Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/459

Rh merely "activity." He has not yet discovered that much of this activity is about as fruitful as the activity of a kitten chasing its tail. His ideal—copied from that of his trustees—is commercial and material. Fruitful or not, the activity must be outward and evident, lending itself readily to advertising purposes; and for quiet unremitting intellectual labor, issuing in broader learning, deeper culture and better teaching, he has scant appreciation. What wonder that more than one teacher has become a mere promoter, letting his department deteriorate most woefully while he assists in the "broader" task of "running the college." Such is the sure road to presidential favor. Were our president himself a college teacher, viewing matters from the teacher's angle, this condition could not exist; but he is a promoter, employed by a group of promoters to advertise this educational undertaking of ours, and he sees the college from the promoter's viewpoint.

Yet even supposing the college headed by an experienced professor, with breadth enough to appreciate the needs of all the various departments, financial ability enough to make a good business manager, and courage enough to fight if necessary for the integrity of collegiate standards; could it under such conditions run smoothly and effectively? Probably not! Probably the man does not live who could fully satisfy the conflicting demands of faculty, trustees, student body and general public. It is time indeed that the student body and general public were left out of account in the consideration of this problem. Current opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, the college that will abandon the policy of inflation will be content with a small student body strictly selected from the available output of the high schools, and will make no effort to harvest as large a crop of freshman as possible, will soon have more students knocking at its doors than it can possibly accommodate. The annual scramble for students is a most undignified performance. It gives the public a false impression of the college, and leaves in the mind of the freshman a most exaggerated idea of his own indispensability in the educational scheme of things. Our college, like others, has cheapened itself in this respect. It is time that it learned its own worth, and realized that it is to be sought rather than to seek. But, leaving student body and public out of account, it may be asked whether our model college president could satisfy at the same time the ideals of the faculty and the ambitions of the trustees. Probably not. It was said at the outset that the disease from which our college suffers is constitutional, and that what it needs is a rebirth, that is to say, a reorganization along radically new lines. To vary the figure, let us say that the old educational machinery was awkward and poorly constructed in the first place, it never worked well, and with the changing demands of the times it works more and more poorly. We in America, inventive enough along mechanical lines, have been strangely uninventive in the organization of our educational institutions. Early in our history there