第 35 节
作者:青涩春天      更新:2021-02-27 02:38      字数:9322
  be selected on grounds of businesslike fitness; more or less
  pronounced; while a working minority must continue to be made up
  of men without much business proficiency and without pronounced
  loyalty to commercial principles。
  This fluctuating margin of limitation has apparently not yet
  been reached; perhaps not even in the most enterprising of our
  universities。 Such should be the meaning of the fact that a
  continued commercialization of the academic staff appears still
  to be in progress; in the sense that businesslike fitness counts
  progressively for more in appointments and promotions。 These
  businesslike qualifications do not comprise merely facility in
  the conduct of pecuniary affairs; even if such facility be
  conceived to include the special aptitudes and proficiency that
  go to the making of a successful advertiser。 In academic circles
  as elsewhere businesslike fitness includes solvency as well as
  commercial genius。 Both of these qualifications are useful in the
  competitive manoeuvres in which the academic body is engaged。 But
  while the two are apparently given increasing weight in the
  selection and grading of the academic personnel; the precedents
  and specifications for a standard rating of merit in this bearing
  have hitherto not been worked out to such a nicety as to allow
  much more than a more or less close approach to a consistent
  application of the principle in the average case。 And there lies
  always the infirmity in the background of the system that if the
  staff were selected consistently with an eye single to business
  capacity and business animus the university would presently be
  functa officio; and the captain of erudition would find his
  occupation gone。
  A university is an endowed institution of culture; whether
  the endowment take the form of assigned income; as in the state
  establishments; or of funded wealth; as with most other
  universities。 Such fraction of the income as is assigned to the
  salary roll; and which therefore comes in question here; is
  apportioned among the staff for work which has no determinate
  market value。 It is not a matter of quid pro quo; since one
  member of the exchange; the stipend or salary; is measurable in
  pecuniary terms and the other is not。 This work has no business
  value; in so far as it is work properly included among the duties
  of the academic men。 Indeed; it is a fairly safe test; work that
  has a commercial value does not belong in the university。 Such
  services of the academic staff as have a business value are those
  portions of their work that serve other ends than the higher
  learning; as; e。g。; the prestige and pecuniary gain of the
  institution at large; the pecuniary advantage of a given clique
  or faction within the university; or the profit and renown of the
  directive head。 Gains that accrue for services of this general
  character are not; properly speaking; salary or stipend payable
  toward 〃the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men;〃 even
  if they are currently so designated; in the absence of suitable
  distinctions。 Instances of such a diversion of corporate funds to
  private ends have in the past occurred in certain monastic and
  priestly orders; as well as in some modern political
  organizations。 Organized malversation of this character has
  latterly been called 〃graft。〃 The long…term common sense of the
  community would presently disavow any corporation of learning
  overtly pursuing such a course; as being faithless to its trust;
  and the conservation of learning would so pass into other hands。
  Indeed; there are facts current which broadly suggest that the
  keeping of the higher learning is beginning to pass into other;
  and presumptively more disinterested; hands。
  The permeation of academic policy by business principles is a
  matter of more or less; not of absolute; dominance。 It appears to
  be a question of how wide a deviation from scholarly singleness
  of purpose the long…term common sense of the community will
  tolerate。 The cult of the idle curiosity sticks too deep in the
  instinctive endowment of the race; and it has in modern
  civilization been too thoroughly ground into the shape of a quest
  of matter…of…fact knowledge; to allow this pursuit to be
  definitively set aside or to fall into abeyance。 It is by too
  much an integral constituent of the habits of thought induced by
  the discipline of workday life。 The faith in and aspiration after
  matter…of…fact knowledge is too profoundly ingrained in the
  modern community; and too consonant with its workday habit of
  mind; to admit of its supersession by any objective end alien to
  it;  at least for the present and until some stronger force
  than the technological discipline of modern life shall take over
  the primacy among the factors of civilization; and so give us a
  culture of a different character from that which has brought on
  this modern science and placed it at the centre of things human。
  The popular approval of business principles and businesslike
  thrift is profound; disinterested; alert and insistent; but it
  does not; at least not yet; go the length of unreservedly placing
  a businesslike exploitation of office above a faithful discharge
  of trust。 The current popular animus may not; in this matter;
  approach that which animates the business community; specifically
  so…called; but it is sufficiently 〃practical〃 to approve
  practical sagacity and gainful traffic wherever it is found; yet
  the furtherance of knowledge is after all an ideal which engages
  the modern community's affections in a still more profound way;
  and; in the long run; with a still more unqualified insistence。
  For good or ill; in the apprehension of the civilized peoples;
  matter…of…fact knowledge is an end to be sought; while gainful
  enterprise is; after all; a means to an end。 There is; therefore;
  always this massive hedge of slow but indefeasible popular
  sentiment that stands in the way of making the seats of learning
  over into something definitively foreign to the purpose which
  they are popularly believed to serve。(1*)
  Perhaps the most naive way in which a predilection for men of
  substantial business value expresses itself in university policy
  is the unobtrusive; and in part unformulated; preference shown
  for teachers with sound pecuniary connections; whether by
  inheritance or by marriage。 With no such uniformity as to give
  evidence of an advised rule of precedence or a standarized
  schedule of correlation; but with sufficient consistency to
  merit; and indeed to claim; the thoughtful attention of the
  members of the craft; a scholar who is in a position to plead
  personal wealth or a wealthy connection has a perceptibly better
  chance of appointment on the academic staff; and on a more
  advantageous scale of remuneration; than men without pecuniary
  antecedents。 Due preferment also appears to follow more as a
  matter of course where the candidate has or acquires a tangible
  standing of this nature。
  This preference for well…to…do scholars need by no means be
  an altogether blind or impulsive predilection for commercial
  solvency on the part of the appointing power; though such a
  predilection is no doubt ordinarily present and operative in a
  degree。 But there is substantial ground for a wise discrimination
  in this respect。 As a measure of expediency; particularly the
  expediency of publicity; it is desirable that the incumbents of
  the higher stations on the staff should be able to live on such a
  scale of conspicuous expensiveness as to make a favourable
  impression on those men of pecuniary refinement and expensive
  tastes with whom they are designed to come in contact。 The
  university should be worthily represented in its personnel;
  particularly in such of its personnel as occupy a conspicuous
  place in the academic hierarchy; that is to say; it should be
  represented with becoming expensiveness in all its social contact
  with those classes from whose munificence large donations may
  flow into the corporate funds。 Large gifts of this kind are
  creditable both to him that gives and him that takes; and it is
  the part of wise foresight so to arrange that those to whom it
  falls to represent the university; as potential beneficiary; at
  this juncture should do so with propitiously creditable
  circumstance。 To meet and convince the opulent patrons of
  learning; as well as the parents and guardians of possible
  opulent students; it is; by and la