University administration

Front matter

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSnV

THE N. W. HARRIS LECTURES FOR 1908 were founded in 1906 through the generosity of Mr. Norman Wait Harris of Chicago, and are to be given annually. The purpose of the lecture foundation is, as expressed by the donor, "to stimulate scientific research of the highest type and to bring the results of such research before the students and friends of Northwestern University, and through them to the world. By the term ' scientific research ' is meant scholarly investigation into any department of human thought or effort without limitation to research in the so-called natural sciences, but with a desire that such investigation should be extended to cover the whole field of human knowledge."

Contents

II. AN INSPECTING AND CONSENTING BODY

— ALUMNI INFLUENCE 44

in. THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 81

II An Inspecting And Consenting Body — Alumni Influence

The trustees of an American college or university, whether the institution be endowed or tax-supported, are as a rule ^^one body corporate and politic in deed, action, and name," to use the language of the charter of Dartmouth College given in 1769. This one body holds all the property of the institution, controls its expenditures and its policies, and makes all its laws. Even boards of directors for business corporations are generally less independent and absolute than this educational board. The number of trustees is very various. Thus at Dartmouth College the trustees must be twelve and no more. The original corporators of Brown University numbered forty-seven persons; but the Corporation consisted of two branches, " to wit : that of the Trustees and that of the Fellowship, with distinct, separate, and

A SINGLE GOVERNING BOARD 45

respective powers/' the number of the Trustees being thirty-six, and that of the Fellows twelve, inclusive of the President, who must always be a Fellow. The charter of the Collegiate School of Connecticut, now called Yale University, given in October, 1701, created a body of "Trustees, Partners, or Undertakers [originally ten ministers], together with such others as they shall associate to themselves, not exceeding the number of eleven, or at any time being less than seven." In 1792 the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and six Senior Assistants in the Council were made by virtue of their offices Trustees, or Fellows, of said College; in 1819 six Senior Senators were substituted for the six Senior Assistants; and in 1872 six persons elected by the graduates of Yale College were substituted for the six Senators. The constitution of Michigan provides for the election by the people of eight Regents of the University, elected two at a time every other year, so that each Regent serves eight years. The government of the University of Wisconsin is vested "in a

Board of Kegents to consist of one member from each congressional district, and two from the State at large, at least one of whom shall be a woman, to be appointed by the Governor." In addition, the State Superintendent of Instruction and the President of the University are ex-o£ficio members of the board. The term of office of the appointed Eegents is three years. The government of the University of California is vested in an incorporated board called " The Regents of the University of California." This board consists of twenty-two members, six ex-officio, eight appointed by the Governor with the consent of the Senate, one every other year for a term of sixteen years, and eight chosen by the official and appointed members who also hold office for the term of sixteen years, one member going out at the end of each successive two years. It will be noticed that the term of service in this board is long, and that the renewal of membership is gradual. Since ex-officio members are rarely able to give much time or thought to such a trust; the control of the university may fairly

CLOSE COLLEGE CORPORATIONS 47

be said to be in the hands of sixteen persons, or a majority thereof. This board is provided by Statute (Chap. CCXLIV, Sect. 16) with an unusual sort of secretary, whose extensive duties and large qualifications are minutely prescribed. Under this statute the Secretary of the Regents might easily become the most important official connected with the university.

The board of trustees of many endowed institutions fills its own vacancies, which is never the case in State-supported institutions. Such boards are close corporations indeed. In some denominational colleges and universities the trustees, or a majority of them, are selected or appointed by denominational authorities. Thus, in institutions under the control of the Methodist denomination, a majority of the trustees is often chosen by a group of Methodist Conferences.

However selected, chosen, or appointed, the members of the board of trustees of an American college or university ordinarily constitute a single governing board which is not responsible to any affiliated or independent board, and is not obliged to procure the concurrence or consent of any other body. They therefore need the steady influence of a larger inspecting and criticising body with some concurrent powers, in order that they may escape the dangers of perpetual corporations subject to no external control. When the trustees are somewhat numerous and meet but rarely, because their residences are widely separated, the main body may exercise in an imperfect way this function of inspection and control over the small executive committee to which the powers of the full board are of necessity delegated ; but whenever the board of trustees is of moderate number, not widely separated as regards residence, and consequently diligent and active, it is highly desirable that a second and larger board should be created to represent public educated opinion, and particularly the opinion of the graduates of the institution. This is especially the case if the board of trustees is empowered to fill its own ^vacancies.

