Williams College - Gulielmensian Yearbook (Williamstown, MA)

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The Administration of President Carter After twenty years of service as president of Williams College, Dr. Carter was obliged by illness to resign his oftice, the resignation taking effect on September Ist, 19or. ifhereby the college suffered twofold loss, it lost an able administrator, and it lost a brilliant teacher. But for ill health, Dr. Carter might have added to his twenty years yet other years more useful still, giving to college and to class the ripest fruits of his expe- rience and culture. Any estimate of such an administration must-be defective. By far the greater part is unseen and unknown. Private interviews, private corres- pondence, personal infiuence quietly exerted and even infiuence uncon- sciously exerted, effect more than comes to public knowledge and more than is achieved by public methods. Accidents and collisions attract notice, but little notice is taken, and no records kept, of accidents avoided and collisions prevented. A college must unite trustees, faculty, alumni, students, and parents of students. As it would be a miracle if all these elements were in spontaneous agreement, the president must provide the universal solvent. He must collect the currents from the various batteries and combine them in one motor. His methods and policy are exposed to criticism in which he is judged as an executive, though he has small freedom of action compared with a business manager or a mili- tary leader. He must give liberty and independence to his faculty to get the highest results, yet he must keep sufficient control to secure effective teaching and adequate uniformity. He is the source of discipline and yet would keep the good will of the students. He is expected to maintain a high standard of scholarship without turning away too many delinquents. In addition to all this he is assigned the task of raising money. The very qualities which fit him for his other duties are likely to make this task extremely distasteful, for it is not often that a man of scholarly culture possesses also the peculiar talents of the promoter, and if he does, his training, away from business and money making, robs him of pleasure in their exercise. Such are the conditions and such the problems of the office. One need not be an administrator to see the difficulties, but only a practical administrator can appreciate them to the full. Q For twenty years Dr. Carter dealt with the complexities of the situation, and the results show that he dealt successfully. lt was a transition period 6

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in education, the attack upon the old-fashioned system and the experiments of Harvard forcing the issue. Williams was progressive but too wisely conservative to be led into costly blunders. If a reaction should come, there is little it need undo of what has been done. The influence of Dr. Carter has been applied steadily to bettering the quality of the training and the efhciency of the work. In the true New England spirit, substantial progress and solid attainment were set before numbers and popularity. Rather might it be objected that the atmosphere of the college was not hospitable enough, but the fault is a New England fault and is its application of the proverb that good winehneeds no bush. There has been growth, steady and natural. Williams has more than held its own among small colleges and ranks among the first. This was attained by wise fore- thought and skilful management. A college does not run itself unless it is running down hill. Recent gifts of' millions to education make former gifts of thousands seem small, but in valuing results the startled imagination does not count for much. The use made of money and the effects shown are the important elements. In the life of Williams an addition of a million and a half in buildings, equipment, and endowment is an enormous increase, and larger amounts to be given hereafter may not confer relatively greater power. The dollar purchases less to-day and a much larger outlay would be re- quired to obtain the same material. No students have been turned away for lack of room, nor has any essential part ot a liberal education been omitted. Though new funds are now absolutely necessary, not wholly for further growth, but to prevent decline, hitherto the daily food has not been lacking. This again has not happened by chance. A president is entitled to credit, not only for gifts which he has himself solicited but also for those which come unaskecl. and are the most practical evidence of confidence in his management. The material equipment of the college has kept pace with its growth, and that growth, as has been said, was solid and splendid. - As administrator and as educator, Dr. Carter has, then, obtained results which prove his policy wise and sound. There must yet be added his moral influence upon the college, and here again that which is public and manifest is but a small part of the whole. Private acts of generosity and helpfulness, personal contributions of money and of service, are not adver- tised by their author and are too often concealed by their recipients. Men who proclaim to the four winds any fancied slight or wound of vanity do not show the same zeal for benefits received. If a college president would give the best of himself to his duties he must protect himself from bores who would steal his valuable time without remorse, he must even protect himself from those who are not bores, but who would take up needlessly 7