MMINUES OF TEIE BOARD OF T2RUSTEESF



addition thereto a large experience in collegiate and university work, enabling

their Possessor to coordinate lines of acquisition and research and the adjustment

of means to ends in the economy of time and labor, of student and professor.  These

qualifications are by unanimous consent of all college men fundamental and inde-

spensable.  Their presence is vital and their absence may be fatal,  The standard

of education has been materially raised within the last thirty-five years and qualifi-

cations which were deemed adequate forty years ago no longer meet modern requirements.

A higher standard is required in assistants, in heads of departments, in deans of

courses of study, and above all, in the President of the institution.  A large

majority of the ablest and foremost college and university Presidents of taday (today),

in addition to the undergraduate and post-graduate courses which they had in America ,

have spent years abroad doing advanced work in Germany, England, France, and Italy,

in order to become qualified and eligible for the positions which they now hold. I

do not know of any reputable university or college in America, the President of which

has not had the advantages of collegiate and university training. I do not know

of any board of Trustees of any kind of any first-class University in America, which

would consider the claims of any applicant for this high office in whom these qualifi-

cations were deficient or wholly absent. What would you say if a ship owner who

should commit his vessel, with its cargo and its freight of human lives to a captain

and pilot who had no knowledge of the principles of navigation and the art of sea-
               (would we)
manship?   What we would think of any minister of marine who should place a lands-

man in command of a modern battleship, or in command of a fleet of battleships and

cruisers, who was wholly devoid of naval education and training and utterly ignorant

of the science and art of naval warfare?   High character and moral principles and

urbanity and good fellowhip and tact and discretion are valuable adjuncts, but of

themselves they would neither win important battles nor navigate dangerous seas.

A crisis in the history of the University is now upon us.   The life of the University

and its prosperity are dear to me. I have given to it more than forty years of loyal

service.    I cannot then be indifferent to its fate.  The present crisis has given



February 3, 1910