Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/97

Rh commercial, cultural—and in addition they should have some comprehension of the inner meanings of education. That is to say, they should be men and women who realize that the world moves on, and that education is central in that movement.

They should have, for their services as representatives of the people in the control of the state's highest institutions of learning, a broadly social conception of education, and an understanding of the power of truth, a real love of truth, and a belief in the growth of truth in the life of the individual and the state.

There should be also on this board of control at least one member, man or woman, who understands something about the scientific nature of educational methods and processes, so that the board will be able to determine, by its own intelligence, whether the work of the university is being well done or not.

The members should be able to form for themselves a great working conception of the purposes of a state university and a general working program for such an institution. Such a conception will rightly gather around some such ideal as the following: A state university is a group of men and women of all degrees of general development, from the boys and girls just in from high school, to the mature men and women who may be leaders of the thought and action of the state. Whether young or old, these members of the university should all be students—seekers after truth, sincerely interested in life and its problems. But first of all they should be real men and women, real citizens of the state, and real members of society.

At the lower fringe of the group they may be primarily learners, at the upper fringe primarily teachers; but, both above and below, and especially in the great central main mass of the group there should be a natural and healthy mingling of the two attitudes. That is, they should be students, who are learning and teaching, and teachers who are instructing and learning.

So, all in all, a state university should be a group of men and women who are trained, and are in training, for service in the actual life and problems of the state; who are becoming intelligent in their work, and who are preparing to help the state solve its present and future problems, as true state's men and state's women, servants of the commonwealth and leaders in the constructive, democratic life of the state. And if they are not of this type, then there is no real reason why they should be members of the university, as teachers; and if they can not reach this point of view, there is no real reason why they should remain as students.

There should be, as president of the university, a man of broadly democratic and social intelligence, interested in all aspects of education and capable of understanding the meaning of democratic service for the state. The executive attitude and interests should be profoundly public,