BETWEEN LAW AND EDICTS 413 to say, venerable law, framed to endure, a part of a co-ordinate scheme of legislation, and an emergency law which is merely a decree like the wishes of a tyrant, constitutes the whole difference, if we could realize it, between the sociologists of antiquity and those of to-day. By the term Law, the ancient and the modern, sociologists mean two different things and this is the reason for so many misunderstandings. When he speaks of law, the modern sociologist means the expression of the general will at such and such a date, 1910, for instance. The ancient sociologist would consider that the expression of the general will in the second year of the 73rd Olympiad was not law at all but a decree. ... A 'constitution/ therefore, to adopt Aristotle's terminology, is a state which obeys laws, that is to say, laws framed by its ancestors."* 'Describing present conditions in France, Faguet says: "New laws are made for every little daily incident in politics. . . . The dominant faction only makes laws to protect itself against an adversary who is, or is thought to be, already in the field, or it introduces a hurried, ill- digested reform under the pressure of an alleged scandal. . . . Every- thing that happens in the morning is dealt with in the evening as it might be in the village pot-house. The legislative chamber is an exag- gerated reflection of the gossiping public. Now it ought not to be a copy of the country, it ought to be its soul and brain. But when a national representative assembly represents only the passions of the populace it cannot be otherwise than what it is. In other words, modern democracy is not governed by laws but by decrees, for emergency laws are no better than decrees. A law is a heritage, consecrated by long usage, which men obey without stopping to think whether it be law or custom. It forms part of a coherent, harmonious, and logical whole. A law improvised for an emergency is merely a decree. This is one of the things that Aristotle saw better than anyone. He comments frequently upon the essential and fundamental distinction between the two, and explains how it is as dan- gerous to misunderstand as to ignore it. I quote the passage where he brings this out most forcibly : 'A fifth form of democracy is that in which not the law but the multitude has the supreme power, and supersedes the law by its decrees. This is a state of affairs brought about by the demagogues. . . . The many have the power in their hands, not as individuals but collectively. . . . And the people, who is now a mon- arch, and no longer under the control of law, seeks to exercise monarchical sway, and grows into a despot; the flatterer is held in honour, this sort of democracy being relatively to other democracies what tyranny is to WHERE THE WINDS OF FREEDOM BLOW Although, in the nature of the case, there was a necessity for a new constitution to begin a new order, George Washington and Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson had substantially the same conception of law as Aristotle. Objection to change as such is almost as foolish as contempt of the established as such; but, evidently, the obligation rests upon innovators to understand and to consider the purpose and effect of any institution they propose to abrogate. Today the majority of those who lecture officially or gratuitously about civil government and civic duties appear to be as ignorant as they are contemptuous of nearly every consensus sapientum in the sphere of their rash adventures. In the atmosphere of an unspoiled university in which the winds of freedom are blowing, the faculty depends, and depends safely, on the older students to be the most effective influence for the right guidance and control of student life. Even in regard to the choice of studies, "sensible older fellow-students," as Paulsen says, "are the most accessible and perhaps also the best advisers.' 5 Cardinal Newman, in his lectures on the nature of university edu- cation, explains how "the youthful community will constitute a whole, administer a code of conduct, and furnish principles of thought and action." "It will give birth to a living teaching which in course of time will take the shape of a self-perpetuating tradition, or a genius loci which haunts the home where it has been born, and which imbues and forms, more or less, and one by one, every individual who is successively brought under its shadow." Of course, instruction by and close personal contact with the mem- bers of a free and competent faculty are the paramount forces in the right development of the student; but when a youth enters a other forms of monarchy. The spirit of both is the same, and they alike exercise a despotic rule. . . . The demagogues make the decrees of the people override the laws, and refer all things to the popular assembly. . . . Such a democracy is fairly open to the objection that it is not a constitution at all. ... If democracy be a real form of government, the sort of constitution in which all things are regulated by decrees is clearly not a democracy in the true sense of the word.' " GENUINE ADVANCE BEYOND SECONDARY SCHOOL 415 university the time* has come for him to form himself into an independent personality. If such development is ever to take place in him, it must come through Ms own self -activity and (generally) before he is twenty years old. It is for this reason that liberty must be given. The student years in a true university ought to be freer from external compulsion than any later years of business and family duties can be, because the youth must be exposed to freedom at this stage if independent personality is to exist among grown men. As Paulsen explains: "The pupil in the high school has a definite amount of work assigned to him every day; the university student selects his field of study, his university, his teachers, and the lectures to be taken. And he also assumes an independent critical attitude towards what he hears or reads." We have in this not a choice but a necessity if any genuine advance beyond the high school is to be made. There is no other way. If you keep the young men pupils, you cannot have any students at all. It only remains for the university teacher to inspire, by the value and force of what he offers, that industry which is the best safeguard against all minor vices; and to inculcate, chiefly by his own life and character, that self-restraint, self-reliance, and re- spect for the personality, liberty, and privacy of others, upon which all great virtues are founded. The objections offered against freedom to choose studies are thoroughly characteristic. It is said that the youths will choose worthless "snap" courses if not compelled to do otherwise. Com- pelled by whom? By the men who authorize or deliver those worthless courses ! It would be to laugh, were the issues less grave. The predicament is not helped by the mere fact that there yet remain in every faculty men who offer worthy courses; for until the present tide is reversed, the same majorities that now authorize credits for degrees for the "snap" courses would dictate all pre- *Cf., pp. 270-272. 