THE ALUMNI JOURNAL OF THE ILLINOIS WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY. VOL. III. SEPTEMBER, 1873. NUMBER 9. PROFESSORIAL TENURE OF OFFICE. T HE Northwestern University, The fact in this case is that an after thinking a year about it, has institution desires to keep its effec- deliberately returned to its old pol- tive men. The conditions of col- icy of electing a professor once for lege service are such as to exclude all. The fact is a significant one, any systematic rotation or promo- and probably indicates that the West tion. A professor's value is great- will not adopt the newer policy of est, as a rtule, where he has worked our Eastern Methodist universities. longest, and his character and qual- Hereabouts, the opinion of all, or ifications are a part of the wealth of nearly all, thoughtful persons who the college or university. It would have studied the subject is adverse be unwise to rotate him out or re- to the new departure. move him to ahother field by a reg- There is in the case no question ular system; but even if it were of the power of trustees to remove wise to do so, there exists no ma- professors. This power is held un- chinery of change. There is no der the old rule of unbroken tenure, professorial presiding eldership or and there is a very simple and effec- episcopacy. The professor whom tive procedure authorized by time- a wheel has turned out is not turn- honored precedent. Mistakes in ed in somewhere else by the same elections, and inefficiency developed wheel. Ministers under our system after election, can be cured by re- can claim new appointments from questing the resignation of the pro- their conferences; the most effect- fessor, or by declaring his chair va- ive of professors cannot claim a cant. This secures a full examina- new appointment from anybody un- tion of the facts and makes an un- der the sun. favorable decision an act of justice Professorial service is quite pecu- based upon knowledge. To decline liar. On one side is a body of stu- to re-elect under the new method, dents to be dealt with wisely and either because a presiding officer de- impartially. A college wants to re- sires a change or because there are move every possible danger of fa- doubts about efficiency, may be a voritism or laxness in discipline. way of perpetrating an outrage un- We want a wise professor's best der the forms of law. judgment and purest motives. We -25 x94 Professorial Tenure of Office. [Sept., can hardly expect this of men al- institution. They will grow old. ways in danger of losing their pla- God bless the gray-haired profes- ces. On the other hand, is a board sors! We have never known one of trustees, who want the soundest whose feeblest work was not worth opinions of the men who devote more than the stoutest lift of his all their time to the service of the young manhood. The Northwestern college. If a professor is not worth buried in 1872, a man who drew a good deal as an adviser, he should his life painfully through five years not be retained. In most cases, he of decline. But, in manifold ways is the only one who intimately and offices, the invalid Noyes was knows his own department, the on- to the last hour in full effectiveness, ly one competent to speak with com- even on his deathbed; and his slow- plete information of its students ly-gathered small fortune will always and of its needs. But a man ex- teach in the university. posed to perpetual danger of loos- The subject is large. We see in ing his position is not likely to give it a lesson upon the larger question his best judgment. He will often of national civil service reform. not have any best judgment to give. We should despair of curing the This man should be chosen with nation if our colleges should sicken care after ample trial. You are not with the fever of purposeless rota- dispensing a favor in choosing him; tion and removal. The old colleges you are securing a man to do the are to this day the best examples of work of a man where self-control, a wise tenure of office. Selected self-denial, devotion to his calling with care, living in close heartlock and a perfect freedom from any with their cause, the men of Yale, taint of demagogry are absolutely Harvard, Brown, Williams, and essential. He should not have any, other colleges, have best shown how the slightest, need or provocation a stable tenure of civil service may to win by arts and cunning what be founded and maintained. We should be given for work and ac- hope our Western colleges will teach quirements. civil service reform by retaining its A good professor will always iden- principle in their own tenure of pro- tify himself with the institution. fessorial service. The interests of For its welfare, he will work in ma- the school are vital, and no one ny ways beyond his bargained stint, man's interest should stand in the making a thousand unpaid steps to way, but as long as a professor does desirable'ends, just because the col- his best, and the very best for the lege is love and home to him. school his tenure should be safe. With concentration and accumu- When, finally, it may be thought lation of wealth, there must be some best to remove him the question danger of demoralizing the teaching should come up in something like a body. There had best, be at the Court of Inquiry, where complete center of every university a care- justice may be done him. A law fully-selected corps of professors, that executes itself is apt to be a whose singleness of purpose is as blind law that lacks human sympa- sure as their culture, whose whole thy as well as eyes.-N. W. Christian life is boundup in the life of the Advocate. Pride hath no glass To show itself, but pride; for supple knees Feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees. -Shakespere. 1873.] ]he Genius of Liberty. 195 THE GENIUS OF LIBERTY. GRADUATING ORATION, W. H. WYLDER. SCALE with me yon mountain's on ethereal wings; it is stamped in brow, and with the eye of imagina- never-fading letters in the deep blue tion view that stream gushing from sky above us; and everywhere mor- its hidden depths. How sparkling tal beings waft back the response and pure its waters. Coursing its from throbbing hearts. way down the mountain side, it When we review the pages of the mingles its waters with another and past the foot-prints of the Genius with increased rapidity it leaps from of Liberty, child of the skies, arrest chasm to chasm with splendor daz- our attention. They are indicative zling and sublime. Now steadily of the most bloody cruelties that it speeds onward through the dense ever tyrant had to repent. She has forest revealing its wealth and echo- gilded in golden letters the grand- ing the notes of praise of the war- est achievements that ever called bling songsters; or softly it glides, forth the praise of man. breaking the deep silence of the She has so infused herself into the meadow, unearthing and polishing thought and literature of the world its secret gems. Invigorating are that now the shackles of the op- its breezes, and in its musical mur- pressed are being loosened; princi- murings there is joy and gladness. palities and powers are crumbling to As we trace its meanderings through dust beneath the advancing wheels glen and glade it soon plunges into of education and christianity, the the bosom of the 'ocean. In the emancipators both of body and soul. morning, a tiny drop uplifted from Despotism has ever retarded pro- the depths of the ocean; in the eve- gress and intercepted the ays of ning, united with a myriad of its the sun of truth, and misery like a crystal brothers, a torrent hastening dark spirit has brooded over the ty- its return to be clothed in the ma- rants domains. But as the ark borne jesty of its former life. upon the flood of waters, finally As the little drop is caught up by rested on Ararat, so the Genius of the sun under the direction of Om- Liberty floated above the gloom of nipotence, and in the mountain ignorance and superstition that stream traverses the lengths of the threatened mankind and as proudly the earth teaching the lessons of rests on its eminence of safety. To true life, and returns to the bosom that eminence many an outraged of the ocean, so the Spirit of Liber- and fettered patriot having turned ty, emanating from the Father of his eye, has caught hope and inspi- life, has been intimately connected ration from that bright form clothed with every event of which our world in the habiliments of freedom. has been the theatre, that has point- Turn to Erin's isle, the "Eden ed the souls of men toward God. of the ocean," the seat of valor and It is a God-given principle, man- virtue, and behold the effects of op- ifest in every creature that explores pression. Here, where nature lav- the dark waters of the deep, that ished her wealth and beauties, where ranges the regions of earth and air. she has planted the germ of true The low murmurings of the wash greatness, blasted talent and unmiti- of the waves make it ever the bur- gated miseries speak in loudest ac- den of their song, it is borne to us cents of minds dwarfed and blunt 196 The Genius of Liberty.