Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/133

Rh concern us here; what is contended for is a proper assignment of powers and duties to accord with the conditions of to-day as contrasted with those of two generations ago, when most of the great institutions of to-day were little better than are the eastern High Schools. This adjustment would give to the teaching staff its proper standing and the trustees would be guardians of the material interests.

Perhaps this second step should be regarded as the first. It certainly would change in some respects the estimate which some boards entertain regarding the relative importance of trustees and professors. In many colleges, professors have given their services at small salaries, far less than they could have obtained in other directions, have refused calls at higher salaries to other colleges, in not a few instances have reduced their salaries voluntarily and served the college for a pittance, simply to preserve it from destruction. All this they did deliberately, hoping that in the end their college would be placed upon a sound basis and depending upon the good sense of the trustees for proper recognition in due season. Such contributions should be accepted as so much money given annually to preserve the college and the contributors should receive at least as much credit as do such trustees as pay something in actual cash. That this is not the case is well known. When money is received by a college, the trustees should not hasten simply to relieve themselves from their subscriptions, they should share the relief with the professors; and if, at length, sufficient money should come to relieve the actual pecuniary stress and to leave a surplus, common honesty requires that that surplus be devoted toward finally relieving the professors. That done, the time will have come to consider the question of expanding the curriculum and of appointing new instructors. That this is not the view held by trustees of our day is a familiar fact. And yet the condition does not justify any reflection upon the honor of the trustees; it is due solely to the fact that they know little about the professors as men or as workers,—to the constantly widening gulf separating the corporate and educational boards.

In any event, this second step, if taken, would go far toward restoring the profession to its former honorable standing and would go far also toward making possible the third step, which is consolidation.

There are too many academies calling themselves 'college' or even 'university,' with high grade curriculum and low grade requirements, with long lists of pupils in preparatory classes of one sort or another and very short lists of students in so-called college classes. Many of these have no apology for existence aside from the fact that otherwise the religious denomination, which they represent, would have no educational institution in the region. There are in proximity too many feeble colleges, with few college students, with insufficient equipment, with practically no endowment and with makeshift instructors. If a judicious consolidation could be brought about, if the