416 A SUICIDAL MISTAKE Scriptions. There can be no remedy until the strong men and genuine scholars will rouse themselves from their slough of despond, and instead of saying "What's the use?" and absenting them- selves from faculty meetings or sitting silent as deans introduce incessant vagaries will study this matter and then boldly denounce all foolishness and deceit, and resist the log-rolling for numbers by misgoverned department?. Unless the proper men find courage to do this, they will soon find as little of outward respect for their call- ing as they now have of inner satisfaction. To talk about confining his interest to his science and letting his university go to the dogs, is not only a craven policy, but also a suicidal mistake by every man who has thus closed his ears to the call for resistance. The case is desperate for the majority of state -universities (and .ill universities are more or less involved) unless such men will rise from their lethargy. They are able to whip out the trafficers and money changers from their temple; but to do so they must feel that just indignation which puts coward fear far from a man. In regard to personal conduct, attendance on exercises and lec- tures, etc., the need of proper modifications for the undergraduates in American universities has been pointed out. Eeasonable regu- lations for dormitories and requirements for regular attendance are proper for "freshmen"; but care should be taken to allow increasing freedom so that the "seniors" may go naturally to the full freedom that belongs to the later stages of university life and work. As I have stated, the proper problem for the faculty in this matter is how to arouse the self-responsibility which is the right counterpart of freedom; and this general view of the funda- mental principles must be closed with the following passages from Professor Paulsen's book: "Responsibility is the correlate of this freedom. The less of external compulsion there is, the more imperative is the duty of self-control. Who- ever confounds freedom with license, misunderstands its meaning; it is given to the individual not that he may do as he pleases, but that he may learn to govern himself. DANGERS TO BE CONFRONTED 417 "The danger of missing the right road is not small. Many do not know exactly what to do with their time; they try one thing, then another; glance into this science and then into that one; pick up one piece of work, then another, only to drop it again. We ought not to judge of this attitude too harshly. Not infrequently such a state of vacillation is due to an instinctive desire to come into touch with things and men; the time is not lost if the nature of the student is broadened and he gradually succeeds in discovering what is suited to him. Sensible older fellow- students who have gone through the same experience and have found themselves, are the most accessible and perhaps also the best advisers. "Others are encouraged by such freedom and the difficulty of making a start, to abandon themselves, for the time being, to taste the joys and pleasures of student life in an indiscriminate and aimless sort of fashion. That, too, may be pardoned.. . . In case new and vigorous impulses for work spring up after a moderate period of rest and abandon, . . . the experience will not be without its value, teaching that it is not possible to ground one's life and happiness upon love of pleasure. "The danger becomes acute when, accustoming himself to a life without work and duties, the student gradually sinks into a state of inertia, which, occasionally interrupted by good resolutions and futile attempts to carry them out, finally degenerates into a kind of chronic exhaustion of the will. It is a danger to which the more indolent natures are exposed in our system. The suddenness of the transition from the long, rigid cur- riculum of the school [see pp. 408-409] to the absolute freedom of a course of study wholly left to the individual's own judgment and energy, helps to magnify the danger. And then the feelings of discontent and weariness which are inseparably connected with a life of idleness lead to the use of the various narcotics by means of which human beings seek to disguise the inner emptiness of their lives. Fichte has described this phenomenon: 'Laziness is the source of all vices. To enjoy as much as possible and to do as little work as possible, that is the problem of the depraved nature, and the many attempts which are made to solve it are the vices of the same.' . . . "I mention still another danger of freedom; the degeneration of youth- ful exuberance into spiritual unbridledness and unrestraint. Goethe de- scribes it in the second part of Faust. . . . Wuo will not think of Nietzsche? . . . It is true the fermentation of the student days evap- 418 HONEST DEGREES orates, not infrequently with astonishing rapidity; but the wine is in consequence often not the best. . . . "It is enough to have suggested the false and deceptive notions of free- dom. True, freedom is that alone which Plato contrasts with the un- bridledness of desires; the rule of the divine part of the soul over the lusts and desires, the feelings and passions of the 'irrational' part. The purpose of academic freedom is to achieve this inner freedom in the battle with oneself and one's environment." If the right general principles be comprehended particulars will usually be rightly determined. Also, the majority of the men who have participated in the particular mistakes referred to in this book are quite able to apply any fundamental principle clearly understood by them. But they have not taken the trouble to reflect comprehensively upon these matters. They are responsible for them, but they have timidly surrendered them to officious per- sons whose aim is ever-increasing numbers and whose method con- sists in floundering appeals for popularity. It might naturally occur to one familiar with the inner currents of university affairs, that the main temptation to innumerable errors would be removed at one stroke if the undergraduate degree were abolished. Hypothetical ly that is true; and, of course, Ger- many does very well without baccalaureate degrees. It would be comparatively easy for honest men and scholars to uphold a fair standard for the doctorate if the preceding period and work were not corrupted by the prizes-for-all policy. But no such simple remedy is practicable. Little as the fact is recognized by present- day reformers, it is extremely difficult to break away from an insti- tution that has grown up in the life of a people, unless it be a matter over which popular passions have been excited. In this case probably the only way out is to be honest in administering the degrees which custom requires of our universities. In its inner management every college and university is contin- ually on trial in this matter, but many of them were recently put to an open test by an inquiry submitted to a large number of col- HONEST DEGREES 419 leges and universities (from a conference between their own rep- resentatives and representatives of a number of medical schools), asking each whether it would be willing to make arrangements to confer its A. B. degree on ex-students who completed "two or three years' college work and one or two years in a Class A plus medical school." Prompt responses were not numerous, but they were typical. One answered that it was already following the plan with one medical school and would be pleased to make similar arrangements with any school of the class mentioned; other re- sponses made by presidents were pro and con; one university faculty took action, and sent the following admirable answer: Be it resolved, . . ., 1. That we are glad, in so far as it is possible, to arrange our courses in biology, chemistry, and physics so as to meet the admission require- ments of the best medical colleges. That we are now doing this is evi- dent from the fact that our graduates are readily admitted to the medical school of Johns Hopkins University. 2. That we will co-operate with the medical schools in every Avay practicable to eliminate duplication of work in college and medical school whenever such duplication exists. 3. That we do not regard a year in a medical school as having the same purpose or being in any sense equivalent to the senior year in college; that we regard the two fields of education as essentially different and distinct. We are therefore opposed to any plan whereby the bachelor's degree shall be given upon the completion of less than four years of college work. This institution stood the test. Its sane and faithful action is not only pleasing but also encouraging, because the majority of the institutions waited, perhaps, to see "how the cat would jump" and some of them may be strengthened to be likewise faithful. The medical schools, like other professional schools, do confront a serious difficulty in the inordinate time required by the usual public school system and college course combined. But how would that real difficulty and abuse be remedied by conferring an un- earned academic degree? If a student goes to a medical school 420 A SUGGESTION TO UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS after only freshman and sophomore college work, or without senior work, the true worth of his preparation for the given medical studies, and of the latter themselves, are what they are; he receives the M. D. degree. Why, in the name of honesty, should anyone wish the college degree to be gratuitously added? Such immoral- ity would not be possible in reputable institutions, or in normal young men, except