The courier., 1902-06-28


Students are easily excited. They
are easily melted by an astute profess
sor into active hostility against the
president of the institution in which
they are undergraduates. II the pro-
fessor chances to be a master Of the
department of knowledge he is en-
ployed to lecture upon, the very nature
of the relations between teacher and
pupil converts the undergraduates into
disciples and warm advocates of any
theory the professor chooses to es-
pouse.
There are men born to the knowl-
edge OF relationships. II they are pro-
fessors in a university or superintend-
ents Of any department Of a great
business, they keep the idea Of the
whole before them. There are other
men who magnify their own import
ance and the importance of the depart
ment they chance to be engaged in SUI
perintending. Such men admit the gen.
eral fact that the part Is smaller than
the whole, but when they look at the
department of business or education
which they superintend. they see IL
larger than the whole. They therefore
ask or demand a larger appropriation
for their departments than the inter-
ests Of the whole justify. This Is the
trouble the president Of Columbia is
having with Professor Woodberry.
Students have small personal ex-
perience with the president Of the col
lege they attend. They are "agin the
government" whatever it is, and II re-
Quires only a hint from a professor
who claims to be prosecuted by the
college president to incite them to re-
prisals in the shape Of pre-Adamite
jokes and cartoons of the president In
the college funny papers and derisive
boots and yells directed at him per
sonally IL the students are under cover
Of a crowd or in any other way safely
ambushed from Identification and con-
sequent expulsion
The professor has the point of van
tage. The shrewd teacher ingratiates
himself with his pupils. The tyro who
is learning the technique of any sub
ject looks upon a virtuoso with awe
and worship. II the virtuoso is at the
same time his teacher and does some
thing the youngster has tried to do and
failed, does it with faultless precision.
taste, reserve power and with the aid
of his virtuoso's birth-gift OF genius.
the youngster is enslaved- He Is bound
to serve the master by an oath more
irrevocable than the oath of feudalism.
The youngster knows a little. the
teacher knows a great deal more, but
the youngster knows just enough to
worship proficiency and talent In that
particular branch which he has elected.
The Jester" the Columbia univer-
sity funny paper. contains q number Of
editorials criticisins President Butler
for not allowing Professor Woodberry
what share of the college funds he
thinks proper for the maintenance
and development OF his department Of
comparative literature. To be sure the
students, who are the authors Of the
editorials, know nothing about the com
parative value and COS. Of the different
departments or Of the necessity OF ap-
portioning the funds eQuitably and In
accordance with some standard OF
equality among them. They know only
that their professor of comparative Mt
erature has been refused by the ad-
ministration the sum which he con-
siders necessary to relieve him from
the drudgery Of too severe labor in his
department
George Henry Danton, of the senior
class. has been suspended by Presi-
dent Butler for writing and publishing