Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 80.djvu/327

Rh in this country, it seems to me that some fixed places of standing may be established. In closing this article I will mention the following as among the most important and perhaps they may be summed up in a tentative way, in this sentence: The administration of a large university requires for its most effective conduct two boards or bodies of men, which have largely different functions and for the most part a different personnel, but which are bound to cooperation for the welfare of the university by regularly appointed and trustworthy means of understanding each other's views, necessities, and measures enacted, and by a system of checks that shall operate in guarded ways to make each responsible for its initiative to the other.

Of these two boards which are necessary for the efficient administration of a large university, one should be chiefly responsible for its material affairs. For this reason it should be largely composed of men of sound business principles and experience; but also, as far as possible, of men possessed of a worthy knowledge of the needs and methods of a modern university education and with devotion to high educational ideals. There would seem to be no valid objection to, but much valid reason in favor of, having a small minority of this board chosen from the different faculties of the university. Why should not a professor of business law, a professor of economics, and a professor of architecture or engineering, be useful members of such an administrative body? Even a professor of ethics, if one could be found who combined a firm grasp on moral ideals with a fair amount of practical wisdom, might sometimes serve as a valuable control in the performance of the legitimate functions of the trustees of an institution of the higher education.

It is unnecessary to emphasize the fact that the business administration of a large educational corporation requires the same trained staff of competent and responsible assistants—treasurer, cashier, clerks, etc.—which are required by any other business corporation of equal magnitude; and these paid assistants should be held to as strict account in every respect as that which prevails in the best organized business corporations. If, besides the gifts which are solicited or directed to the endowment or income of a well-organized and well-administered university through the free-will devotion of its trustees, faculties, alumni and other friends, there is pressing need for yet more, it would always be within the province of this board to call to its help especially selected agents for meeting such need. But however the details of collecting and distributing the material resources of the university are managed, and whatever the success which attends their management, it should never be lost out of mind that all their value consists in the efficiency with which they minister to the real ends and promote the realization of the true ideals of a great and good university. These are not in any way necessarily connected with the glorification of any one man or of any