as the consequence of an insidious corruption wrought by the theory and practice exposed and discussed in pages 333 to 349 of the last preceding chapter. Real remedies have also been explained pages 387 to 398 (especially page 391) and pages 353 to 357. The eight-years elementary school has been our colossal error : two years are worse than wasted there. Also, proper freedom and "credit for quality" (according to the plan of the University of Missouri, for instance) would allow the undergrad- uate degree to be earned by men of sufficient ability in three years. There is nothing sacred about the four college years as a period of time. It merely means, or ought to mean, that fairly strong students may do the work in four years. It ought to be a corollary that exceptionally strong students might finish in three years; that any attentive student might fail without reprimand or re- proach and might repeat diligent efforts to win credits as long as he desired; and that decidedly weak students should never receive degrees at all. Negligence at earlier stages should be subject to discipline; later, unless wanton and excessive, it need receive only its natural penalty of failure. Undesirable students would elimi- nate themselves from strong courses (and so from the institution) far more effectively than deans eliminate them from cheapened courses by "dropping" a few scapegoats. If I may address only one word directly to undergraduate stu- dents, I will submit a suggestion of the importance of the industry of the minute not only for ease and success in college studies, but as a life habit. It is, also, at even' stage of life, the best guard against all minor vices. If this item of life-wisdom be heeded in GRADUATE DIVISION 421 youth, both the accomplishment and the pleasures of life will be greatly enlarged. Among the younger generation of men who profess scholarship I observe some who have never read a great book and few books of any sort. They have looked at passages in some great books and have read articles about them, but a whole volume is too much for them. Had such men learned how to use the minutes, this intellectual timidity would not have weak- ened them as it has, nor would they as teachers have brought up a generation of students who would be dismayed if a book were assigned for collateral reading students who expect only a para- graph on a given page to be assigned and not too many of them. This attitude and practice has developed many men who try to pass off rumors of culture and scholarship, gathered from magazines and fragmentary references to the literature of special subjects, in place of the vital and comprehensive grasp which could easily have been attained by better courage and the industry of the minute. Most men have had plenty of time during youth to read, independ- ently of school or college tasks, all the greatest monuments of universal literature (which is the surest way to become a free and strong man), and during manhood to read all the most important masterpieces of their specialties re-reading the while everything in the former pasturage that appealed most vitally, as recalled in after life. Every important book should be read (at least for the first time) as an organic whole; no great or valuable work can be otherwise comprehended. With the industry of the minute, youth and man may do all this and yet give much more time to gracious intercourse with friends and family and to rejuvenating relaxations than is usual in our present civilization. Graduate Division. Eecognition of the fact that post-baccalaureate studies and re- search are an essential feature of a university came slowly in this country. The principle is no longer disputed, though practice lags sadly. The Association of American Universities requires a strong 422 GRADUATE DIVISION (comparatively) graduate division as the chief qualification for membership. Advantages of the commingling of undergraduate and post-grad- uate students have been indicated in a previous chapter.* Presi- dent Eliot always championed this principle. He says, in discuss- ing the elective system: "It is another object of a broad elective system to mix students of the different college classes together, and to mix graduates with undergrad- uates. . . . Almost every course of instruction largely resorted to in colleges where the elective system is broad contains graduates, members of all the college classes, and special students all mixed together. . . . This mixing of students of different ages, and different academic status, is an unqualified advantage; provided that all are united in a common purpose to master the course they are attending. . . . The correct- ness of the principle laid down by anticipation in 1872 [at Harvard] has been abundantly demonstrated. Graduate and undergraduate students are to be found together in scores of the courses of instruction now [1908] offered by Harvard University. . . . The grouping of students of vari- ous ages and various academic standing by their subjects of study has certain valuable social effects. It leads to intercourse among students based on like tastes and intellectual interests. There is no better starting point for a college friendship than sympathy in an intellectual pursuit, or than a common devotion to an interesting teacher. ... A pre- scribed course alike for all leaves no freedom to the student in his studies, and imposes on him no responsibility. Here as everywhere else, it is only under a rggims of liberty that the individual can acquire the capacity for self-direction and self-control, and the sense of responsibility for his own conduct. A college in which a good elective system prevails furnishes instruction in great variety, offers guidance and aid in the work of the student, and holds rigid examinations; but it throws the responsibility of selecting his fields of work on the student himself." True university teaching does not deal necessarily with advanced subjects, but consists in treating even elementary subjects in an advanced (that is, philosophical and scientific) way. There ought See pp. 283-286. Cf., also, p. 328. DEPARTMENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES 423 to be no other sort of teaching in a college. As far as my observa- tion goes, only men who do no true university teaching hold that a course (when it has no definitely prerequisite course, or none such has been omitted) cannot be suited to students of different rank. I have never heard a university professor or a preacher who com- plained of his trouble to avoid "talking over the heads" of his hearers, whose hearers did not complain that he hit them "below the belt." The college teacher who has never noticed that some freshmen are stronger and more mature than some seniors is a poor judge of intellectual ability. In the graduate division, as at previous stages, the need is not for arbitrary statutes but for worthy courses. Offer strong courses of instruction and research, worthy of credits for the Ph. D. degree, and do not give unearned credits, and everything will take care of itself to far better effect than could result from any arbitrary requirements whatsoever about the rank of students to be admitted. Unprepared students would seldom attend such courses; and if a course be worthy of credit toward the doctorate, certainly there can be no valid objec- tion to crediting it toward the baccalaureate. Intrkisic prerequisites for every course should be upheld by the department concerned. If a department, whether from de- ficient scholarship or lack of sound morality, is unable or unwill- ing to do this, there is DO remedy except to recruit its faculty with better men provided the organization of the department is as it ought to be.