第 35 节
作者:
青涩春天 更新:2021-02-27 02:38 字数:9322
be selected on grounds of businesslike fitness; more or less
pronounced; while a working minority must continue to be made up
of men without much business proficiency and without pronounced
loyalty to commercial principles。
This fluctuating margin of limitation has apparently not yet
been reached; perhaps not even in the most enterprising of our
universities。 Such should be the meaning of the fact that a
continued commercialization of the academic staff appears still
to be in progress; in the sense that businesslike fitness counts
progressively for more in appointments and promotions。 These
businesslike qualifications do not comprise merely facility in
the conduct of pecuniary affairs; even if such facility be
conceived to include the special aptitudes and proficiency that
go to the making of a successful advertiser。 In academic circles
as elsewhere businesslike fitness includes solvency as well as
commercial genius。 Both of these qualifications are useful in the
competitive manoeuvres in which the academic body is engaged。 But
while the two are apparently given increasing weight in the
selection and grading of the academic personnel; the precedents
and specifications for a standard rating of merit in this bearing
have hitherto not been worked out to such a nicety as to allow
much more than a more or less close approach to a consistent
application of the principle in the average case。 And there lies
always the infirmity in the background of the system that if the
staff were selected consistently with an eye single to business
capacity and business animus the university would presently be
functa officio; and the captain of erudition would find his
occupation gone。
A university is an endowed institution of culture; whether
the endowment take the form of assigned income; as in the state
establishments; or of funded wealth; as with most other
universities。 Such fraction of the income as is assigned to the
salary roll; and which therefore comes in question here; is
apportioned among the staff for work which has no determinate
market value。 It is not a matter of quid pro quo; since one
member of the exchange; the stipend or salary; is measurable in
pecuniary terms and the other is not。 This work has no business
value; in so far as it is work properly included among the duties
of the academic men。 Indeed; it is a fairly safe test; work that
has a commercial value does not belong in the university。 Such
services of the academic staff as have a business value are those
portions of their work that serve other ends than the higher
learning; as; e。g。; the prestige and pecuniary gain of the
institution at large; the pecuniary advantage of a given clique
or faction within the university; or the profit and renown of the
directive head。 Gains that accrue for services of this general
character are not; properly speaking; salary or stipend payable
toward 〃the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men;〃 even
if they are currently so designated; in the absence of suitable
distinctions。 Instances of such a diversion of corporate funds to
private ends have in the past occurred in certain monastic and
priestly orders; as well as in some modern political
organizations。 Organized malversation of this character has
latterly been called 〃graft。〃 The long…term common sense of the
community would presently disavow any corporation of learning
overtly pursuing such a course; as being faithless to its trust;
and the conservation of learning would so pass into other hands。
Indeed; there are facts current which broadly suggest that the
keeping of the higher learning is beginning to pass into other;
and presumptively more disinterested; hands。
The permeation of academic policy by business principles is a
matter of more or less; not of absolute; dominance。 It appears to
be a question of how wide a deviation from scholarly singleness
of purpose the long…term common sense of the community will
tolerate。 The cult of the idle curiosity sticks too deep in the
instinctive endowment of the race; and it has in modern
civilization been too thoroughly ground into the shape of a quest
of matter…of…fact knowledge; to allow this pursuit to be
definitively set aside or to fall into abeyance。 It is by too
much an integral constituent of the habits of thought induced by
the discipline of workday life。 The faith in and aspiration after
matter…of…fact knowledge is too profoundly ingrained in the
modern community; and too consonant with its workday habit of
mind; to admit of its supersession by any objective end alien to
it; at least for the present and until some stronger force
than the technological discipline of modern life shall take over
the primacy among the factors of civilization; and so give us a
culture of a different character from that which has brought on
this modern science and placed it at the centre of things human。
The popular approval of business principles and businesslike
thrift is profound; disinterested; alert and insistent; but it
does not; at least not yet; go the length of unreservedly placing
a businesslike exploitation of office above a faithful discharge
of trust。 The current popular animus may not; in this matter;
approach that which animates the business community; specifically
so…called; but it is sufficiently 〃practical〃 to approve
practical sagacity and gainful traffic wherever it is found; yet
the furtherance of knowledge is after all an ideal which engages
the modern community's affections in a still more profound way;
and; in the long run; with a still more unqualified insistence。
For good or ill; in the apprehension of the civilized peoples;
matter…of…fact knowledge is an end to be sought; while gainful
enterprise is; after all; a means to an end。 There is; therefore;
always this massive hedge of slow but indefeasible popular
sentiment that stands in the way of making the seats of learning
over into something definitively foreign to the purpose which
they are popularly believed to serve。(1*)
Perhaps the most naive way in which a predilection for men of
substantial business value expresses itself in university policy
is the unobtrusive; and in part unformulated; preference shown
for teachers with sound pecuniary connections; whether by
inheritance or by marriage。 With no such uniformity as to give
evidence of an advised rule of precedence or a standarized
schedule of correlation; but with sufficient consistency to
merit; and indeed to claim; the thoughtful attention of the
members of the craft; a scholar who is in a position to plead
personal wealth or a wealthy connection has a perceptibly better
chance of appointment on the academic staff; and on a more
advantageous scale of remuneration; than men without pecuniary
antecedents。 Due preferment also appears to follow more as a
matter of course where the candidate has or acquires a tangible
standing of this nature。
This preference for well…to…do scholars need by no means be
an altogether blind or impulsive predilection for commercial
solvency on the part of the appointing power; though such a
predilection is no doubt ordinarily present and operative in a
degree。 But there is substantial ground for a wise discrimination
in this respect。 As a measure of expediency; particularly the
expediency of publicity; it is desirable that the incumbents of
the higher stations on the staff should be able to live on such a
scale of conspicuous expensiveness as to make a favourable
impression on those men of pecuniary refinement and expensive
tastes with whom they are designed to come in contact。 The
university should be worthily represented in its personnel;
particularly in such of its personnel as occupy a conspicuous
place in the academic hierarchy; that is to say; it should be
represented with becoming expensiveness in all its social contact
with those classes from whose munificence large donations may
flow into the corporate funds。 Large gifts of this kind are
creditable both to him that gives and him that takes; and it is
the part of wise foresight so to arrange that those to whom it
falls to represent the university; as potential beneficiary; at
this juncture should do so with propitiously creditable
circumstance。 To meet and convince the opulent patrons of
learning; as well as the parents and guardians of possible
opulent students; it is; by and la