In this respect the organization of Harvard

HARVARD BOARD OF OVERSEERS 49

University is a most fortunate one; for the University possesses a second Board, called the Overseers, and consisting of thirty members, since 1866 elected by the Alumni in groups of five to serve six years, together with the President and Treasurer of the University ex-of&cio. Other institutions have endeavored to gain some of the advantages which Harvard derives from its Board of Overseers by contriving the election of some of their trustees by the Alumni, or inventing some equivalent device; but none of these contrivances are as effective as the Harvard Board. The composition of that admirable Board underwent many changes between 1642 — the date of the first Act establishing the Board — and 1902, when the legislature finally placed in the hands of "the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Board of Overseers of said College" the power to determine "what degrees issued by said College . . . shall entitle the recipients thereof to vote for Overseers"; but for more than forty years, since 1866, its statutory constitution has left nothing to

50 AN INSPECTING AND gONSENTING BODY

desire. By statute and custom the Board of Overseers must give consent to the election of every member of the Corporation, — the short title of the President and Fellows of Harvard College, — of every professor, assistant professor, preacher to the University, and administrative of&cer, and of all other officers of instruction elected for terms exceeding one year. They must also act on appointments by the Corporation of directors for scientific establishments, and of librarians. In short, the Board exercises a control over all important appointments within the University. It is also entitled to take concurrent action with the President and Fellows on the adoption of all statutes or standing votes affecting general policies of the University, and on the conferring of all degrees.

The influence on the President and Fellows of this constant need to procure the consent of the Board of Overseers is strong. Every appointment and every statute or standing vote must be capable of defense before the Overseers. The fact that the consent of the Board

HARVARD BOARD OF OVERSEERS 51

of Overseers is almost invariably given to the action of the President and Fellows does not diminish this influence, or have any tendency to prove that the influence does not exist. The President and Fellows always feel that they must be able to make a strong case before the Board of Overseers in favor of any action which requires the consent of that Board; and this feeling is a very wholesome one in a small board the members of which are elected for life. The Board of Overseers may fairly be said to represent public educated opinion and the opinion of the Alumni on all questions of University policy. For many years the Massachusetts Statutes required members of the Board of Overseers to be "all inhabitants within the State " ; but in 1880 this restriction was repealed; so that members of the Board have for twenty-eight years been eligible from any part of the country, or, indeed, from any part of the world. The Board meets ordinarily nine or ten times a year; but in spite of the frequency of the meetings, it has been found possible to take members from distant parts of the country. The existence of the Board of Overseers greatly increases public confidence in the management of the President and FellowSj and this confidence extends to all the functions of the President and Fellows, financial as well as educational.

Besides this right of consenting to or dissenting from all important actions taken by the President and Fellows, the Overseers exercise freely the right of inspecting, or examining the condition of, any and every department of the University. This inspection or examination is conducted by committees appointed by the Board, and these committees may or may not consist, in whole or in part, of members of the Board. All the instruction given in the University is thus liable to be inspected by visiting committees appointed by the Overseers ; and the reports of these committees are made public, or kept private, at the discretion of the Board. The nature of the instruction in any department, and of the examinations held by any department, may thus be made the subject of a public report. It is of course diffi-

HARVARD VISITING COMMITTEES 53

cult to obtain for all departments men, not members of the University's staff, who are competent to criticise the work of university teachers, particularly as the service of the Overseers themselves, and of all the committees that they appoint, is gratuitous. Nevertheless, this function of inspection or examination has a high value, now in one department of the University and now in another. It checks eccentricities, brings out defects, and signalizes merits. The Visiting Committees have authority to examine all question-papers prepared for university examinations, and all the papers written by students in answering those questions. Since at Harvard, as at the American universities in general, the instructors have charge of the examinations in the courses they have themselves given, this disinterested judgment of outsiders on the question-papers and answer-papers may at any time have a high value.

