University Missourian. [volume] (Columbia, Mo.) 1908-1916, 1911-01-05
UNIVERSITY MlssouRiAN


1t is needless to multiply examples;
they exist around us on every hand.
lWho, for example, can fail to realize
THAT the inadequacy of the hold which
the Christian religion has, in all these
lcenturies, been able to obtian upon
mankind has been due to the absence
IoI scientific methods in the manage
ment of the business OF preaching?
Had accurate statistics been constant
Ily kept of the number of souls saved
by each minister or priest per annum.
of the amount of time he spent in pa
rochial visits on the one hand and in
preparing his sermons on the other. or
the percentage of attendance at his
iservices, etc, business organization
would long ago have been built up that
would put the Pennsylvania Railroad
and the Standard Oil Company to
shame. And, indeed, We can see in
some professions that even a distant
approach to mechanical systematiza-
ton is capable of producing beneficial
leffects of striking character. In the
matter OF acting. for example, the
modern practice of playing the same
part thousand nights in succession
has effected a revolution in this anc-
lent art We no longer have the
erratic manifestations of mere person
al genius which, in a more primitive
day, caused people to go into childish
Iraptures over Booth or Salvini or
a Garrick: when the manager finds
out what is wanted, he just sets the
actor to work doing that thing night
after night, knowing that in this. as
in all other employments.. precise me-
chanical repetition means the great
est economy of effort and the largest
output. And again, in the author
business. has not everybody observed
the rise that has taken place in the
standard of literary excellence since
the practice of monthly announce
ment of the six best sellers has pro-
vided us with a truly scientific meth
cd of finding out what's what?
While, therefore, the merits of a
proposal to standardiZe our univer-
Istities, abolish life tenure of professor
ships and regulate research speak for
themselves, it is somewhat interest
ing, perhaps, to speculate on the prob
able origin of the idea. And here we
venture a conjecture which We think
must commend Itself to the judicious.
1t is not so much to the defects of
our own universities, We imagine, that |
the scheme owes its inception, but |
rather to the notorious failure of the |
universities of Germany, in which |
these defects have been far more pro- |
nounced. There they have never even |
had such a thing as college presi- |
dent: and the professors have not |
only had an absolute life tenure, but |
have been allowed degree of liberty |
III tCoNhihS th1t 10
This has been going on for generation |
after generation, and everybody knows |
the result. German students have |
been slipshod and inaccurate, and no |
foreigner has gone to German book |
for enlightenment or TO a German uni |
versity for training AS for research, |
these Germans simply run riot; a
German professor will spend years of |
his own time and that of his students
asking anybody's advice or consent. i
And the consequence has been not i
only that deplorable intellectual steril- I
ity to which we have already referred, H
but backwardness in the arts and
industries depending on the applica-
tions of science-the chemical indus
tries, for example-which has made
modern Germany laughing stock to
her, European neighbors. If we wish
to avoid like fate, we must hasten
TO standardize our universities, set
on the. professors, and
guard with scrupulous care against
he spenf.n of either time or money
IN any research that has not secured
he formal approval of the president
If the university, the board of trus-
ees, ad the Consolidated Audit Com.
York Evening Post.
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