第104章 CHAPTER IV(9)

2. So far has this predilection made its way in the counsels of the "educators" that much of the current discussion of desideranda in academic policy reads like controversial argument on "efficiency engineering," -- an "efficiency engineer" is an accountant competent to advise business concerns how best to increase their saleable output per unit of cost. And there has, indeed, been at least one tour of inspection of American universities by such an "efficiency engineer," undertaken in the service of an establishment founded with a view to academic welfare and governed by a board of university presidents. The report submitted by the inquiry in question duly conforms to the customary lines of "scientific management."3. "Education is the one kind of human enterprise that can not be brought under the action of the economic law of supply and demand. It can not be conducted on 'business principles.' There is no 'demand' for education in the economic sense.... Society is the only interest that can be said to demand it, and society must supply its own demand. Those who found educational institutions or promote educational enterprise put themselves in the place of society and assume to speak and act for society, not for any economic interest." -- Lester F. Ward, Pure Sociology, p. 575.

4. Indeed, the resemblance is visible. As among professional politicians, so also as regards incumbents and aspirants for academic office, it is not at all unusual, nor does it cause surprise, to find such persons visibly affected with those characteristic pathological marks that come of what is conventionally called "high living" -- late hours, unseasonable vigils, surfeit of victuals and drink, the fatigue of sedentary ennui. A flabby habit of body, hypertrophy of the abdomen, varicose veins, particularly of the facial tissues, a blear eye and a colouration suggestive of bile and apoplexy, -- when this unwholesome bulk is duly wrapped in a conventionally decorous costume it is accepted rather as a mark of weight and responsibility, and so serves to distinguish the pillars of urbane society. Nor should it be imagined that these grave men of affairs and discretion are in any peculiar degree prone to excesses of the table or to nerve-shattering bouts of dissipation. The exigencies of publicity, however, are, by current use and wont, such as to enjoin not indulgence in such excursions of sensual perversity, so much as a gentlemanly conformity to a large routine of conspicuous convivialities.

"Indulgence" in ostensibly gluttonous bouts of this kind --banquets, dinners, etc. -- is not so much a matter of taste as of astute publicity, designed to keep the celebrants in repute among a laity whose simplest and most assured award of esteem proceeds on evidence of wasteful ability to pay. But the pathological consequences, physical and otherwise, are of much the same nature in either case.

5. See pp. 68-73, 79-81, above.

6. As bearing on this "hired-man's loyalty" of the academic staff and the means of maintaining it, see, e.g., a paper by George Cram Cook in the Forum for October, 1913, on "The Third American Sex," especially pp. 450-455.

7. Unfortunately, the language wants a competent designation for public-minded personages of this class; which comprises something appreciably more than the homiletical university executives alluded to above, and their understudies, while it is also not strictly inclusive of all these executives. There is indeed a fairly obvious contingent comes in from among those minor politicians and clergymen who crave the benefit of an inoffensive notoriety, and who are at the same time solicitous to keep their fellow-men in mind of the unforgotten commonplaces. One will necessarily have misgivings about putting forward a new technical term for adoption into a vocabulary that is already top-heavy with technical innovations. "Philandropist" has been suggested.

It is not a large innovation, and it has the merit of being obviously self-explanatory. At the same time its phonetic resemblance to an older term, already well accepted in the language, should recommend it to the members of the craft whom it is designed to signalize, and with whom phonetic considerations are habitually allowed weight. The purists will doubtless find "philandropist" a barbarism; but that is an infirmity that has attached to many technical designations at their inception, without permanently hindering their acceptance and serviceability; it is also not wholly unfitting that the term chosen should be of such a character.

8. "The time has come, the walrus said, To talk of many things."Within the last few years one of the more illustrious and fluent of the captains of erudition hit upon the expedient of having a trusted locum tenens appointed to take over the functions of the home office for a term of years, while the captain himself "takes the road" -- on an appreciably augmented salary -- to speak his mind eloquently on many topics. The device can, however, scarcely yet be said to have passed the experimental phase. This illustrious exponent of philandropism commands an extraordinary range of homily and is a raconteur of quite exceptional merit;and a device that commends itself in this special case, therefore, may or may not prove a feasible plan in general and ordinary usage. But in any case it indicates a felt need of some measure of relief, such as will enable the run of presidential speech to gain a little something in amplitude and frequency.

9. So, e.g., a certain notably self-possessed and energetic captain of erudition has been in the habit of repeating ("on the spur of the moment") a homily on one of the staple Christian virtues.