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HE question of this paper is, as we say, an elusive one. When such a question gets answered, it often happens that the question has disappeared. In the process of inquiry another question has taken the place of the one with which we started. we would avoid such discomfiture, such substitution of mental changelings, it is essential that the mind hold fast to its own. We must grasp our question, define it, define its terms, and hold them fast, keep them defined, until the end is reached.

Who, then, are "we"? The question is here asked about the persons who are in charge of colleges. Who are they? Any one who knows what a college is knows that in this case "we" means faculty and president. These two have charge of study and teaching. Our question is about them.

May I stop to note what a pity it is that the Association of University Professors has defined the term ""we" so badly? This association was founded to advance the interests of learning and teaching. It has summoned teachers to the work, but has

excluded presidents from the fellowship. In so doing it has followed a drift which it ought rather to have opposed and overcome. Nearly every influence in a college tends to separate president from faculty, tends to make of him an administrator rather than a student, tends to give him connection with trustees and alumni and donors rather than with teachers. But he needs the teachers. His soul needs ever to be saved to that kingdom of learning of which he is in some sense in charge. Nevertheless, the teachers, by a timid, defensive manœuver, have consigned him to the company of publicans and sinners. They ought to see that, rightly or wrongly, the president of a college has power to affect research and teaching; that, rightly or not, he is responsible for research and teaching; that, whether they wish it or not, he is their fellow and shares with them their chief responsibility. But in general I should say that in recent years professors have done what they could to make presidents unfit for their responsibilities. On behalf of

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the much rejected and bedamned I demand that they be given a chance to save their souls. They and the faculties are, and must be, responsible for teaching and research. These two are the "we" in this discussion.

But, second, what do we mean by "responsible"? This is a shifty term which often slips and slides under the careless fingers of human thinking. My own present definition is worked out from watching a traffic policeman and from reading Epictetus. Each brings out one aspect of a double meaning. If we separate the two aspects, we may hold apart in some clearness "responsible for" and "responsible to." The policeman has charge of traffic. "Come," he waves, and the stream surges on. "Stop," he signals, and machines and men are dead in their tracks. The policeman controls the traffic, has it under his charge; he is responsible for it.

The other side of the meaning appears when we ask, "To whom is he responsible for the traffic?" And here it is that Epictetus teaches us so well. I should like to quote a famous and beautiful passage:

"But some one in authority has pronounced the sentence: 'I judge you to be impious and profane'. What has befallen you? I have been judged to be impious and profane. Anything else? Nothing. Suppose he had passed judgment upon the hypothetical proposition, 'If it is day it is light,' and had pronounced it to be false, what would have befallen the proposition? In this case who is judged-who condemned? The proposition, or he who is deceived concerning it? Does he who claims. the power of judging you know what 'Pious' or 'Impious' means?

Has

he made it his study or learned it? Where? From whom? A musician would not regard him if he pronounced bass to be treble; nor a mathematician if he judged that lines drawn from the center to the circumference are unequal. And shall he who is truly learned pay attention to an unlearned man, when he pronounces upon pious and impious, just and unjust?"

Here is, I think, in clearest terms the most important meaning of "responsible to." To whom must I give account of the things under my control; who has a right to judge my work; who may rightly say whether or not my work is rightly done? To him I am responsible. To be responsible to a person means to be bound to pay regard to his appraisal of my work.

If now we compare the handling of traffic with the handling of a college, the differences of the two institutions will appear in these terms. The policeman is "responsible for" with an abruptness and arbitrariness of which faculty and president do not dream. In our realm neither men nor boys run at the beck and call of other persons. We deal not with machinery, but with meanings. Our control is a very gentle one as compared with that of the guardian of the corner of the street.

But in the other meaning the tables are reversed. Just behind the traffic despot is the sergeant; and at his shoulder, in turn, the captain; and over him, the chief. And each may say to him below, "This is the way you are to do." And afterward he says, "That was wrong; don't do that any more." Each is responsible to some one at his elbow or at his neck. Each pays, must pay, regard to some one over him. Who plays this upper

rôle in college life? "We," faculty and president, are in control. Who has a right to judge our work and ask of us regard for his appraisal? To whom are we responsible? This is the question of our paper.

