master and pedagogue. This ideal might be measurably realized by the exclusion of the considerable body of indifferent and intellectually torpid students who now frequent American universities. Of that I shall have something to say in a later section.

But many of the ablest and most intellectual men in the country would not be attracted to the faculties of our universities by teaching alone. They are primarily interested in creative work. The way to secure such men is to give them opportunities for research and scholarship. They are ready to do a certain amount of teaching but they are unwilling to exhaust their energies in the instruction of students. Many of them feel too that it is more important in the interests of civilization to enlarge the boundaries of existing knowledge than merely to communicate to one generation after another the stock already discovered and extant.

I believe the American public want the best universities in the world and are ready to furnish the means necessary for their support. But the public need to be instructed as to what the university essentially stands for in American life and civilization. It must be demonstrated to them that unless we make and keep our universities genuine laboratories of creative intellectual work they will sink to the level of pedagogical institutes. The most hopeful way to recruit and reinvigorate the faculties of American universities is to make them places for able, well-trained, and intellectually alert professors, generally of course with the primary function of teaching, but also with adequate provision for creative work on the part of all who are ambitious and competent to undertake it.

Considerations like these indicate the vast importance of Mr. Heckscher's splendid gift for the endowment of research at Cornell University. It will do more than any other gift could have done to elevate the University to its highest ideal and to liberate and stimulate the intellectual energies of the professors. Although the enlargement of knowledge is the highest object of a university it always tends, especially in America, in practice to become a mere by-product. Lord Kelvin said to me on the occasion of his visit to Cornell University, in the year 1902, that the American professor was overburdened with teaching and came to the work of research, if he had any time for it at all, with his powers already exhausted. The great service rendered by Mr. Heckscher is to put research in its true place at Cornell. And the income of his Foundation will be large enough to make a good beginning in the realization of that ideal. From what I

know of the Faculty at Cornell University I have no doubt that their contributions to knowledge will amply justify the new endowment. The tree of knowledge is destined to grow at Cornell and as it grows new streams of generosity will water it.

After favorable conditions for his work what the professor most values is liberty of thought, speech, and publication. It is no selfgratulatory assurance but the sober testimony of the sisterhood of American universities, that in this regard Cornell University has been peculiarly attractive to professors. Speaking for a period of nearly thirty years, I know that they have greatly appreciated the unlimited freedom which this University has afforded them, and that for the enjoyment of that freedom they have in very many cases made large pecuniary sacrifices. The University has had no finer and nobler asset, to say nothing of its value as a marketable commodity. It is a glory which I trust may remain a perpetual possession.

In recent years also the professoriate has been admitted to representation on the Board of Trustees. But the Faculty representatives, while enjoying all the privileges of other Trustees, have hitherto not had the right to vote. This discrimination may be corrected either by an amendment of the Charter of the University or by a self-denying ordinance on the part of the Board, agreeing to elect Faculty representatives as Trustees in the annually occurring vacancies which the Board itself fills by co-optation. I think the Faculty will not be permanently contented unless its representatives enjoy all the rights and privileges of other Trustees. If that consummation is not realized in the near future it seems to me probable that the professors, who undoubtedly desire to retain the newly granted privilege of co-operation with the Trustees in the government of the University, may suggest another form in which that policy shall be carried out and perhaps recommend the substitution of an organization of conference committees in which Faculty members and Trustees could come together on absolutely equal terms.

Subject to one qualification only, I think it can be said that scholars and scientists for the last quarter of a century have regarded membership in the Faculty of Cornell University as a very attractive and almost ideal position. The comprehensiveness and variety of range and work of the institution, the excellence of the library, the wealth of laboratory equipment, the stimulating intellectual life and activity, and last, but by no means least, the congenial atmosphere and the universal spirit of freedom of thought and speech and work and life

have conspired to make an environment which intellectual workers have found very delightful. The one serious drawback, the one grave qualification of this picture, has been the inadequacy of the salaries. But the success which has already attended the campaign for additional endowments to raise salaries, and the interest not only of trustees and alumni but also of the general public in the matter, afford grounds for the hope that this discouraging feature may be speedily eliminated. This matter is certainly one of the greatest importance at the present time. While a high salary will not draw or keep the right kind of man in the teaching profession, relief from pecuniary care is necessary to leave his mind free for good teaching and effective research. The right kind of teacher is an idealist, he gives little or no thought to making money; it is all the more important, therefore, that he should enjoy exemption from anxieties regarding a livelihood or the coming of old age, so far at least as that can be effected by the assurance of a reasonable salary and retiring allowance.

The following faculty changes should be recorded for the year 1919-1920: The two Deans of the Engineering Colleges-Dean Smith and Dean Haskell—having presented their resignations to take effect in the course of the year 1920-1921, Professor Kimball was notified that he would be required at that time to enter upon the duties of the office of Dean of the consolidated College of Engineering to which he had already been appointed, and action was taken on details of that appointment that had previously been left unsettled.

On the nomination of the President with the unanimous approval of the University Faculty, Dr. W. A. Hammond was appointed by the Trustees Dean of that Faculty. Under the designation of Secretary he had for many years performed all the duties of the deanship.

The Trustees also reappointed Dr. J. E. Creighton Dean of the Graduate School on the nomination of the President supported by the unanimous vote of that Faculty.

At the beginning of the year, Dr. Walter L. Niles, who since the death of Dr. Polk had been Acting Dean, was, on the nomination of the President with the unanimous concurrence of the Faculty, appointed Dean of the Medical College in New York City. With the passing not only of Dean Polk but also of the Founder and all the first professors the Medical College enters on a new epoch. It is a happy circumstance that Dean Niles, who is now the leader of the institution, in addition to his intrinsic qualifications for the post is both a graduate

of the Medical College in New York and a former undergraduate of the University at Ithaca.

Wallace Notestein, Professor of English History in the University of Minnesota, was appointed Professor of English History, and William Linn Westermann, Professor of Ancient History in the University of Wisconsin, was appointed Professor of Ancient History. Fred H. Rhodes, Ph.D., '14, was appointed Professor of Industrial Chemistry. Orville G. Brim and Theodore H. Eaton were appointed to professorships of Rural Education in the College of Agriculture.

J. T. Parson and S. S. Garrett, Assistant Professors in the College of Engineering, H. L. Jones, Assistant Professor of Greek, and H. P. Weld, Assistant Professor of Psychology, were promoted to full professorships.

In the College of Agriculture the following persons have been promoted from assistant professorships to professorships: J. H. Barron, E. W. Benjamin, J. C. Bradley, Mrs. A. B. Comstock, A. J. Eames, G. C. Embody, A. J. Heinicke, O. B. Kent, L. A. Maynard, E. G. Misner, Miss Helen Monsch, W. I. Myers, Montgomery Robinson, G. P. Scoville, Paul Work, and Mrs. H. B. Young.

THE STUDENTS

Universities have been created and are maintained primarily for the higher education of students. The attendance at Cornell University, which was interrupted by the war, has since steadily increased; the enrollment of regularly matriculated students from September to June 1919-1920 was 5765, being the largest in the history of the University. This is exclusive of the enrollment in the Summer Session, which has now reached about 2000.

There is no intrinsic limit to the number of students which a university may enroll and educate. Practical limitations are, however, set by the size of the faculty and the capacity and equipment of class rooms and laboratories and in some cases also by the sufficiency of residential halls for students. If, however, funds were available to augment the faculty and to enlarge the material equipment and appliances in proportion to the increase of the body of students there would seem to be no reason why with proper organization the process of expansion might not go on indefinitely.

It must be recognized that at the present time the larger American universities are, in proportion to their resources, overcrowded with students. In none of them, however, are there too many students of

the right kind. A university is intended as a resort for those who are interested in the things of the mind and who are curious to know and diligent and keen to learn. Those to whom this intellectual and scholarly life makes little or no appeal may be excellent fellows and well fitted for other activities, but they are not the material of which a university community should be composed. The universities should be reserved for those who are qualified by natural endowment, by previous training, and by diligent and strenuous intellectual effort to profit by the inestimable privileges which they afford. The first step, therefore, in grappling with the problem of the overcrowding of students is to make a more rigorous selection of candidates, to lay stress on an active intellectual life, to insist on strenuous work, and to prescribe searching examinations followed by the elimination of all who fail to reach the required standard.

This is the direction of reform along which we have moved at Cornell University. Our success has been greatest in holding students to their work and in eliminating the idle or incapable. We have been less successful in the selection of students at entrance, neither university examinations nor school certificates furnishing the necessary criteria for discrimination. Men of mediocre ability without fixed habits of study may make a better showing in these tests than able and hardworking candidates who have been deprived through poverty or other causes of suitable means of preparation. It has been found possible, however, to make fairly satisfactory tests in the course of the first year, or even the first term; and even at that time, late though it is, it is a real kindness to undergraduates who are incapable of pursuing successfully the prescribed courses of study to be turned back.

We have found the greatest difficulty in awakening in the general body of the students a real interest in the intellectual life. But there has always been a saving remnant who do catch the contagion of new ideas and principles, and in their interest and enthusiasm the members of the Faculty have had their reward. In their efforts to quicken the intellectual life of the community I have co-operated with the Faculty by giving addresses to students on intellectual themes and also on important public questions which often involve fundamental ideas. And in season and out of season, for more than a quarter of a century, I have striven to impress upon them that their chief duty was to work hard, and that "student activities" were first of all "studious activities," or in other words that the business of the student was to study.