THE BALANCING ACT

Dr. Harlan Uptegraff, President of Cornell College, Mt. Vernon, Iowa, has resigned his position on the grounds that he came to the college as an educator, rather than as a money raiser.

Dr. Uptegraff is either unaware of the usual functions of the American college president, or he has up to this ignored them. He should have learned before he took up his duties the fact, for instance, that from 1918 to 1921 six leading American universities were the recipients of 138,000,000 dollars. During the past century the six leading English Universities have been donated 30,000,000 dollars (6,000,000 pounds). The tremendous increase in the number and scope of schools of higher education during the past two decades has made necessary college presidents who could find the funds necessary to the growth of their institutions.

This most peculiarly American and modern function of a college president is that of a sort of mediator between the college and the world at large, or more particularly, between the college and the alumni. He has to bridge the gap between certain of the alumni who want a bigger and better football team and certain of the faculty who would like to abolish the football team altogether. Whatever his personal convictions may be, he has to establish the golden mean between, not only two, but often half a dozen discordant-factions. On first thought it would seem that the logical remedy for the anomalous position of the college president were to divide his office between two persons, as it is divided in England between the president of the college, whose interests are primarily scholarly, and the chancellor whose function is executive. In this country, however, the scholar and the business man are apt to be at such opposite poles of thought that such division of labor would only result in friction. It might even be suicidal. So authority must be vested in one man, a man of infinite tact and courage, who must balance Babbitry and philology.