Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/204

200 the perpetuation of the college spirit and traditions. We have seen that the college without radical administrative reorganization can not "grow into" the university. The supposition that the natural development of the former will, according to the laws of growth, expand into the latter, is an assumption that has resulted in an unnecessary conflict of ideals; as those of the two institutions are not interchangeable. The unfortunate state of affairs is exemplified in more than one of our eastern universities, where we see the members of administrative boards, thoroughly imbued with the collegiate idea, attempting to carry out educational policies that do not conform with the ideals of members of the faculties, who have had greater opportunities for familiarizing themselves with university standards. When the attempt is made to effect a compromise, the efficiency of both institutions is seriously impaired and results in an interminable conflict of interests. The trustees who, as a rule, are unfamiliar with the nature of the university problems, often control its policy through the administration of the finances, even determining the election of presidents and the distribution of sums for educational purposes. As a result of this usurpation of powers the faculty is in danger of becoming merely a body of employees of the trustees, without any power to shape the educational policy of the institution.

The increased emoluments and the excessive prominence bestowed upon executive officers have had a disastrous effect in detracting from the appraised value of the work of scholar and investigator. The great eagerness with which administrative offices are sought for by members of the faculty show how extremely superficial are their intellectual interests. One can not imagine a Momsen, Pasteur or Darwin deliberately putting aside his special investigations in order to become an administrator.

The present system of organization has resulted in a temporary but, nevertheless, serious depreciation of the estimated value of scholarship; and has also given rise to an extreme spirit of Chauvinism, inimicable to the development of those mental qualities that underlie true culture. In executing a plan for the development of the university, boards of trustees defer largely to the wishes of the alumni of the institution. On account of the great and constant influence exerted by the large body of alumni, the older institutions in the east will find that it is increasingly difficult for them to identify their interests with those of the national life. Admirable as are a few of the influences which grow out of the "college spirit," there is a great deal that is objectionable and affords a suitable medium for the development of fixed ideas. The intense emotional reactions of the undergraduates and their more or less absurd sentimental devotion to the standards of a single institution give rise to conditions not specifically different from those that give fixity and undue valuation to many of the ideas characteristic of