Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 81.djvu/504

498 its drift is felt by those in the stream and by the onlooker alike, as the sweeping dominance of administration. That temper controls the professorial career, thwarts its development as an independent life-service. The formula of the investiture of the scholar, "with all the dignities and privileges thereunto appertaining," has come to carry a cynical flavor—the privileges often enjoyed as one is said to enjoy bad health.

The prevalent system of university control has been called "externalism." Authority rests ultimately and so far as they choose to exert it, constantly with the governing boards of trustees or regents; it rests dominantly, and by delegation from the former, with the president, intermediately at the latter's discretion with the deans. Let it be conceded that a system often yields to, but yet more constantly determines, or reflects, the spirit of its administration. But as to the nature and effect of the system, I propose to cite others; it would indeed be strange if my conviction of so public a situation should not be shared by kindred observers. To reflect the distrustful and anxious attitude of thoughtful critics, I shall present a considerable series of views touching upon all sides of the situation. I must rely upon the earnestness of expression and the cumulative appeal to carry the full force of the protest, which is necessarily weakened by detachment from the supporting context.

The contrast of the prevailing "American" system with the practise and spirit of other countries is striking. In our allegedly democratic land "university government has assumed a form that we might have expected to see in a land accustomed to kings. European universities have a constitution that might have come from some American political theorist; American universities are as though founded and fostered in the bourne of aristocracy. . . . The polity that we might call monarchic is thus not only frequent in the new-world colleges, but it is stripping away the few lorn shreds of popular control which still remain among them" (G. M. Stratton). "Elsewhere throughout the world the university is a republic of scholars, administered by them. Here it is a business corporation" ( editorial). It is indeed a "departure from our usual American ideas as well as from the scholarly custom elsewhere, that we should have called into existence in affairs of learning a regnant body the life activities of whose members lie outside the realm they rule" (G. M. Stratton). "The American university has become an autocracy, wholly foreign in spirit and plan to our political ideals and little short of amazing to those marvels of thoroughgoing democracy, the German universities" (J. P. Munroe). "The main ends of the university are the same in all lands, but our American presidents and boards of trustees are an indigenous product which can scarcely be regarded as essential" (J. McK. Cattell). In brief it seems that in our superficial democratic zeal we react aggressively to the show of authority and the symbol of distinction,