第 22 节
作者:青涩春天      更新:2021-02-27 02:38      字数:9318
  body of the academic personnel; a corps of trusted advisors and
  agents; whose qualifications for their peculiar work is an
  intelligent sympathy with their chief's ideals and methods and an
  unreserved subservience to his aims;  unless it should come to
  pass; as may happen in case its members are men of force and
  ingenuity; that this unofficial cabinet should take over the
  direction of affairs and work out their own aims and purposes
  under cover of the chief's ostensibly autocratic rule。
  Among these aids and advisers will be found at least a
  proportion of the higher administrative officials; and among the
  number it is fairly indispensable to include one or more adroit
  parliamentarians; competent to procure the necessary modicum of
  sanction for all arbitrary acts of the executive; from a
  distrustful faculty convened as a deliberative body。 These men
  must be at least partially in the confidence of the executive
  head。 From the circumstances of the case it also follows that
  they will commonly occupy an advanced academic rank; and so will
  take a high (putative) rank as scholars and scientists。 High
  academic rank comes of necessity to these men who serve as
  coadjutors and vehicles of the executive policy; as does also the
  relatively high pay that goes with high rank; both are required
  as a reward of merit and an incitement to a zealous
  serviceability on the one hand; and to keep the administration in
  countenance on the other hand by giving the requisite dignity to
  its agents。 They will be selected on the same general grounds of
  fitness as their chief;  administrative facility; plausibility;
  proficiency as public speakers and parliamentarians; ready
  versatility of convictions; and a staunch loyalty to their bread。
  Experience teaches that scholarly or scientific capacity does not
  enter in any appreciable measure among the qualifications so
  required for responsible academic office; beyond what may
  thriftily serve to mask the conventional decencies of the case。
  It is; further; of the essence of this scheme of academic
  control that the captain of erudition should freely exercise the
  power of academic life and death over the members of his staff;
  to reward the good and faithful servant and to abase the
  recalcitrant。 Otherwise discipline would be a difficult matter;
  and the formally requisite 〃advice and consent〃 could be procured
  only tardily and grudgingly。
  Admitting such reservations and abatement as may be due; it
  is to be said that the existing organization of academic control
  under business principles falls more or less nearly into the form
  outlined above。 The perfected type; as sketched in the last
  paragraphs; has doubtless not been fully achieved in practice
  hitherto; unless it be in one or another of the newer
  establishments with large ambitions and endowment; and with few
  traditions to hamper the working out of the system。 The incursion
  of business principles into the academic community is also of
  relatively recent date; and should not yet have had time to
  pervade the organization throughout and with full effect; so that
  the r間ime of competitive strategy should as yet be neither so
  far advanced nor so secure a matter of course as may fairly be
  expected in the near future。 Yet the rate of advance along this
  line; and the measure of present achievement; are more
  considerable than even a very sanguine advocate of business
  principles could have dared to look for a couple of decades ago。
  In so far as these matters are still in process of growth;
  rather than at their full fruition; it follows that any analysis
  of the effects of this r間ime must be in some degree speculative;
  and must at times deal with the drift of things as much as with
  accomplished fact。 Yet such an inquiry must approach its subject
  as an episode of history; and must deal with the personal figures
  and the incidents of this growth objectively; as phenomena thrown
  up to view by the play of circumstances in the dispassionate give
  and take of institutional change。 Such an impersonal attitude; it
  is perhaps needless to remark; is not always easy to maintain in
  dealing with facts of so personal; and often of so animated; a
  character。 Particularly will an observer who has seen these
  incidents from the middle and in the making find it difficult
  uniformly to preserve that aloof perspective that will serve the
  ends of an historical appreciation。 The difficulty is increased
  and complicated by the necessity of employing terms; descriptions
  and incidents that have been habitually employed in current
  controversy; often with a marked animus。 Men have taken sides on
  these matters; and so are engaged in controversy on the merits of
  the current r間ime and on the question of possible relief and
  remedy for what are considered to be its iniquities。 Under the
  shadow of this controversy; it is nearly unavoidable that any
  expression or citation of fact that will bear a partisan
  construction will habitually be so construed。 The vehicle
  necessarily employed must almost unavoidably infuse the analysis
  with an unintended colour of bias; to one side or the other of
  the presumed merits of the case。 A degree of patient attention is
  therefore due at points where the facts cited; and the
  characterization of these facts and their bearing; would seem; on
  a superficial view; to bear construction as controversial matter。
  In this episode of institutional growth; plainly; the
  executive head is the central figure。 The light fails on him
  rather than on the forces that move him; and it comes as a matter
  of course to pass opinions on the resulting incidents and
  consequences; as the outcome of his free initiative rather than
  of the circumstances whose creature he is。 No doubt; his
  initiative; if any; is a powerful factor in the case; but it is
  after all a factor of transmission and commutation rather than of
  genesis and self…direction; for he is chosen for the style and
  measure of initiative with which he is endowed; and unless he
  shall be found to measure up to expectations in kind and degree
  in this matter he will go in the discard; and his personal ideals
  and initiative will count as little more than a transient
  obstruction。 He will hold his place; and will count as a creative
  force in his world; in much the same degree in which he responds
  with ready flexibility to the impact of those forces of popular
  sentiment and class conviction that have called him to be their
  servant。 Only so can he be a 〃strong man〃; only in so far as; by
  fortunate bent or by its absence; he is enabled to move
  resistlessly with the parallelogram of forces。
  The exigencies of a businesslike administration demand that
  there be no division of powers between the academic executive and
  the academic staff; but the exigencies of the higher learning
  require that the scholars and scientists must be left quite free
  to follow their own bent in conducting their own work。 In the
  nature of things this work cannot be carried on effectually under
  coercive rule。 Scientific inquiry can not be pursued under
  direction of a layman in the person of a superior officer。 Also;
  learning is; in the nature of things; not a competitive business
  and can make no use of finesse; diplomatic equivocation and
  tactful regard for popular prejudices; such as are of the essence
  of the case in competitive business。 It is; also; of no advantage
  to learning to engross the trade。 Tradition and present necessity
  alike demand that the body of scholars and scientists who make up
  the university must be vested with full powers of self…direction;
  without ulterior consideration。 A university can remain a
  corporation of learning; de facto; on no other basis。
  As has already been remarked; business methods of course have
  their place in the corporation's fiscal affairs and in the
  office…work incident to the care of its material equipment。 As
  regards these items the university is a business concern; and no
  discussion of these topics would be in place here。 These things
  concern the university only in its externals; and they do not
  properly fall within the scope of academic policy or academic
  administration。 They come into consideration here only in so far
  as a lively regard for them may; as it sometimes does; divert the
  forces of the establishment from its ostensible purpose。
  Under the rule imposed by those businesslike preconceptions