第 59 节
作者:青涩春天      更新:2021-02-27 02:38      字数:9320
  circumstances come to constitute the public; as seen in the
  perspective of the itinerant philandropist。
  The executive and all his works and words must avoid blame
  from any source from which criticism might conceivably affect the
  traffic with which he is occupied;such is the first of those
  politic principles that govern the conduct of competitive
  business。 The university must accordingly be managed with a first
  view to a creditable rating in those extraneous respects;
  touching which that select laity that make up the executive's
  effective public are competent to hold convictions。 The resulting
  canons of management will be chiefly of the nature of tabus;
  since blame is best avoided by a code of avoidance。 and since the
  forum in which these tabus are audited is a forum in which the
  matronly negations of piety; propriety and genteel usage take
  precedence of work; whether scholarly or otherwise; a misdirected
  cowardice not infrequently comes to rule the counsels of the
  captains of erudition;  misdirected not only in the more
  obvious sense that its guidance is disserviceable to the higher
  learning; but also (what is more to the immediate point) in the
  sense that it discredits the executive and his tactics in the
  esteem of that workday public that does not habitually give
  tongue over the cups at five…o'clock。(10*)
  It is perhaps unnecessary; as it would assuredly be
  ungraceful; to pursue this quasi…personal inquiry into the
  circumstances that so determine that habitual attitude of the
  executive。 The difficulties of such an ambiguous position should
  be sufficiently evident; and the character of the demands which
  this position makes on the incumbent should be similarly evident;
  so far as regards conduciveness to clean and honest living within
  the premises of this executive office。 It may; however; not be
  out of place to call to mind one or two significant; and perhaps
  extenuating; traits among those conventions that go to make up
  the situation。 Unlike what occurs in the conduct of ordinary
  business and in the professions; there has hitherto been worked
  out no code of professional ethics for the guidance of men
  employed in this vocation;  with the sole exception of that
  mandatory inter…presidential courtesy that binds all members of
  the craft to a strict enforcement of the academic black…list;
  all of which leaves an exceptionally broad field for casuistry。
  So that; unlike what happens in the business community at large;
  no standardization has here determined the limits of legitimate
  prevarication; nor can such a standardization and limit be worked
  out so long as the executive is required; in effect; to function
  as the discretionary employer of his academic staff and hold them
  to account as agents for whom he is responsible; at the same time
  that he must; in appearance; be their confidential spokesman and
  their colleague in the corporation of learning。 And it is
  impossible to forego either of these requirements; since the
  discretionary power of use and abuse is indispensable to the
  businesslike conduct of the enterprise; while the appearance of
  scholarly co…partnery with the staff is indispensable to that
  prestige on which rests the continued exercise of this power。 And
  so also it has similarly proved unavoidable (perhaps as an issue
  of human infirmity) that the executive be guided in effect by a
  meretricious subservience to extra…scholastic conventions; all
  the while that he must profess an unbiassed pursuit of 〃the
  increase and diffusion of knowledge among men。〃
  IV
  With all due endeavour to avoid the appearance of a study in
  total depravity; the foregoing analysis has come; after all; to
  converge on the growth and derivation of those peculiar
  ambiguities and obliquities that give character to the typical
  academic executive。 Not that all academic executives; without
  exception; are (in the historical present) to be found fully
  abreast of that mature phase of the type that would so be
  reflected by the exigencies of their office as outlined above。
  Nor need it be believed or argued that no man may enter on these
  duties of office but such as are specially fitted; by native gift
  and previous training; for just such an enterprise in
  meretricious notoriety as these official duties enjoin。 The
  exceptions to such a rule are not altogether rare; and the
  incumbent may well have entered on the duties of office with
  preconceptions and aims somewhat at variance with what its
  discipline inculcates。 But; it should be called to mind; the
  training that makes a typical executive comes with the most
  felicitous and indefeasible effect not in the predisposing
  discipline of candidature but in the workday conduct of office。
  And so consistent and unremitting is this drift of the duties of
  office; overt and covert; that; humanly speaking; any one who
  submits to its discipline through an appreciable period of years
  must unavoidably come to conform to type。 Men of unmanageably
  refractory temperament; such as can not by habituation be indued
  with the requisite deviation and self…sufficiency; will of
  necessity presently be thrown out; as being incompetent for this
  vocation。 Instances of such rejection after trial will come to
  mind; but such instances are; after all; not so frequent or so
  striking as to throw doubt on the general rule。 The discipline of
  executive office will commonly shape the incumbent to its uses。
  It should seem beyond reason to expect that a decade of exposure
  to the exigencies of this high office will leave the incumbent
  still amenable to the dictates of commonplace tolerance and
  common honesty。
  As intimated above; men with ingrained scholarly ideals and a
  consistent aim to serve the ends of learning will still
  occasionally be drawn into the executive office by force of
  circumstances  particularly by force of the slow…dying
  preconception that the preferences of the academic staff should
  count for something in the choice of their senior member; and
  this will happen in spite of the ubiquitous candidature of
  aspirants who have prepared themselves for this enterprise by
  sedulous training in all the arts of popularity and by a well
  organized backing of influential 〃friends。〃 The like happened
  more frequently a quarter of a century ago; at the time when the
  current situation was taking shape under the incipient incursion
  of business principles into university policy。 But it does not
  appear that those incumbents who so enter on these duties; will
  fare notably otherwise in the end than do the others whose
  previous training has already bent them to the typical policy of
  deviation; from the outset。
  An illustrative instance or two may well be to the point。 And
  the same illustrations will perhaps also serve to enforce the
  view that anything like an effectual university  a seminary of
  the higher learning; as distinct from an assemblage of vocational
  schools  is not a practicable proposition in America under
  current conditions。 Such seems to be the conclusion vouched for
  by the two most notable attempts of the kind during the past
  quarter…century。 The two instances in question should appear to
  afford clear experimental evidence to that effect; though it is
  always possible to allege that personal or local conditions may
  so far have affected these experimental instances as still to
  leave the case in doubt。
  In these two instances; in the Middle West and in the Far
  West; the matter has been tried out under conditions as
  favourable to the cause of learning as the American community may
  hope to offer; barring only the possible inhibition due to an
  untoward local colour of sentiment。 Each of these two great
  establishments has been favoured with an endowment of such
  magnitude as would be adequate to the foundation of an effectual
  university; sufficient to the single…minded pursuit of the higher
  learning; with all the 〃modern appliances〃 requisite to
  scientific and scholarly work; if only their resources had been
  husbanded with a single mind to that end; and in either case the
  terms of the endowment have been sufficiently tolerant to admit
  such pursuit of knowledge without arri鑢e pens閑。 The directive
  hands; too; under whose discretionary control each of these
  establishments entered on its adventures and attained its
  distinctive character; were men who; at one point or a