第62章 CHAPTER IV(8)
As bearing on this whole matter of pomp and circumstance， social amenities and ritual dissipation， quasi-learned demonstrations and meretricious publicity， in academic life， it is difficult beyond hope of a final answer to determine how much of it is due directly to the masterful initiative of the strong man who directs the enterprise， and how much is to be set down to an innate proclivity for all that sort of thing on the part of the academic personnel. A near view of these phenomena leaves the impression that there is， on the whole， less objection felt than expressed among the academic men with regard to this routine of demonstration； that the reluctance with which they pass under the ceremonial yoke is not altogether ingenuous； all of which would perhaps hold true even more decidedly as applied to the faculty households.(6*) But for all that， it also remains true that without the initiative and countenance of the executive head these boyish movements of sentimental spectacularity on the part of the personnel would come to little， by comparison with what actually takes place. It is after all a matter for executive discretion， and， from whatever motives， this diversion of effort to extra-scholastic ends has the executive sanction；(7*) with the result that an intimate familiarity with current academic life is calculated to raise the question whether make-believe does not， after all， occupy a larger and more urgent place in the life of these thoughtful adult male citizens than in the life of their children.
NOTES：
1. It was a very wise and adroit politician who found out that "You can not fool all the people all the time."2. La gloria di colui che tutto muove， Per l'universo pen閠ra e risplende In una parte pi* e meno altr'ove.
3. In a certain large and enterprising university， e.g.， the pay of the lowest， and numerous， rank regularly employed to do full work as teachers， is proportioned to that of the highest -- much less numerous -- rank about as one to twelve at the most， perhaps even as low as one to twenty. And it may not be out of place to enter the caution that the nominal rank of a given member of the staff is no secure index of his income， even where the salary "normally" attached to the given academic rank is known. Not unusually a "normal" scale of salaries is formally adopted by the governing board and spread upon their records， and such a scale will then be surreptitiously made public. But departures from the scale habitually occur， whereby the salaries actually paid come to fall short of the "normal" perhaps as frequently as they conform to it.
There is no trades-union among university teachers， and no collective bargaining. There appears to be a feeling prevalent among them that their salaries are not of the nature of wages， and that there would be a species of moral obliquity implied in overtly so dealing with the matter. And in the individual bargaining by which the rate of pay is determined the directorate may easily be tempted to seek an economical way out， by offering a low rate of pay coupled with a higher academic rank. The plea is always ready to hand that the university is in want of the necessary funds and is constrained to economize where it can. So an advance in nominal rank is made to serve in place of an advance in salary， the former being the less costly commodity for the time being. Indeed， so frequent are such departures from the normal scale as to have given rise to the (no doubt ill-advised)suggestion that this may be one of the chief uses of the adopted schedule of normal salaries. So an employee of the university may not infrequently find himself constrained to accept， as part payment， an expensive increment of dignity attaching to a higher rank than his salary account would indicate. Such an outcome of individual bargaining is all the more likely in the academic community， since there is no settled code of professional ethics governing the conduct of business enterprise in academic management， as contrasted with the traffic of ordinary competitive business.
4. So， e.g.， the well-known president of a well and favourably known university was at pains a few years ago to distinguish one of his faculty as being his "ideal of a university man"； the grounds of this invidious distinction being a lifelike imitation of a country gentleman and a fair degree of attention to committee work in connection with the academic administration；the incumbent had no distinguishing marks either as a teacher or as a scholar， and neither science nor letters will be found in his debt. It is perhaps needless to add that for reasons of invidious distinction， no names can be mentioned in this connection. It should be added in illumination of the instance cited， that in the same university， by consistent selection and discipline of the personnel， it had come about that， in the apprehension of the staff as well as of the executive， the accepted test of efficiency was the work done on the administrative committees -- rather than that of the class rooms or laboratories.
5. Within the past few years an academic executive of great note has been heard repeatedly to express himself in facetious doubt of this penchant for scholarly inquiry on the part of university men， whether as "rese醨ch" or as "r閟earch"； and there is doubtless ground for scepticism as to its permeating the academic body with that sting of ubiquity that is implied in many expressions on this head. And it should also be said， perhaps in extenuation of the expression cited above， that the president was addressing delegations of his own faculty， and presumably directing his remarks to their special benefit； and that while he professed (no doubt ingenuously) a profound zeal for the cause of science at large， it had come about， selectively， through a long course of sedulous attention on his own part to all other qualifications than the main fact， that his faculty at the time of speaking was in the main an aggregation of slack-twisted schoolmasters and men about town. Such a characterization， however， does not carry any gravely invidious discrimination， nor will it presumably serve in any degree to identify the seat of learning to which it refers.
6. The share and value of the "faculty wives" in all this routine of resolute conviviality is a large topic， an intelligent and veracious account of which could only be a work of naive brutality：
"But the grim， grim Ladies， Oh， my brothers！
They are ladling bitterly.
They are ladling in the work-time of the others， In the country of the free."(Mrs. Elizabret Harte Browning， in The Cry of the Heathen Chinee.)7. What takes place without executive sanction need trouble no one.