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ADMINISTRATION OF DR. DRISLER.

Nothing of great importance to history could be done while the college was without a head, but Acting President Drisler won a place for himself in the hearts of all Columbia men by the faithful care he took of the welfare of the college, and the work of his successor was made lighter by the fact that no backward steps were taken. It was owing to his faithfulness, indeed, that the trustees were able to give such deliberate attention to the selection of a new president. Their appreciation of his services was evinced by their action on the 10th of February, 1890, when it was

Resolved, That in the administration of Prof. Henry Drisler, LL. D., as acting president of Columbia College, an office for which he was admirably equipped by his sense of its responsibility and by exalted personal character, as well as by profound learning and sound judgment, and an experience of nearly fifty years of service in the college as an officer of the institution, the trustees gratefully acknowledge the ability and faithfulness with which the duties of the position have been performed.

That they record with satisfaction the continued usefulness and prosperity of the college under Professor Drisler's management, which they recognize as having been wise and conservative in maintaining academic traditions, as well as progressive in its hearty sympathy with the healthful activity of all the schools of the college.

Further resolutions provided for the promotion of Professor Drisler to the position of dean of the school of arts.

It was during Dr. Drisler's administration that what promises to be one of the most useful schools of the college was opened. The prominence which electricity has of late taken in the world of science led the trustees to establish a school in electrical engineering and to appropriate sufficient funds for the erection of a thoroughly equipped building for its accommodation. The course in this school, as well as the course in sanitary engineering, was made postgraduate to the school of mines, and thus another step taken in the direction of a university.

Shortly before his retirement Dr. Barnard had said:

Universities are a want of the country which must and will be supplied; but they can not spring into being full panoplied, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter. They must grow by gradual accretion continued through a long series of years, and no such accretion can take place except around an existing nucleus. .

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She [Columbia] is the nucleus of what will one day be the great university of the city-possibly of the continent; and it should be an encouragement to all who have any ambition to see our city as preeminent in its literary and scientific character as it is in its population, its commerce, and its wealth, that she is a nucleus so substantial already; so sound and solid at the core, that all future accretions will adhere to her firmly and constitute the elements of a healthy growth.1

Throughout Dr. Barnard's long administration Columbia had steadily grown in this direction. The possibility which he had foreI President Barnard's Report, 1886.

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seen was accomplished in all but form and name. Fortunately for the college, the wisdom which has characterized the board of trustees since their creation did not desert them now, and mature deliberation enabled them to select as a successor to President Barnard a man who was exceptionally well fitted to continue the work and lead the college toward its goal-the metropolitan university.

ACCESSION OF PRESIDENT LOW.

On the 7th of October, 1889, Hon. Seth Low, LL. D., one of her own alumni, was elected to the presidency of the college. President Low is the son of Mr. Abiel A. Low, a well-known merchant of Burling Slip. He was born in Brooklyn, and his early education was obtained at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, where he was prepared for Columbia. He was graduated in 1870, standing at the head of his class. He then went abroad and spent several years in travel, after which he entered his father's mercantile house, where he subsequently became a partner. He was elected a member of the chamber of commerce, served on several important committees, and achieved a creditable distinction for a series of addresses made before that body on the trade and commerce of New York and kindred subjects. In 1880 he took a prominent part in national politics, founding the "Young Republican Club," which has since become a permanent organization of considerable importance. His impressiveness as a public speaker placed him conspicuously before the people and gained for him a wide celebrity. When a year later the people of Brooklyn were called upon under their new charter to elect a mayor with greatly increased responsibilities, Mr. Low was chosen by a flatteringly large majority. To this office he was reelected in 1883, and throughout both terms his administration was signalized by the display of extraordinary executive abilities. He sank partisanship, reconstructed municipal matters throughout, and gave the city a real reform administration. After his retirement he went abroad again, and on his return resumed his commercial occupation. In 1881 he was elected a trustee of Columbia, in which office he afforded his associates ample opportunities for learning his peculiar fitness for the high position to which they elected him.

His new honors were borne with becoming modesty. In his letter of acceptance he said:

The honor is at the same time the summons to a duty which I may not decline. I accept, therefore, the position to which I have been chosen with grateful thanks to my colleagues for this culminating mark of their confidence and good will and with the assurance that I will do everything in my power to justify their judgment.

At his own suggestion and with the advice of Dr. Drisler, President Low did not enter upon his duties until the beginning of the second term, when appropriate installation ceremonies were held on the 3d of February, 1890.

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In his inaugural address, after mentioning among Columbia's many eminent alumni Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, DeWitt Clinton, and Hamilton Fish, President Low said:

The value of the college to New York is not to be measured by the services of her conspicuous sons. Her chief and permanent value to the city lies in the constant witness she bears to the usefulness and nobility of the intellectual life and in the work she is always doing to develop and uplift that life. Columbia College, college and university both as she really is, holds aloft this ideal in the great city where finance and commerce show alike their good and their bad sides. Her influence makes always to strengthen the things which are good. In her financial management she illustrates a business trust faithfully administered without a breach for one hundred and thirty years. On her educational side she displays the splendid usefulness of money which is received not to be hoarded, but to be well spent. She is profoundly conscious that what she is doing is but the earnest of what she yet may do if New York will but make common cause with her and enlarge and broaden and deepen her work on every side.