* Of course in many cases the department is organized to give a "head of the department" dictatorial power, with associates divested of power and responsibility; first correct such malorganization, and the same men may promptly develop sound policies and practice. Responsibility for the instruction and the research and the poli- cies of each department should in due part be imposed upon and fulfilled by every member of its staff. This is the essential prin- *See section Department Organization, Chapter V. 424 DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION ciple, and any form of organization that precludes this proper relation will cause (in the long run) all the disorders manifested separately and at various stages in the particular cases presented by many different universities. A travesty of this principle is often voiced in sentimental drivel by some upholders of the con- tradictory usurpation, when they protest how much they wish their powerless subordinates would "feel" an interest in the de- partment and in the university, and so forth. The true principle is no such soft affair; also, if rational interest and responsibility were felt, the proper reform would be stoutly demanded and quickly obtained. Those who do the university's essential work should constitute the primary source of authority, conditioned only by the state or community or corporation maintaining the institution. The proper relation between the state or corpora- tion and the faculty is the natural foundation for right organiza- tion; and faculty participation in the government of universities is, therefore, the most fundamental of all needed reforms.* The internal abuses of departmental organization are more preposter- ous, but they are less fundamental and could be far more easily corrected. The following extract from an article by Professor J. B. John- ston. University of Minnesota, describes characteristic vices that tend to develop out of the prevalent departmental organization. It was not given in Chapter V, because (through the deferred and impeded completion of this work) that chapter was printed before his article was published in Science, December 26, 1913. It is pertinent, however, again at this point. As shown in Chap- ter V, some of our strongest universities have recently reorganized their departments in the way we advise. Also, the reader will understand that the conditions described by Professor Johnston are in many cases only partially realized. His generalizations, *See pp. 118-135. DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION 425 however, truly indicate the tendency of the form of organization in question, and are fully experienced in some typical cases. "A head of department may carry on for years policies which are not approved by a single member of his staff; may absent himself from all teaching ; may neglect 'to do any research work or contribute anything to the advancement of his science; may pursue constantly a policy of selfish aggrandizement for which the department suffers both in the esteem of the university and in the decrease of scientific work which the members of staff can do; may deliberately sacrifice the interests of the students to his personal ambitions, and may in these ways cause constant friction and great waste of energy throughout the college all this while maintaining a pretense, or even a belief, that he is a most public-spirited and useful member of the faculty. The head may conduct his department in such a way as to make research impossible and even drive men out of his depart- ment because they do research, all the while that he himself talks of the importance of research. . . . He may suppress the individualism of his staff members, ignore any suggestions which they may make, and dis- miss them if they insist upon their ideas. He may falsify the reports as to the teaching and other work done by himself and by members of his staff. If subordinate members of the staff have different ideas as to the conduct of the department they are overruled by the head, and if any ques- tion of bad policy or of injustice is brought to the stage of investigation by the president, that officer is governed by the principle that all matters of testimony must be construed by him in a light as favorable as pos- sible to the head of the department. The president is bound to do this because he is dependent upon his heads of departments for information, advice, and executive assistance. The 'heads of departments' thus become a system which involves the president and from the toils of which he can not easily extricate himself. "It is a matter of common knowledge that in some departments no member of staff is asked for his opinions or is encouraged to hold or ex- press independent views, that younger members of the faculty commonly dare not express themselves publicly or go to the president or dean in matters in which they differ from the heads of their departments, and that generally the department head assumes that the decision of any ques- tion resides with the 'responsible head,' regardless of the views of his subordinates. There is no way in which the members of staff can influ- 426 DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION ence the policy of their department, there is no channel by which the facts can be brought effectively to the notice of the president or govern- ing board, and there is no assurance in our present form of organization that the welfare of the staff or their opinions as to the welfare of the university would receive consideration if opposed to the desires of the department head. . . . "These heads have in consequence come into control of the sources of information to the executive, have jealously guarded their great powers, and are able to direct departmental and university policies through hold- ing the president in ignorance and their subordinates in contempt. In other words, university control has come to be vested in a system of irresponsible heads of departments. . . . Its more serious effects are that it lowers the efficiency and the moral and spiritual tone of the whole institution, that it wastes the time and energy of whole staffs in order that the head may take his ease or satisfy his ambitions. Moreover, tak- ing away from faculty members the responsibility for the conception and execution of university policies is the best possible way to break down the practical efficiency of these men and to reduce the college professor by a process of natural selection to the impractical, inexperienced hireling that he is popularly supposed to be. Whether this is in part the cause of the wretched teaching which is done in our universities and of the lack of standards of work and of character for the student, I leave you to judge. . . . "The internal organization of the university should have reference solely to efficiency in teaching and research. The organization should be created by the members of the staff by virtue of their sovereign powers within the institution. The first natural subdivision of the university is that into departments based upon the relations of the fields of knowledge. The process of subdivision of subjects and creation of new departments has gone too far and must be reversed. Under the old order of things the only way for a man of parts to gain recognition and influence which he was capable of using, was to become the head of a department or the dean of a college. This accounts for the creation of many new depart- ments and schools for which there was no need. Administration could be simplified, duplication of- work, apparatus, books, and supplies could be avoided, and a closer correlation and a better spirit and more stimulus to scholarly work could be secured by the creation of larger departments based on close relationship of subject-matter. DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION 427 "The staff of such large departments might number ten, twenty, or more men. In the nature of things the organization within such a de- partment is based upon the personal interest of each member of the staff in the success and welfare of the department, and its object should be to place the resources of the department in the fullest degree at the com- mand of the student and to facilitate research. These things can be secured only where there is harmony among the staff and where the ideas of the staff are carried out in the administration of the department. "All important business should be done in staff meetings. The chair- man should administer department affairs according to the decisions and by the authority of the staff and should represent the staff in relations with other departments. Within the department there should be the greatest practical freedom of the individual in teaching and research, to- gether with publicity of results. Subdivision of the field covered by the department, organization and assignment of work would be done in staff conference. Publicity regarding the number of elective students, percent- age of students passed and failed, average grades given, research work accomplished, and so forth, would furnish opportunity for comparison, friendly rivaly, self-criticism, and improvement of the work of each teacher. "The first step toward improvement of the organization of state uni- versities would be the organization of department staffs to bear the re- sponsibilities and to direct the work of the department through an elected chairman. The second step would be the gradual combination of smaller into larger departments. The next important step would be the breaking down of the boundaries between colleges on the side of teaching and in- vestigation, making each student perfectly free to study where and what he will, subject only to the regulation of departments and to means of gaining his own ends. Some present schools and colleges would take again their proper places as departments, others would be dissolved. "Simplification in university work and administration is the crying need next to independence and responsibility of the members of the faculty. The endless red tape of business administration could be largely done away with by the logical completion of the budget system. The budget having been made by the governing board, each department should be perfectly free to expend its own quota of funds by vote of its staff with- out supervision or approval of anybody and should be held responsible for the results secured from year to year. Nobody can know so well how money should be expended as the staff who are to use the things pur- 428 DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION chased, no one knows so well where to get things or how to get them promptly when needed, none feels so directly and keenly the effects of misuse of money, none will so carefully guard its resources as the de- partment iself. ... In establishing common storerooms, purchasing agents, and the like, the first and chief step should be to ask of the mem- bers of the staff throughout the university, how can the administration help you in your work through such agencies as these, instead of thinking how these agencies can remove from the departments the ultimate control of their work. Time and money may be wasted at a frightful rate through fear to place responsibility and confidence where they belong a fear which is well-founded on our present system of irresponsible heads of depart- ments. "Simplification in the administration of teaching would be favored by the dissolution of the colleges and the setting free of the elective system under a few simple regulations as to the combination of elementary and advanced courses and of major and cognate work which would be neces- sary for an academic degree, and as to the prescribed curriculum in a professional course. "What is needed is fewer regulations and better teaching; fewer snap courses, fewer substitutions and special dispensations; less care for the poor student and more food for the good student; less interest) in sending forth graduates and more measuring up of students against standards of honesty, industry, and self-judgment. . . . "Our universities are laboring under a bureaucratic form of govern- ment in which the initiative rests cheifly with the heads of departments, in which there is a constant struggle for power among the bureau heads, in which these same heads are the chief source of information and ad- vice to the executive, in which most of the faculty have no voice in fram- ing policies, and in which at its worst the student is concerned only to be counted and the public only to be milked. The extreme of degrada- tion is reached when research is wholly neglected and teaching is regarded as only the excuse for material aggrandizement. "The bad state of affairs which we see every now and then in this or that department or college in all our universities can not be regarded as the free choice of any average group of men. I can not conceive of any of these things being voted by members of a staff. . . . The remedy is to recognize the primary interest of every member of the staff and to establish representative government in the university. On the whole and in the long run the combined judgment of the members of the staff of THE FACULTY'S PREROGATIVE 429 any department is sure to be better than that of any individual. Self- government stimulates individual initiative and calls forth ideas for the common good. The enjoyment of freedom and responsibility will make of our faculty morally strong and practically efficient men, and will call into the profession capable men, men robust in intellect and imagination, in- stead of the weaklings who now barter their souls for shelter from the perils of a competitive business world. "It may be true in a legal sense that the state through the board of regents now hires the members of the university faculty. But men to do university work can not be hired. Those of the faculties who now do university work do it not because they are paid living wages, but because they love the work. It has been one of the great fallacies of human his- tory to suppose that workmen can be hired. When you hire or enslave a man you secure only mechanical service. The world's work can not be done by hired muscle alone, but requires personal interest, moral char- acter and entire manhood. . . . Freedom of speech and complete self- government are necessary to the best interests of a university. A whole staff is together more capable than any one man. Suppression of staff members who speak without authority of the head is the suppression of truth and initiative. It has resulted and must result in the selection of weak men for the faculty and in narrowness, bigotry, and provincialism in the institution. Self-government will draw strong men into the fac- ulty, will stimulate initiative, will make possible and encourage progres- sive administration, and will bring to mental endeavor on the part of both student and teacher the freshness of the morning air, the pursuit of a goal of one's own choosing, and satisfaction in the achievement of one's ideals." I trust that this extract from Professor Johnston's article ma} 7 help to convince all readers who are in any way responsible for the government of an institution of higher education, that wise and courageous men for the needed leadership would arise in almost every faculty, if such organization as is advocated in this book were instituted. It is the only way out. Advisers to the contrary, who assert that the men who constitute the faculties are incompetent to take part in either the management of their own departments or the government of the university, generally indict 430 RESEARCH themselves as the selectors of the unfit persons; but their opinion has been too broadly inferred from the character of the individuals who aie brought into prominence and overtempted by a wrong organization. They do not realize that the more competent and upright men, seeing themselves powerless and their counsels dis- regarded (if not flouted), have withdrawn from avoidable activi- ties, and that their reticence means not ignorance but despair. It is doubtless tme that the highest order of manhood would have shown more of 'the courage of convictions' than has been mani- fested; but it would be unreasonable to expect general self-sacri- fice for the principles involved, or to expect many men to incur voluntarily risk of the embarrassment which an impecunious scholar must face in a social environment such as theirs. Mag- nanimous men will be slow to make a sweeping charge of coward- ice against the enlightened members of our university faculties on account of their quiescence under the existing conditions. The obligation rests on university presidents to lead the governing boards to make the needed fundamental arrangements, and to encourage suitable development within the faculty jurisdictions. A genuine graduate division comprises the specifically distin- guishing activities of a university, and research is the culminat- ing characteristic and aim of this crowning sphere. Its proximity and partial merging with undergraduate divisions, wisely admin- istered, detracts naught from its own opportunities and affords beneficent inspiration to the younger students.* All potential** universities should immediately endeavor to set their houses in order for this vital and paramount part of the work and functions See pp. 280- ; 283-287; 299; 407-408; etc. **The duty of many institutions to cease from deceptive pretensions by making their names and administrations fit their condtion and thus be- come useful colleges instead of being counterfeit universities, need not be discussed again in this connection: see pp. 59-61; 184-. RESEARCH 431 of higher education, and should henceforth live up to opportu- nities that have been more or less neglected or abused. Among such uniTersities (with emphasis on "potential") all our state universities are- to he included. Most of them are erring griev- ously, but for all of them the nature of their foundation points to a possibility of full development. By full development I mean that all work undertaken shall have the aims, and its results have the characteristic qualities of genuine scholarship, not that every possible line of work should be prosecuted. Graduate courses best grow up in established departments. Graduate divisions, espe- cially, should never add new fields for the purpose of competitive advertising.* In the case of universities in one geographical sec- tion, deliberate co-operation should take the place of reckless rivalries. The resources of one faculty might properly make its university a center for the most advanced research in mathematics, another for chemistry or classical philology or economics, as may be to the interests of post-graduate students. Some subjects (e. g., oriental languages, astronomy, forestry, architecture, spe- cial branches of engineering, etc.), might be confined entirely to one of a group of universities. The saving of wasted money is practically important and is a moral obligation; but sound policies in these regards would bring still greater benefits and meet still higher obligations. The usual excuses of administrators for the dearth of productive scholarship in their universities are: (a) lack of funds, and con- sequently, (b) a faculty overburdened by the teaching of under- graduates. It is true in most cases that the funds as adminis- tered are insufficient, and generally faculties are overburdened by multiplied and multi-sectionized undergraduate courses, these are proximate causes. But the originating effective causes are so far and so essentially different, that, if other conditions re- *See page 192. 432 RESEARCH mained unchanged, money might be supplied ad libitum and facul- ties doubled in numbers, without ameliorating the character or the quality or the spirit of the work performed. In cases where wrong organization and maladministration have combined to de- base and confuse .ill activities, the present evil state might be aggravated by immediate increase of resources. Let us face the whole truth steadily: It is true that our uni- versities could, conceivably, spend wisely and efficiently on their graduate divisions more than their entire present incomes; but it is also true that they are already spending more per capita than any other universities in the world, while we cannot truly claim more than a third-rate place in productive scholarship. Would it not be well to find out the cause of this condition before demand- ing more money to spend in the present ways? In an address before the Outlook Club of the University of Iowa (February, 1914), on "The Predicament of Scholarship in America and One Solution," Dr. F. C. Brown, despairing of our universities, advocates separate research institutions, especially for his own science of ph} r sics: "Only the uninformed are in the habit of designating the mere diffu- sion of knowledge as scholarship. . . . Any nation that believes only in the diffusion of knowledge is on the road to decay. ... I believe for any nation that has any hope of perpetual existence that the scholars are the most essential of any class of society. . . . And what is the predicament of scholarship in America? Simply this: the institutions that have attempted to foster scholarship have not lived up to their op- portunities. . . . True enough, our universities have sufficient resources to properly foster the work of a physical institute, and there is an abund- ant supply of men forthcoming. . . . But the difficulty with our uni- versities is one that arises from mixed ideals, particularly in our state universities. ... A university wants scholars, but it wants a large number of students first. It wants more students in order to convince the people of its greatness, so that it may get more money, so that it may establish more departments, and so get more students, and so on. RESEARCH 433 . . . Energy and resources that might be directed toward scholarship are scattered in every direction. . . . The ideal in practice is not how great scholarship, but how thin can it be spread. In other words, there is in our scholarship a strong tendency toward democracy gone mad. . . . If we will admit that our administrative officers generally have no vision of the value of scholarship to the future of society, we can pro- ceed with our argument. . . . "What has been the result of the material growth of our universities on the development of physical science in this country? We have lab- oratories of marble and cases filled with apparatus, and hordes of stu- dents, and a wonderful machine-like system to care for these students. But the efforts and resources adapted to scholarly purposes are not at all in proportion to merit. . . . The demand is for men who will take care of these hordes of students, men who will lead these students by the hand and feed them with a spoon. . . . It is no doubt true that in some instances scholarship is not developed in physics because the members of the department staff are beyond hope of becoming scholars and they either have no knowledge of what tends to develop scholarship or are afraid that some individual might develop who would be a greater man than those on the ground floor. But this latter is pure hypothesis. What is needed is a higher light on American soil. . . . Productive scholarship is the flower of our educational work and that individual who shows tendencies to bloom ahould be allowed the every ounce of his energy to apply in this direction." Dr. Brown has stated fairly enough "the predicament of scholar- ship" under the tendencies which we are striving to check and change, but in my judgment separate research institutions would not be a "solution." Suitably endowed institutions for research have their proper sphere (especially for large problems extending beyond individual lifetime) and are to be highly appreciated, but they could never take the place or fulfill the function of pro- ductive scholarship in universities. The principle applied to the science of medicine by Dr. Victor C. Vaughan in his recent presi- dential address to the American Medical Association applies to all sciences and to scholarship in general : "I have no sympathy with the idea that medical research should be largely relegated to special non-teaching institutions. These have their 434 RESEARCH function and we rejoice in their foundation and support, but the man who is devoid of the spirit of scientific investigation has no place in medicine as student, practitioner, or teacher, and the most elaborate medi- cal training without opportunity for scientific observation is barren. Be- sides, opportunity for medical discovery should be widely distributed. . . . The workers must be many, all must be free to pursue knowledge in their own way, and all must be compelled to prove their claims. . . . "Each good medical school is doing more or less of research which is not confined to laboratory investigators, but is fast finding its way into the hospitals. Indeed, some of our clinical men are now making most valuable contributions. Every medical man should have much of the spirit of research." There should be no need to repeat at this point the arguments that have been presented in different connections* indicating the advantages of a Avide and intimate union of investigation and teaching. The advantages accrue to all interests. Certainly sci- ence has not suffered in Germany from the fact that her leading scholars have been the actual daily teachers of her university stu- donts; and what it means for a people to have its strongest youth come into intellectual contact, fact to face, with its leading think- ers, needs no argument. Those most competent to speak from experience testify that the scholars find their vigor prolonged and their total productiveness not diminished by their teaching. Surely it fits the nature of things that those who are advancing knowledge should instruct the young aspirants to scholarship. Dr. Brown goes too far, in my judgment, when he says that every one capable of research should apply "every ounce of his energy in this direction."' There is no direction in which any man should permanently apply every ounce of his energy. Such a course defeats its purpose. American scholars, however, could hardly be censured were they to revolt against the spirit in which they have been abused and wasted in manv of our universities; 'See pp. 280- ; 283-287; 299; 301-303; etc. PECUNIARY RESOURCES 435 even the indictment, made by some of them, that the American university is "a parasite on the scholarly impulse instead of a stimulus to it"* is not without its lamentable foundations. Limitations of pecuniary resources never justify abandoning the essential sDirit of university work and life; they should merely limit the number of the special fields cultivated. It is not neces- sary that all fields be cultivated by every university; but it is essential that the work in every field that is entered be honestly and worthily performed. Maladministration (springing mainly from malorganization) is responsible for the present evil pre- dicament especially the plight into which the majority of state universities have fallen. The spectacle is before us in typical cases of such a multiplication and needless sectionizing of courses that, with an average of less than a dozen students to each mem- ber of the teaching staff,** the schedules cause the teachers to be "overwhelmed with undergraduate instruction" and allow no time for proper graduate courses or scholarly work. Yet the admin- istrative officers who have framed or compelled the making of such schedules, and whose policies have replenished the faculties with cheap and ill qualified members, see no fault in themselves and are crying aloud that all that is needed is more money. It is not presumptuous to say that I could submit to any large university suffering from the conditions referred to, a budget corresponding with proposed changes in the administration of the curriculum, which, if adopted, would forthwith release large sums for the graduate division and research, and would relieve the faculty of all overwhelming assignments. If, simultaneously, sound policies for recruiting the faculty with competent men as rapidly as jus- *Page 117. **See page 6 of "A Study of the Financial Basis of the State Universi- ties and Agricultural Colleges in Fourteen States," by Arthur Lefevre, issued (1912) by the Organization for the Enlargement by the State of Texas of its Institutions of Higher Education, Austin, Texas. 436 PECUNIARY RESOURCES tice and good faith permitted, were adopted, the whole spirit and quality of the institution's work would soon render an infinitely enhanced service to the commonwealth and to all the proper ob- jects of a university. The principles and many particulars for such amendments are spread throughout this book. (1) Aside from need for money, the large (and nearly always concealed) expenditures for advertising should be reduced as indi- cated in Chapter III. This alone in some cases might supply al- most as much money as the graduate division would know how to spend immediately. (2) Aside from the need of money, courses that have been instituted only for advertising purposes should gen- erally be dropped. Some such courses, as conducted, have been intrinsically as fraudulent as paper soles for shoes or any other trick of commercial knavery. Sometimes nominally proper courses are no better; hut such require strengthening, not abolishment. (3) Some superfluous courses have usually crept into the sched- ules; and where there is need of funds for essential work, a con- siderable number of courses not vicious in themselves should be suspended.* After some experience under more wholesome con- ditions, expansions would he made again more wisely with the increased resources that would come as the reward of better service. Restoration of confidence and appreciation might come slowly for the people are becoming sorely perplexed, but it would come and ample funds with it. (4) The number of sections in the undergraduate courses which are not laboratory courses could be greatly reduced without loss and with many incidental benefits. (5) All "scholarships" paid from general revenue should be abolished. It is certain that evil is mixed with the good claimed for these money gifts; but 1 believe the evil inheres almost en- tirely in the scholarships paid by the institution, as distinguished from those founded by specific donation or bequest. A student See page 46. PECUNIARY RESOURCES 437 loan fund (after the original investment) would be self-sustain- ing, far more helpful, free from the inequities incident to the awarding of paid scholarships, and clear from the moral objec- tions to giving and to receiving the gifts out of public funds.* The scholarships commonly offered to the honor graduates of all affiliated high, schools involving merely the remittance of some small matriculation fee, are not here referred to; they are legiti- mate and may be helpful to the high schools, of some advantage to the university, and not injurious to the recipients. Nor is there objection to unsolicited private endowments for special schol- arships; in particular, memorial scholarships and fellowships seem to project their gracious and benign causes into good effects. But the appropriations for paid scholarships by state universities** which at the same time complain that their resources are not sufficient for the proper performance of their work, constitute one of countless exposures of the belief nursed by their administrators that the public regards only the number of students and will pay for nothing else. The day for a schocking awakening for the op- portunists who have administered universities under this belief appears to me to be approaching. Space is lacking for more details; various other economies have been suggested to an attentive reader. The money that could be saved in the ways mentioned in the preceding paragraph would suffice to relieve the faculty from excessive routine teaching, make some addition to all salaries that ought to be raised, and add equipment for research not enough, but more than the dejected departments have ever yet dared to hope for. This would do *An extract from a report by the Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching given in a previous chapter (see especially page 190) indi- cates the extent of this abuse and reveals something of its inner motives and effects. **Or the "free" scholarships in non-state institutions dependent upon charges for tuition. Cf. p. 190. 438 BENEFICIAL RETRENCHMENTS for a beginning. Substantial increase of income would follow improved results. In some cases it would be better to have re- sources increased gradually, and the needed expenditures for expanding work established in the light of experience with cor- rected organization and more skillful administration. The beneficial retrenchments I have advised will commend themselves to every reader who acknowledges the fundamental principles to which this book appeals,* with one exception. All but one are based on universal principles; the exception may be complicated with technical questions of fact. Is it true, that: "The number of sections in the undergraduate courses which are not laboratory courses could be greatly reduced without loss and with many incidental benefits"? The advertisers make a 'catchy' announcement when they proclaim that their courses have been sectionized so as to allow only some small number in each section and that every student is to receive individual instruction in all of his studies. What does this really mean? It means that the majority of the young students meet only cheap instructors. It means in the case of certain courses, which necessarily have a vital formative importance for all regular matriculants, down- leveling mechanized teaching in order to keep the many sections of the same course in lockstep uniformity. One who would judge the question on its real merits must, also, take into account that the majority of young instructors have been turned out under the "prizes for all" theory and practice,** and that their degrees may possibly be little more than certificates of attendance. Of course, a cheap instructor may be a vastly superior man to some full professor, but in a general view only general facts are to be considered. Freshmen coming to some state universities from good high schools too often find little or no change in subject- *See page 83. **See pp. 341- ; 420. BENEFICIAL RETRENCHMENTS 439 matter or spirit of instruction, nor in the force and scholarship of teachers; while those who come from the best schools are often subjected to more childish treatment and distinctly less forceful instructors than during the latter years of their school life. I have heard many fathers express indignant disappointment be- cause their sons were meeting none of the strong men in the faculty, but had gone from manly inspiring teachers in a prepara- tory school to be fed with a spoon in a university. The vaunted individual attention practically tends to reduce to spoon-feeding and scolding. Under existing conditions much more than money for the grad- uate division would be gained by decreasing the number of sec- tions in undergraduate courses. The tendency to coddle every- body to a "pass/" would be resisted as stronger and officially more independent men, teaching large sections, superseded many of the precariously placed and sometimes arbitrarily supervised instruc- tors with their little sections. Some pedagogical colleagues may cry aloud in protest against all this, but, for the time being, the less they are heeded on questions of general policy the better. There are noble exceptions (may their tribe increase), but few of them have yet found themselves or their subject. Their de- mands have misled many faculties into injurious concessions. An untrammeled faculty of genuine scholars will do good teach- ing regardless of any particular system "preceptorial," small sec- tions, large sections, or any other not intrinsicly absurd. The important practical matter for the time being is to do away with arrangements that are leveling everything to the poorest capacities, with the result that the weakest get nothing worth mentioning and young men of superior power are spoiled or wasted. Proper courses of instruction and proper "crediting" will remain practi- cally impossible as long as the childish attitudes about "failing" are maintained. The degree which it is a disgrace, or a matter 440 PREPARATION FOR GRADUATE WORK of discipline, not to take on schedule time, cannot be a distinc- tion; it must reduce approximately to a certificate of tolerated attendance, and the standard of toleration must tend to sink in- definitely. The incessant complaint by universities about poor preparation for college entrance is abstractly just; but their own preparation for their graduate divisions is much more at fault and a much more seri-ous matter. Also, the best way to amend the former is to correct the latter, because few students would continue in un- desirable attendance on instruction really beyond their grasp, and the secondary schools would quickly strive to meet intrinsic re- quirements for successful attendance without, which no adventi- tious requirements for entrance can be effective 1 .* If a university course is conducted on the theory that evi-ry obedient student rightly prepared for entrance ought to win credit for it in his first attempt, the practical consequence is the undergraduate de- gree for all who will attend diligently: and, since no institution can discount its own solemn titles, the graduate division and the Ph. D. degree are dragged down to abortive work and meaning- less distinction. Here may be seen the real nature and cause of the opinion, now spreading among American scientists, that research needs to be divorced from teaching. It is the application of the "prizes for all" theory to the baccalaureate degree that makes subsequent teaching bootless for the taught, and so onerous for the teacher President R. J. Aley of the University of Maine testified in 1911: "Many students entered the University conditioned because of their fail- ure to offer enough language, science, mathematics, or history. One of the singular things noted in studying the college career of these students is that there is no appreciable difference in college work between the stu- dents who enter regularly and those who enter conditioned. If there is any difference, it is in favor of the conditioned student, because, in ad- dition to his regular work, he must make up the conditions imposed upon him at entrance." SCHOLARSHIP 441 that time and spirit for genuine research are lacking. The ex- hausting labor of coaching mediocre and ill-prepared minds to make some sort of showing in so-called original research for the Ph. D. degree, wastes the time of men capable of advanced re- search and of inspiring to full development fit aspirants to scholar- ship; and this enforcement of low standards saps the integrity of all who participate in it, because thereby science and scholarship are betrayed in a house of false friends. No need for divorcing teaching and research would be felt, if university administration ceased from reckless bidding for numbers, particularly in grad- uate divisions, and from pushing misguided young men into under- takings for which they are not properly prepared, or are, perhaps, congenitally incompetent. A university should indeed be "dem- ocratic" in the sense that from its well-springs drink alike, in perfect equality of manhood, rich and poor, high-born and lowly; but its highest-placed fountains, if reached at all, are in the very nature of the necessary ascent accessible only by an aristocracy of nature and discipline. To attain scholarship one need not be genius-crowned, but he must be power-shod by innate endowment and adequate discipline. There are no more deadly foes of edu- cation and of science and therefore of the whole body politic than those who prate about university degrees "for every American boy and girl." It is of vital importance for the success of any democratic regime that the?e truths be recognized. A democratic society would be doomed to an on-coming downfall if it were to become blind to its need for true universities and regarded them as luxuries for a pampered few. Only a few can be productive scholars, as only a few can be creative musicians; but the debt of everybody to both is plain to all except hopelessly envious souls. How much does society owe to those who have helped to enfran- chise thought and dispel superstition ? Does the passenger on the "ocean greyhound" realize his indebtedness to the men of science 442 SCHOLARSHIP through whose secluded work the design of the great machine be- came possible, and to the astronomers whose Xautical Almanac en- ables it to steer across trackless seas? What were the "toys of the laboratory" worth, which the inventors of electrical apparatus, like Edison, have applied to such universal services? (England paid Farady less than $2500 a year.) Were the fees of a privat docent too much to pay for knowledge of Hertzian vibrations, and our wireless stations? Who enjoys the millions by which agri- culture profits ever}' year from the contributions of even one such chemist as Liebig? Had Pasteur never been, how much would the people pay to stop the pestilences he has prevented? And so with all the scholars who carry on and on the Empire of Reason. They care not that their names are seldom known beyond the circle of fellowworkers,* but they do demand that their workshop be not treated from within as if it were a paradise for fools, nor censored from without as if seekers after truth should report of their findings only things harmonious with popular convictions. The following extracts from a weighty report adopted by the Graduate School of Cornell University in 1910, strongly corrob- orate the counsel submitted in this section. No mere competent authority could be cited. (Most of the italics are mine.) "It must not be forgotten that an increase in the number of under- graduates brings with it an additional burden of administrative work, and that this burden, together with the responsibility of planning the work of instruction so as to handle such large numbers, must fall upon the permanent members of the staff. Unless the permanent staff is in-