MOVEMENT BENEFITS PROFESSORS

A committee has recently been named for the formation of a national association of university professors, an organization that aims to strengthen the conception of the professors' status. Its purpose is indicated by a circular letter lately sent out by the Johns Hopkins professors. The purport of this letter was that the university professor, besides his interest in his specialty, is "concerned, as a member of the legislative body of his own local institution, with questions of educational policy which are of more than local significance" and "that he is a member of a professional body which is the special custodian of certain ideals, and the organ for the performance of certain functions essential to the well-being of society." This organizing committee is composed of representatives of the chief departments of learning from nearly all the leading universities.

In strengthening the university professors position the new association bids fair to promote a higher professional spirit and to give a basis for a wider appeal in questions of moment. Since there exists in this country no central educational organ such as the Minister of Public Instruction in European countries, the American university is for the most part, a separate educational unit, regarding what goes on within it as its own private affair. One other distinctive feature is the part played by the president, who, though checked by a number of forces is the centre of power. In view of these facts, the new association will tend to bring the professors into a relatively stronger position.

The preservation of high educational ideals and the maintenance of traditions, a custody that the new association seems to intimate should not be wholly intrusted to the ablest university professors and governing bodies, will be the care of the new national association.