Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/287

Rh the presidency. And first of all it seems clear to one who "can easier teach twenty what were good to he done than he one of twenty to follow his own teaching "that the first plain duty is to recognize the existence of the situation and then frankly meet it.

A recent inquiry instituted among three hundred professors of science in this country seems to indicate that in the opinion of eighty-five per cent, of these the present conditions are intolerable. This opinion may be entirely wrong, but it behooves even the college president either to disprove it or to accept it. Since he is to-day, by the very nature of his position, an administrative officer and business manager, rather than an investigator, it seems improbable that he will be inclined to undertake such investigation as would give a larger basis for generalization than that already carried on by a college professor. Until such time, therefore, as the college president can broaden the basis of generalization already provided for him by a college professor he should accept the conclusions drawn and adapt his course to them.

This investigation seems to show that what many college professors to-day desire is not more administrative work, but greater legislative power. Time is now frittered away by college faculties in administration that ought to be done by the administrative officer; college faculties wish less rather than more of these responsibilities. But many college professors do believe that every question of legislation that concerns the educational work of the college no matter how remotely or how indirectly should be acted upon by themselves, that they should have representation on the boards of control, and most of all that they should be educationally enfranchised to the extent of choosing their own president. They would probably at the outset agree with Dr. Patton that "the qualities which enter into the making of an ideal college president are very widely distributed," and that "it is their assemblage and their blending in the charm of an engaging personality that creats difficulties and also makes the selection of a college president a weary search." Recognizing the weariness of the search, they would abandon it at the outset and concentrate their efforts on the consideration of what should be the organization, powers and duties of the presidency.

What many college professors also desire is greater community of interest and of action with each other and with their official head. College presidents are wont to boast of the infrequency of the faculty meetings in their own institutions and they seem to believe that one measure of their official success is their ability to dispense wholly or in part with such meetings. Yet what is needed for the good of the cause is not fewer but many more faculty meetings. College professors are tempted, under present conditions, to confine themselves exclusively to their own line of work; they do not make connections with the work of other departments, or seek out relationships between different branches of knowledge, or see things as a whole. The college professor has in large