of men. Such opportunities were rare formerly and, for their sake, college work was chosen by many to whom pecuniary reward was, in comparison, a secondary matter. And this led in no small degree to the high esteem in which college professors were held, for the corporate boards were composed chiefly of professional men, who believed that they had chosen their work for similar reasons. But the boards of to-day are made up largely of men of affairs, strong men of the business world, who are apt to regard indifference to material success as evidence of native weakness.
While the matter of salary is important in its bearing on the future of American colleges, it is of less immediate importance than that of relations between the teaching and the corporate board. This is the vital matter.
Theoretically, the corporate board of to-day and the college president of to-day are the same as they were one hundred years ago; but in fact they are essentially different. The boards and presidents of the former days were so familiar with the conditions of their little schools and of the narrow curriculum that they were competent to take charge of them. To-day the curriculum is so broad that neither board nor president can be familiar with the needs of the several chairs even in institutions of moderate size, while in universities it is barely possible for them to have any personal knowledge whatever. Yet the teaching board is wholly subordinate to the corporate board. Such complete legal subordination was well enough as long as the chief purpose of colleges was to prepare men for the ministry and subordination may be well enough still in purely denominational colleges, whence it is fit and wise to eject summarily those 'courageous, independent thinkers' who would hold to their salaries while rejecting denominational tenets; but the university has outgrown the swaddling clothes of the semitheological college and the method of control should be adapted to the new conditions.
It is well understood that the corporate board as a rule is not composed of men familiar with educational matters. The rapidly increasing financial interests of colleges and universities necessitate the selection of men possessing thorough business ability. Examination of college catalogues shows that the boards are made up chiefly of men beyond middle age, eminent lawyers, prominent business men, with some clergymen and physicians, all of highest standing; all of these are busy men, whose prominence proves that for many years they have been engrossed in the work of their several callings so intensely as to be disqualified for some of the duties devolving upon college trustees; most of them are far removed in thought and occupation from educational work and few of them are in any degree familiar with the changes in scope and methods of college teaching. Nor, as