The city also may be made, to a considerable extent, a part of the university. All about us lie its galleries, its museums, and its libraries. Best of all, here are are its men, the most eminent in their calling in every walk of life. Let us bring these men in every possible way into vital touch with our work, and we shall see a university of which the whole country shall be proud.

ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT LOW.1

The distinctive features of President Low's administration are the simplification of the university organization; the growth in the number of university faculties and in the real university work done; the gratifying general development of both college and university in numbers and equipment; the affiliation of the university with various educational agencies in the city and the closer contact with the life of the city itself.

Columbia had formed a high ideal of university organization and work thirty years before, and had during the last year of President Barnard's administration been working rapidly toward it. University work, not merely in the professional schools, but in certain departments of pure science, notably in economics and politics, had for several years before the accession of Mr. Low been successfully carried on. The relations of the different departments of the university in this work, however, were not systematized. Certain tentative changes were made immediately after the inauguration of Mr. Low as president. After a short trial this tentative reorganization was retained for the most part with further modifications seen to be necessary.

'The remainder of the sketch of Columbia was written by Sidney Sherwood. The chapter which had been written by Mr. Hathaway described the organization as it was in 1891. To make the present condition of the university most easily intelligible it seemed best to pass over more lightly the first steps in the transformation wrought by President Low, and to bring out in clearer relief the latest status. While Mr. Hathaway's chapter as a whole has been discarded, a part of his material has been used.

The administrative key of the reorganized system is the university council, established in 1890 as a board of advisers to the president upon university matters, but afterwards constituted a definite body in the government of the university, representative of the various faculties and invested with large powers.

The most lucid account of the reorganization is to be found in the annual reports of the president, those of 1890 and of 1892, respectively.

ORGANIZATION AT THE ACCESSION OF PRESIDENT LOW.

Mr. Low, in his report of 1890, says:

On the 6th of February, 1890, Columbia College in the city of New York consisted of the School of Arts, or the college proper, founded in 1754; the School of Law, established in 1858; the School of Mines, established in 1864, and the School of Political Science, established in 1880. In addition to these schools, which are under the direct control of the trustees of the college, the College of Physicians and Surgeons had become in 1860, by joint resolution of its own board of trustees and the trustees of Columbia, the medical department of Columbia College. The president, however, and this board have no responsibility as toward the medical department, and this report, therefore, will concern itself at this point with the other schools only.

Each of these schools, the School of Arts, the School of Law, the School of Mines, and the School of Political Science, had its own faculty, and each school was administered without any reference to the others, almost without any consciousness of the others.

"No degree could be had except by pursuing the complete course in some one school," although it was possible in some instances to have work taken outside one of the schools count for a degree in that school. In such a case, however, additional fees had to be paid.

What seemed especially to be needed from the point of view of the student was such a unification of the institution as would make its varied opportunities more available to these students where equipment and capabilities justified them in desiring to study in more than one school.

As toward the trustees, also, the existing situation had developed embarrassments.

All of the scientific professors in the faculty of the School of Arts had seats also in the faculty of the School of Mines. In another instance, one professor sat in the three faculties of arts, law, and political science. When, therefore, the judgment of the teaching faculties of the entire institution was sought by the trustees, it had become necessary to direct that no professor should vote in more than one faculty. It was clear to all concerned that somebody ought to be constituted which should represent to the trustees the teaching mind of the institution in all its parts. The problem was to secure a body which would be accepted as fairly representative by all the members of every faculty.

Again, the graduate work, for which were given the higher degrees of master of arts and doctor of philosophy, stood in need of organization. It had grown to considerable proportions, but for the most part it depended too much upon individual professors. There was no general standard to which all must conform. In the School of Political Science, it is true, this work represented a large part of the labors of the faculty, for, with the exception of the first year, it is a graduate

school; but in the School of Arts and the School of Mines the graduate work was a mere incident. For this purpose, also, it was necessary to secure a body which could, in effect, direct the graduate work where it concerned itself with more than one school, and provide a common standard for all the schools. Incidentally, it was desirable, if possible. to place this work in its general phases under the charge of faculties rather than of individuals.

It thus appears from these different points of view that the first thing necessary in any eorganization was to secure the central body which would unify the institution in the various directions indicated, thus enabling it to be operated as one whole instead of as so many parts. The one essential condition in relation to such a body was that it should be felt to be and be accepted, by both trustees and professors, as thoroughly and fairly representative of the entire institution. Prior to my election the trustees had in fact decided that there should be such a body, to be known as an academic or university council. When I assumed the duties of my office, it remained to be decided how this body should be composed, and what precisely should be its function. It was the common opinion, also, that there should be created a faculty of philosophy, to have charge of the advanced work in philosophy, philology, and letters. Such a faculty, if created, made it possible to divide all the professors in the institution into homogeneous groups, of which groups no professor should be in more than one.

THE PRESENT ORGANIZATION.

"Columbia University at the present time consists of the School of Arts, the original college founded in 1754; of sundry professional schools, to wit, the School of Law, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the School of Mines, admission to all of which, as candidates for professional degrees, is open to all students whether or not they are college-bred men; and of the university faculties of Law, Medicine, