Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/461

Rh plant, and the president to a factory superintendent. But there is this difference: The superintendent of the plow factory in our town can make a plow. He knows the details of construction in every department of his factory, has actually done the work himself, and can do it to-day if necessary better than any of his men. On the other hand, the college president knows far less about any given subject than does the professor who is set to teach that subject. He has no first-hand knowledge of the needs of any department. The factory superintendent is an expert directing the efforts of those less skilled than himself. The college president is a tyro directing a body of experts. His very ignorance makes it unsafe to place the power of official life and death in his hands.

As for the trustees, there can be no doubt that they are earnestly loyal to the college and devoted to its interests, and their own careers attest them good business men; yet the business management of our college is notoriously poor. College property that might have been made to return an excellent rental has been allowed to lie unproductive for years, and finally sold off bit by bit to pay running expenses; debt has been recklessly incurred; and there has never been any settled or consistent financial policy. The board, indeed, is too big a body to work well. It consists of twenty-four members when five would be a much more effective body. But the principal difficulty lies in the fact that the time of board meetings is taken up in the consideration of a multitude of problems all of which belong by right to the province of the faculty, and too little attention is given to the matter of finance. Briefly stated, our board fails because it does not concentrate its time and energy exclusively on the one thing for which it exists, namely, the providing of ways and means.

It is easier to criticize an existing system than to work out the details of a new and better one; yet the diagnosis just given suggests the remedy. The number of trustees should be reduced to five or six—of whom the president of the college might well be one ex officio—and their activities should be limited strictly to the investment of college funds, the raising of new funds, and the collection of rents and interest. After setting aside enough of the latter to meet overhead charges in the way of repairs, care of buildings and grounds, etc., they should place the balance with the college treasurer to be paid over to the various departments in accordance with a budget to be worked out by the faculty. The president should be the chairman of the faculty and its public representative, and should have a veto on all acts of the faculty—a veto which the faculty might override by a two thirds vote. The faculty should have complete and absolute jurisdiction over all the internal affairs of the college, and over the budget, subject only to the veto of the president; they should elect all teachers, subject to the approval of the president, and should when occasion demands elect the president,