Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-03-24
THE GOWNSMAN
The College President

| ~
NO.
And why?' for this was what the
cynic was waiting for.
II should decline, sir. with the stated
reason that | dare not risk the con
sequent moral deterioration.
Now, this is libel on the. college
president, refuted in innumerable hon
orable Cxamples-best of all by the
honored heads of the two great univer-
sities, Cornell aud Pennsylvania, both
of whom have recently declared their
determination to retire after years of
unselfish and useful activity. But the
cynic's remark senses a real danger in
the small, the insufficient man. dressed
in little brief authority, the man
who acquires honor by his post instead
of bestowing honor in filing it.
TNHE Gownsman can say, with his
l. hand on his heart, that he has no
candidate for either the presidency of
Cornell or the provostship of Penn
sylvania. Wherefore, he may express
| himself the more freely and take his
readers into his confidence. Possibly we
may proceed together in this search for
the hypothetical best by way of ex-
clusion.
And. first of all. your Gownsman
would exclude the business man. There
are enough of him ordinarily in any
board of trustees adequately to transact
that important but subsidiary part Of
the university's affairs, the handling of
its finances: and such services, even
| if fully performed. are no more than a
quid pro quo for the honor of such an
association. When one is once mil
liOnaire. IL Is great advantage not to
be an indistinguishable millionaire.
As a university is an educational
institution. not financial one. the
expert wanted in this instance is an
educational expert. not Il financial eX-
pert. This last is readily procurablc
in the markets of the world for the
! commodity which he handles. a college
president is not n money proposition
for in him is needed. besides specific
training, more than money can procure
devotion. the sense of service, high
! loyalty, vision, idealism and the other
qualities of disinterested leadership.
| MYTH the utmost respect to bench
w and to bar. your Gownsman. in this
hypothetical search after the ideal COL
lege president. would, secondly, exclude
this learned profession. He entcrtains
a notion. already broached in these col
umns. that many of our difficulties, po-
litical and social. are referable to the
enormous preponderance of the legal
type of mind in our affairs of state.
The legal mind is trained to prece-
dent and represents in the common
wealth the force OF gravity. The sci
entiic type of mind is acQuisitive and
hoSpitable to new ideas and represents
the force Of progress among us. There
are virtues and limitations in each : but
the first. acting alone. would keep us
eternally exactly where we are. and as
this will happen to our bodies at the
least after death. why not keep moving
while we live and little more speedily
than from precedent to precedent?
In these days of growth and onward
movement a university does not want TO
bp maintained in the traditions of the
past or even kept contented with today {;
! it needs leadership for tomorrow, al
openncss of spirit that will seek out
the best. courage TO make precedents.
not contentment to lag in indiStinguish-
able respectability with the past.
A ND again. it has proved more than
a once dangerous experiment to en-
trust a great university, with its varied
organism, TO any man who is narrow
in his technical or sciehtific training,
unless he has continued. as so eminent
| " has been the case in Provost Smith.
of Pennsylvania. to have preserved the
larger reaches of his outlook ON the
world with all his emincnce in his own
subject
There is either the danger besettilg
the technician who feels the pulses of
the world in the pulses of his particular
machine. or there is that strange aloOf
ness and misunderstanding of the actual
relations Of things which makes Frank
/ Inns Society for the Promotion of
Useful Knowledge look askant upoh
| historians and investigators into litera-
ture as practitioners in a something in
ferior. Nor will your Gownsman be
so unfair as to deny that narrowness
of spirit may be found among such as
should be most liberal for. however dis
avowpd, there is a sustaining sense of
/ superiority in the National Academy
and Institute of Arts and Letters. how
soever modestly we pit our 200 mOrtals
against the forty immortals of France.
ITO LEAVE negatiOn. it would seem
L to the Gownsman that the head Of
great university should be scholar, a
! humaList. an educator in a broad sense
Of that word. not in the narrow sense
of one who tells others how to do a
number of little things in several of
which he has notably failed himself.
The leader of an honorable iustitu-
tion Of learning should be man of
such note. If not celebrity. that he con
! fers an honor on the college or uni
versity which he consents to head; he
should emphatically not he one who.
whatever his amiahilitV his wealth or
his success in something wholly alien to
education. is raised out Of obscurity to
a post which he has to be educated to
| fill.
4 wag once said that the difficulties
attending any attempt to educate any
body began with undergraduates. where
the going was already hard: that the
said difficulties Increased into the com
parative with the alumni. where the GO
| ing was harder that they wHe hard .
est with trustees: but that with col
| lege presidents there was no going at
| all. History does not disclose the basis
Of these observations.
TT MAY be that the specific nceds-or
L may we say. inadeQuacies-of given
board of trustees, in New York or else.
where-may demand that the scholarly
guidance of one or other Of these great
universities be set aside for the getting
of money. And it may be that in some
other case similar imperative needs may
demand q similar sacrifice under durcsy
to those legal qualifications which can
cope best with our legally minded legis-
lators.
But this will not alter the essential
| hat SCHOLAR gHillaI in bn