The Overseers' Visiting Committees have, however, a function which is more effective than that of criticism. In inquiring into the condition of any department — as of French, Physics, Zoology, Law, or Medicine — the Committee naturally puts itself into contact "with the teachers of the department, confers with them, and learns from them the needs and hopes of the department as a whole. These needs the Committee, as an impartial body appointed for purposes of inquiry and examination, can put before the President and Fellows, the other academic bodies, and the public much more effectively than the teachers themselves can. Thus the Visiting Committees become instrumentalities for cooperating with the departments in raising money to meet urgent needs, or make improvements. In an endowed institution the cooperation of such Committees in giving publicity to needs and procuring the means of meeting the needs is of great value. Over and over again the Visiting Committees of the Harvard Board of Overseers — now in one department and now in another — have procured additional resources for the University, — sometimes by contributing themselves, but more frequently

HARVARD VISITING COMMITTEES 55

by calling upon public-spirited persons known to be interested in the objects the Committees were trying to promote. The Visiting Committees thus enlarge the circle of Harvard's benefactors, and place in the hands of the President and Fellows new resources, sometimes to be expended for immediate needs, and sometimes to be funded as permanent endowments. At Harvard there were forty-eight such Visiting Committees of the Board of Overseers during the year 1906-07, two Committees having three members, several having four, and the larger Committees numbering from nine to eleven members. The members of the Committees generally have their interest in some department of the University's work much quickened, and this quickened interest they diffuse, each in his own circle of acquaintances ; so that there results a large body of persons who have some exact knowledge of the University's work and needs, and are interested in supporting the University in every way. This system at Harvard is an outgrowth of an ancient practice of the Board of Overseers to appoint committees to attend the oral examinations of the four classes in Harvard College held twice a year, at the end of each of the two terms. When the periodical examinations ceased to be oral, these semi-annual visits from committees of the Board of Overseers were discontinued, and the present system was gradually developed as a substitute. By 1881-82, fifteen years after members of the Board of Overseers began to be chosen by the Alumni, the present system was well under way. It has, however, been continuously enlarged and improved. It is primarily an admirable means of ^ publicity, and therefore affords protection not only against errors or abuses in administration and instruction, but against indifference and sluggishness on the part of the administration, or of any of the academic bodies or officials who exercise delegated powers. Since a university inevitably tends to undue conservatism, a friendly criticising, probing, and stimulating agency can be very useful to it. The organization implies the existence within easy reach

HARVARD BOARD OF OVERSEERS 57

of the University of a large community in which the higher education has long been well established, and public spirit and constructive benevolence towards education are held in high honor.

It is a grave problem how to get the advantages of the Harvard system in a university which has but one governing body, and that a large one meeting infrequently. Something can be done by small sub-committees of this large body; but unless many of the trustees are elected by the Alumni, these sub-committees will not be believed to represent Alumni opinion. Any board of trustees might organize visiting committees analogous to the Harvard Committees ; but committees so selected could hardly command the same confidence as critics and inspectors which the Harvard Committees, appointed by a separate body whose primary duty is supervision, can reasonably command.

The influence of the Harvard Board of Overseers is not exerted through criticism and inquiry only. Their action has sometimes been constructive in a high degree. Thus in 1766 it was the Board of Overseers, and not the President and Fellows, that accomplished the great reform of making the college instruction departmental by subject. Before that date one tutor had been assigned to each entering class, and had taught that class in all its subjects for four years. At the instance of the Board of Overseers, each tutor thereafter taught the same subject, or kindred subjects, to all the four classes. The president and the three professors of that day had already dealt with their several subjects before each successive class j so that all the instruction in the College became from that date departmental. This reform was as fundamental as the similar reform now, made in a high school or academy. In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, it was the Board of Overseers that planted the seeds of the elective system, which was to have but a feeble growth for forty years. It survived, however, and then throve and blossomed. Again, it was the Board of Overseers that, in 1826, ordered that the president of the University should make to

CONSTRUCTIVE WORK OF THE OVERSEERS 59

them an annual report accompanied by a complete treasurer's statement, the report to cover all important acts and events for the year, together with remarks on the state of the institution, and on the measures recommended for its improvement. This report was ordered to be printed and laid before the members of the Board at the stated meeting in January. This order was a piece of first-rate constructive legislation, and has been obeyed to this day with good results to Harvard University and American education in general; for the president's annual report to the Overseers has always described frankly and completely the state of the institution, its defects and merits, the results of its experiments, its progress, and its needs. In so doing, it has put the experience of Harvard University at the service of all other institutions. Again, in the year 1866-67, the Board of Overseers, after a long interchange of divergent views between the President and Fellows and the Board, succeeded in introducing an important change in the distribution of the income of the general investments of the University among the funds belonging to the College on the one hand, and to the professional departments on the other. The President and Fellows had long been in the habit of allowing 5% on the funds belonging to the non-College departments, and appropriating to the College the rest of the income of the general investments. The Board of Overseers procured the distribution of the average income of the general investments to all the funds held by the President and Fellows, after reserving a moderate allowance for the expenses incurred in the care and management of the funds. This measure, which was not welcome to the President and Fellows of the day, has turned out to be a very wise one. It has been highly satisfactory to benefactors, has prevented the creation of separate boards of trustees for special objects at the University, and has exerted a distinctly unifying influence in the whole University administration. No more important improvements in Harvard University have been made in the past one liundred and fifty years than the four above

OVERSEEKS REPRESENT PUBLIC OPINION 61

mentioned, and all four proceeded from the Board of Overseers.