I have in mind to consider a list of answers commonly given to this question. These answers fall into two groups. In advance of the discussion of them may I urge again that the special meanings of our terms should be kept clearly in mind and that others should not be allowed to take their places. Perhaps I should also ask that the attempt to be at once clear and brief in dealing with a confused situation should not be regarded as controversial or ungracious.

First, then, are we responsible to our students? Clearly we are not. We are responsible for our students, but not to them. I do not mean that we are responsible for our students in all their characteristics and activities. There are, for example, certain enterprises which the students themselves carry on, of which they are in charge. In this field their responsibility should be as large and as free as it can be made. But in our own field, in the making and working out of plans for teaching and research, we are in control. In this field the opinions of undergraduates are always interesting and sometimes important, but they can never be decisive. We, as faculty and president, must assume responsibility for our side of the process of education. We cannot submit our judgment to confirmation by our students.

Are we responsible to the parents of our students? Here again the

answer is negative, but not so clearly. We are responsible on behalf of parents, but not to them. Parents intrust their sons to us to be taught. If the sons are not well taught, then the parents have a right to regard us as having failed to do for them what we undertook to do. And yet the fact remains that we will not accept the judgments of parents as to the success or failure of our work. They seem to us often satisfied without proper cause and dissatisfied without reason. We will not receive boys with qualifications or directions as to how they are to be taught. Obviously enough, if parents are not satisfied, their sons may be withdrawn from our instruction. And unless parents are willing to intrust their sons to us, we shall have no pupils to teach. And yet the fact remains that unless they are really intrusted to us, unless we are given charge of the aims and methods of educational work, unless we are authorized to act on behalf of the parents in these respects, we will not accept the boys as pupils. We will take responsibility on behalf of parents only on condition that we are not held responsible to them.

Are we responsible to the public? No, most emphatically. We are responsible in the interest of the public, but we are not submissive to its judgment concerning its own interests. No one can state too strongly the demand which may be made upon us that we be public-minded and publichearted. But, on the other hand, no one can state strongly enough our need of independence from outside influence. More than anything else, the public interest of a democracy demands that its learning and teaching shall be free, shall not be subject

to popular pressure or review. We may not be told what conclusions our study and teaching are to reach. Least of all may we be subjected to the impertinence which expects of us that we make a good impression upon people who do not understand, that we cater to their favor, that we make ourselves popular. No democracy can afford to have either its courts or its learning subject to its own whim, its caprices, its ignorance, or even its common sense. A people which is being taught may have its own opinions about its teachers, but the teachers as such may give little regard to those opinions.

Are we responsible to donors? Surely not. They make it possible for us to do our work, but in the doing of the work they have no other part. Least of all do they hold us accountable to them. No donor who understands his gift or us would wish to have it so. A donor seeks for some one competent to use his money for important ends, and having found the person or the institution which he trusts, he gives the money into its control. But if he kept control himself, he would deny the competence of those to whom the gift is made. He would be paying them to do his work, not theirs. On such a scheme our colleges would be for hire. But men or institutions which announce themselves for hire go to the highest bidder. Donors would buy the teaching which they want, and others would then pay larger sums to get some other teaching done; colleges would flourish on the money side, and salaries would rise to levels which we mention only in our dreams. Why not? Because, on fuch a scheme, our donors would not make their gifts; it con

travenes the very purpose which they have in mind. To pay for learning which a man could get under his thumb by paying for it would be a sorry bargain. That is not what our donors give their money for. They look for men and institutions which in the very nature of the case cannot be hired, cannot be held responsible to them or to their fellow-donors.

Are we responsible to the church? Taking higher education in the large, the church is perhaps our greatest benefactor. It has established and nourished our older institutions of learning and it still builds up the younger ones. Are we therefore responsible to it? It is one of the chief glories of the church that we are not. I do not pretend here to speak of the theory and practice of the Catholic communions; but of the Protestant churches it is true that as their colleges have gathered strength, they have been set free to do their own work, to follow their own direction. Here is a fine relationship. An institution pledged to support a point of view has recognized that the learning which it needs cannot be pledged to any point of view. Belief has welcomed criticism, creeds have demanded searching for knowledge; faith has required that doubters do their work with honesty and carefulness. The church with which we have to do does not demand support from us; it gives support to us. Whatever unruly minds within the church may claim, whatever weak and vagrant minds within the colleges may pledge to give, both church and college know that claims and pledges are not current coin in such a realm. Our modern church, knowing the modern world, may shudder at the task which modern