Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/274

270 appreciation of what the great educational problems of the day really are, and it has aroused a desire to have these problems investigated by experts in order that the layman may have put before him authoritative data as a basis for discussion. If we have everywhere to-day a passion for education that partakes of the religious fervor of an earlier time it may in large part be explained by this thin entering wedge of alumni representation on boards of college trustees.

The part taken by the state, the parent, the benefactor, the undergraduate body and the alumni is either too slight to have an appreciable effect in formulating educational policy, or it is too irresponsible to be met and discussed in the open, or it is prophetic of future opportunities rather than a chronicle of past achievement.

In the eye of the law the only authority responsible for the conduct of the affairs of a college is that vested in the board of control, usually denominated a board of regents or a board of trustees. The nature and the measure of this responsibility is largely determined by the source of the financial support of the institutions concerned.

Higher institutions of learning are of two general types as regards this support. In universities supported by the state, the members of the board of regents may be appointed by the governor of the state or elected by the qualified voters of the state; in either of these cases, the members of the board hold office for a limited term of years. Colleges on a private foundation are controlled by a board of trustees whose members form a close corporation. They are self-perpetuating and are elected for life, although a recent modification of this plan provides that members of the board are to hold office for a limited term and membership may be automatically changed at the end of a definite period. But irrespective of number of members, term of office, and method of appointment or election, the result is the anomalous one of placing in control of nearly every great and every small institution of higher learning in America a body of men that have no connection with the educational work of the institution, that are not members of its faculties, that are not necessarily numbered among its graduates or its former students, or indeed among those of any other college or university. Yet the control of these external bodies over our educational institutions is absolute in that both the financial and the educational policy come within their jurisdiction, and their control is irresponsible in that they render no account of their stewardship and as a rule they hold office for life, not during good behavior. Technically and legally all-powerful, these external boards of control do not exercise their authority directly, but they delegate it to their appointee, the college president. He thus in his turn becomes all-powerful, not by virtue of original and vested authority but through authority delegated to him by these boards.

It is thus seen that the most important function of this external