A good example of another mode of action of the Overseers is to be found in the abolition, in 1886, of the required attendance of the students at the religious exercises maintained by the University. For nearly two hundred and fifty years attendance at numerous religious services had been required of all students in Harvard College. The two governing boards came very slowly to the abolition of that requirement. Beginning in 1873, the College Faculty four times declared that, in their judgment, attendance at prayers should be voluntary. The students had twice petitioned that the statute which prescribed attendance be changed. The President and Fellows were in favor of making the change, whenever it should appear that the public opinion of educated men, and particularly of the Alumni, would sanction it. For ascertaining the state of public opinion, the President and Fellows relied on the Board of Overseers. Under the guidance of a committee of the

Board of Overseers, the two governing boards first made a more impressive and interesting provision for the conduct of religious services in Appleton Chapel than the University had ever had before. The Plummer Professorship (then vacant) was filled, and five preachers to the University taken from four denominations were appointed for the term of one year, the appointments to be renewable indefinitely. To this board of six ministers the conduct of the Chapel services and the pastoral care of the body of students were committed, with a large discretion as to their methods of action. This board then advised the Corporation and Overseers to abolish required attendance at religious exercises; and the necessary change in statutes was immediately made.

The first board of preachers consisted of Edward Everett Hale, Phillips Brooks, Alexander McKenzie, George A. Gordon, and Kichard Montague; but Mr. Montague was unable to serve because of the failure of his health. Messrs. Hale and Brooks were at the time members of the Board of Overseers,

THE SELECTION OF OVERSEERS 63

where they had taken an influential part in the discussion. In this instance the time of action in a very important matter was determined by the Board of Overseers ; because the President and Fellows, the Faculty, the other academic bodies, and the Alumni felt that the Board fairly represented public opinion in all its difPerent shades, and that it would be safe to make a great change in a matter which easily stirs strong sentiments and passions, whenever the Board of Overseers were clearly in favor of making it.

The meetings of the Board give opportunity for able men engaged in different professions to give utterance to their ideas on education in general, or on some special educational topic which has interested them. The Alumni, who elect the Board, naturally select men of letters or science, and men eminent in the learned or scientific professions or in business, who have shown public spirit, and devotion to the interests of the University, and of the higher education in general. A Board so selected is naturally capable of improving sometimes the measures which come to them from the Corporation. Their rules and habits prevent hasty action, and often provide for an examination by a committee of the measures laid before them. They save the University from making changes which, although promising and even of demonstrated merit, are nevertheless too much in advance of public opinion. When the President and Fellows, led by the Faculties, are too rapid or too experimental in their action, the Board of Overseers will serve as a brake ; but if the President and Fellows become inert or too conservative, the Board of Overseers will provide the needed stimulation.

On the whole, the services of the Board of Overseers to Harvard University are so varied and so great as to suggest strongly the wisdom of procuring some analogous boards for purposes of inspection, review, criticism, and support in all other American institutions of the higher education. Indeed, the history of the Harvard Overseers suggests that similar boards to inspect, make criticisms and

ADVICE AND SUPPORT FROM GRADUATES 65

suggestions, and procure publicity would be useful additions to the boards of directors ■which manage business corporations, and to one-chambered municipal governments or commissions.

The American colleges and universities receive a deal of valuable advice and assistance from their graduates, not only from individuals, but from the numerous organizations of the graduates. These organizations are all the more interesting, because they are of purely American growth, being a natural adaptation of democratic principles to educational institutions, and a vigorous expression of the, American faith in education of all grades as the best means of promoting wise democratic government, industrial efficiency, and public happiness. As active organizations they have nearly all been created within the last fifty years.

