第31章 CHAPTER I(9)

1. An instance showing something of the measure and incidence of fiscal service rendered by such a businesslike board may be suggestive, even though it is scarcely to be taken as faithfully illustrating current practice, in that the particular board in question has exercised an uncommon measure of surveillance over its university's pecuniary concerns.

A university corporation endowed with a large estate (appraised at something over $30,000,000) has been governed by a board of the usual form, with plenary discretion, established on a basis of co-optation. In point of practical effect, the board, or rather that fraction of the board which takes an active interest in the university's affairs, has been made up of a group of local business men engaged in divers enterprises of the kind familiar to men of relatively large means, with somewhat extensive interests of the nature of banking and underwriting, where large extensions of credit and the temporary use of large funds are of substantial consequence. By terms of the corporate charter the board was required to render to the governor of the state a yearly report of all the pecuniary affairs of the university; but no penalty was attached to their eventual failure to render such report, though some legal remedy could doubtless have been had on due application by the parties in interest, as e. g., by the academic head of the university. No such report has been rendered, however, and no steps appear to have been taken to procure such a report, or any equivalent accounting. But on persistent urging from the side of his faculty, and after some courteous delay, the academic head pushed an inquiry into the corporation's finances so far as to bring out facts somewhat to the following effect: --The board, or the group of local business men who constituted the habitual working majority of the board, appear to have kept a fairly close and active oversight of the corporate funds entrusted to them, and to have seen to their investment and disposal somewhat in detail -- and, it has been suggested, somewhat to their own pecuniary advantage. With the result that the investments were found to yield a current income of some three per cent. (rather under than over), -- in a state where investment on good security in the open market commonly yielded from six per cent to eight per cent. Of this income approximately one-half (apparently some forty-five per cent) practically accrued to the possible current use of the university establishment. Just what disposal was made of the remainder is not altogether clear; though it is loosely presumed to have been kept in hand with an eventual view to the erection and repair of buildings. Something like one-half of what so made up the currently disposable income was further set aside in the character of a sinking fund, to accumulate for future use and to meet contingencies; so that what effectually accrued to the university establishment for current use to meet necessary academic expenditures would amount to something like one per cent (or less) on the total investment. But of this finally disposable fraction of the income, again, an appreciable sum was set aside as a special sinking fund to accumulate for the eventual use of the university library, -- which, it may be remarked, was in the meantime seriously handicapped for want of funds with which to provide for current needs. So also the academic establishment at large was perforce managed on a basis of penurious economy, to the present inefficiency and the lasting damage of the university.

The figures and percentages given above are not claimed to be exact; it is known that a more accurate specification of details would result in a less favourable showing.

At the time when these matters were disclosed (to a small number of the uneasy persons interested) there was an ugly suggestion afloat touching the pecuniary integrity of the board's management, but this is doubtless to be dismissed as being merely a loose expression of ill-will; and the like is also doubtless to be said as regards the suggestion that there may have been an interested collusion between the academic head and the active members of the board. These were "all honourable men," of great repute in the community and well known as sagacious and successful men in their private business ventures.

2. Cf. The Instinct of Workmanship, ch. vii, pp. 343-352.

3. A subsidiary reason of some weight should not be overlooked in seeking the cause of this secularization of the boards, and of the peculiar colour which the secularization has given them. In any community where wealth and business enterprise are held in such high esteem, men of wealth and of affairs are not only deferred to, but their countenance is sought from one motive and another. At the same time election to one of these boards has come to have a high value as an honourable distinction. Such election or appointment therefore is often sought from motives of vanity, and it is at the same time a convenient means of conciliating the good will of the wealthy incumbent.

It may be added that now and again the discretionary control of large funds which so falls to the members of the board may come to be pecuniarily profitable to them, so that the office may come to be attractive as a business proposition as well as in point of prestige. Instances of the kind are not wholly unknown, though presumably exceptional.

4. Cf., e. g.. R. T. Crane. The Futility of All Kinds of Higher Schooling, especially part I, ch. iv.

5. Cf. R.T. Crane, as above, especially part I, ch. ii. iii, and vi. Cf. also H.P. Judson, The Higher Education as a Training for Business, where the case is argued in a typically commonplace and matter-of-fact spirit, but where "The Higher Education" is taken to mean the undergraduate curriculum simply; also "A Symposium on the value of humanistic, particularly classical, studies as a training for men of affairs," Proceedings of the Classical Conference at Ann Arbor, Michigan, April 3, 1909.

6. Cf. Bacon, Essays -- "Of Cunning", and "Of Wisdom for a Man's Self."7. Cf. ch. viii, especially pp. 242-269.