Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/392

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388
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

men to the boards, while the urgency for additional funds has led to selection of men very prominent in all callings—extremely busy men. On the other hand, the extraordinary growth, internally, of the colleges and universities has made no longer possible for the trustee that familiar acquaintance with professors and with the departmental needs which he ought to have. Ordinarily, one finds in a board two or three members who become so attached to some school or department as to give genuine attention to its affairs and who do gain much information respecting it; but most of the others have no leisure, or think they have none. To make this isolation complete, there is no official communication with the faculties except through the president, for cases are very rare in which the faculties have representatives in or before the board of trustees. Unfamiliar with educational affairs, unacquainted with the needs of the college under their care, too often without personal knowledge of the professors or their qualifications, these trustees select a president. Recognizing their inability to perform the duties devolving upon them under the law, they practically transfer their responsibilities to their appointee, and thereafter their principal function seems to be simple legalization of his acts. Although the average trustee of to-day is a far abler man than his predecessor of a generation ago, circumstances have made him far less efficient as trustee; in too many instances he is director in name only and many men seem to assume the office with as little sense of responsibility as though they were to be directors in a corporation of which one man holds a controlling interest. The creature has become greater than his creator and the board of trustees has lost even its old-time efficiency as 'a pipe-line for shekels.'

Effect on the President.—Formerly, the president was to all intents simply a professor with some additional responsibilities for which he received additional remuneration. But the president of this day is very different. His duties have been summed up recently by Dr. A. S. Draper, and the catalogue as given is sufficiently interesting to deserve at least partial reproduction. The president must

see that the property is cared for; that the teachers are efficient; that proper men are found to fill the chairs; that the institution's work is organized properly; that the resources are assigned rightly to the several departments

Decide the lines along which the institution should develop; uphold proper ideals and make them attractive to real men—old and young; be forehanded and peer into the future; initiate policies; puncture fallacious logic and much of it; augment the resources of the institution; make the whole efficient for increasing service; manage and guide students, who must be dealt with individually; construct as well as administer; declare the best university opinion concerning popular movements and serious interests of the state; connect the university with the life of the multitude; exert university influence for quickening and guiding public opinion; be able to work harmoniously with others;

but he must work out his official course for himself.