The first organization to attain real efficiency was the permanent organization of what is called a college Class, that is, the group of

66 ALUMNI ORGANIZATIONS

men who took the first degree in arts or science in the same year. This Class organization is now maintained not only for social purposes, but as a group of men who distinctly propose to befriend and support each other in every practicable way throughout life, and who also intend, as a group, to befriend and support the college or university at which they took their first degree. Every Class maintains a standing committee and a secretary and treasurer. At or near graduation they raise a fund the income of which is to be used for future festivities and other Class expenses, and is to be made over to the college for some good purpose when the Class becomes extinct. When general subscriptions are undertaken for the benefit of their college, every Class organization takes part in the effort, and all the Classes vie with each other in making contributions. At Harvard College, it is the custom for each Class, at the twenty-fifth anniversary of its graduation, to make a considerable gift to the College ($100,000 or more) for an object selected by the Class. Every Class tabulates the

THE COLLEGE CLASS 67

Vital statistics of the whole group, including the dates of marriage, births of children, and deaths of members and of their children, and also a record of the career of each member of the Class. Many Classes keep these records for all the men who have ever been members of the Class, whether they graduated or not. As the Harvard graduating Classes have lately increased much in size, the labor of keeping these records, and printing them every three or five years, has become too great for the Class Secretary — presumably a busy man — to perform ; so that it has become the custom for the Class officers to hire an expert to prepare the vital statistics of the Class. At the Commencement season every Class holds a social meeting, and on the third, sixth, tenth, and every later quinquennial anniversary of graduation, special festivities are held, particularly on the twenty-fifth and fiftieth anniversaries. At Harvard the wives and children of members attend the twenty-fifth anniversary, and the celebration lasts for several days. To the fiftieth anniversary children and grand-

68 ALUMNI ORGANIZATIONS

children are invited ; and, moreover, the Class just fifty years out of College entertains the members of all older Classes who come to Commencement. As each Class grows older, the surviving members are drawn nearer together, and the more interesting becomes the comparison of careers, experiences, achievements, and services. Several Harvard Classes have undertaken to make photographic albums in which the portrait of each member at graduation faces the portrait of the same person forty or more years later, if he has survived so long. These documents are extraordinarily optimistic, the comparison of the faces at twenty-two or twenty-three with the faces at sixty-two or sixty-three offering convincing evidence that educated men's experience of life develops both capacity and character to an extraordinary degree.

The vital statistics of the American College Classes, as they accumulate, will supply to the statistician a large body of interesting materials ; the photographic albums will demonstrate the continuous and prolonged good effect of

ALUMNI ASSOCIATIONS 69

an education which occupies from a quarter to a third of the entire span of life ; and the records of the careers of the graduates will supply the best possible evidence of the efficiency and usefulness of the institution at which they were trained. All these Class activities are highly desirable in all colleges and universities, and with appropriate modifications are universally practicable.

Next to the Class organization comes the organization of the association which embraces all the Alumni of a college, that is, all the men who took their first degree of arts and science at the institution, some of whom may take a higher degree or degrees in arts and sciences, or a professional degree. It has been the custom at Harvard, as at other American institutions, for the graduates of the professional schools to maintain Alumni associations of their own, as, for instance, an organization of all graduates and students of the Law School ; so that four, five, or more Alumni associations may be created from the graduates in the different departments of the same university.

70 ALUMNI ASSOCIATIONS

The objects of all these Alumni associations are, however, essentially the same. They keep in touch with all Alumni of the department whose name they bear, keep their addresses, and prepare lists showing the geographical distribution of the Alumni by states and cities. At a large university which graduates many hundred men each year, it is a difficult task to keep these address-lists valid. A small number of men fail to communicate with the secretary of the association to which they ought to belong, and after a time are lost to view. The address-lists serve several purposes. In the first place they enable the officers of the association to keep in communication with the men whose addresses are recorded. Secondly, they enable the administrative officers of the university to keep graduates of the university in all departments supplied with printed information concerning the growth of the university, the changes in its methods, and the additions to its resources. Thirdly, the geographical lists enable the graduates of any college who have settled in any particular district or region of

GATHERINGS AT COMMENCEMENT 71

the country to find each other out, and come together.

The various Alumni associations at Harvard University recognize early, and then help to bring to public knowledge, improvements in their several Departments, as well as needs, and they then confirm and settle the educational changes by embodying their results in their own constitutions and modes of social action. At Commencement time most of them hold meetings which bring together large bodies of professional men interested not only in meeting each other, but in promoting the welfare of their several Departments, and in upholding and advancing the ethical standards of their several callings. The gathering at Commencement of the Association of the Alumni of Harvard College, which now includes graduates of the Scientific School and holders of the degree of Master of Arts or Science and of Doctor of Philosophy or Science, is always a noteworthy gathering, which by its public proceedings and its hospitalities to distinguished guests adds to the dignity and prestige

72 ALUMNI ASSOCIATIONS