第83章 CHAPTER I(2)

The need of such a businesslike organization asserts itself in somewhat the same degree in which the academic policy is guided by considerations of magnitude and statistical renown； and this in turn is somewhat closely correlated with the extent of discretionary power exercised by the captain of erudition placed in control. At the same time， by provocation of the facilities which it offers for making an impressive demonstration， such bureaucratic organization will lead the university management to bend its energies with somewhat more singleness to the parade of magnitude and statistical gains. It also， and in the same connection， provokes to a persistent and detailed surveillance and direction of the work and manner of life of the academic staff， and so it acts to shut off initiative of any kind in the work done.(1*)Intimately bound up with this bureaucratic officialism and accountancy， and working consistently to a similar outcome， is the predilection for "practical efficiency" that is to say， for pecuniary success -- prevalent in the American community.(2*)This predilection is a matter of settled habit， due， no doubt， to the fact that preoccupation with business interests characterizes this community in an exceptional degree， and that pecuniary habits of thought consequently rule popular thinking in a peculiarly uncritical and prescriptive fashion. This pecuniary animus falls in with and reinforces the movement for academic accountancy， and combines with it to further a so-called "practical" bias in all the work of the schools.

It appears， then， that the intrusion of business principles in the universities goes to weaken and retard the pursuit of learning， and therefore to defeat the ends for which a university is maintained. This result follows， primarily， from the substitution of impersonal， mechanical relations， standards and tests， in the place of personal conference， guidance and association between teachers and students； as also from the imposition of a mechanically standardized routine upon the members of the staff， whereby any disinterested preoccupation with scholarly or scientific inquiry is thrown into the background and falls into abeyance. Few if any who are competent to speak in these premises will question that such has been the outcome. To offset against this work of mutilation and retardation there are certain gains in expedition， and in the volume of traffic that can be carried by any given equipment and corps of employees. Particularly will there be a gain in the statistical showing， both as regards the volume of instruction offered， and probably also as regards the enrolment； since accountancy creates statistics and its absence does not.

Such increased enrolment as may be due to businesslike management and methods is an increase of undergraduate enrolment.

The net effect as regards the graduate enrolment -- apart from any vocational instruction that may euphemistically be scheduled as "graduate" -- is in all probability rather a decrease than an increase. Through indoctrination with utilitarian (pecuniary)ideals of earning and spending， as well as by engendering spendthrift and sportsmanlike habits， such a businesslike management diverts the undergraduate students from going in for the disinterested pursuit of knowledge， and so from entering on what is properly university work； as witness the relatively slight proportion of graduate students outside of the professional schools -- who come up from the excessively large undergraduate departments of the more expansive universities， as contrasted with the number of those who come into university work from the smaller and less businesslike colleges.

The ulterior consequences that follow from such businesslike standardization and bureaucratic efficiency are evident in the current state of the public schools； especially as seen in the larger towns， where the principles of business management have had time and scope to work out in a fair degree of consistency.

The resulting abomination of desolation is sufficiently notorious. And there appears to be no reason why a similarly stale routine of futility should not overtake the universities， and give similarly foolish results， as fast as the system of standardization， accountancy and piece-work goes consistently into effect， -- except only for the continued enforced employment of a modicum of impracticable scholars and scientists on the academic staff， whose unbusinesslike scholarly proclivities and inability to keep the miner's-inch of scholastic credit always in mind， must in some measure always defeat the perfect working of standardization and accountancy.

As might be expected， this r間ime of graduated sterility has already made fair headway in the undergraduate work， especially in the larger undergraduate schools； and this in spite of any efforts On the part of the administration to hedge against such an outcome by recourse to an intricate system of electives and a wide diversification of the standard units of erudition so offered.

In the graduate work the like effect is only less visible， because the measures leading to it have come into bearing more recently， and hitherto less unreservedly. But the like results should follow here also， just so fast and so far as the same range of business principles come to be worked into the texture of the university organization in the same efficacious manner as they have already taken effect in the public schools. And， pushed on as it is by the progressive substitution of men imbued with the tastes and habits of practical affairs， in the place of unpractical scholarly ideals， the movement toward a perfunctory routine of mediocrity should logically be expected to go forward at a progressively accelerated rate. The visible drift of things in this respect in the academic pursuit of the social sciences， so-called， is an argument as to what may be hoped for in the domain of academic science at large. It is only that the executive is actuated by a sharper solicitude to keep the academic establishment blameless of anything like innovation or iconoclasm at this point； which reinforces the drift toward a mechanistic routine and a curtailment of inquiry in this field；it is not that these sciences that deal with the phenomena of human life lend themselves more readily to mechanical description and enumeration than the material sciences do， nor is their subject matter intrinsically more inert or less provocative of questions.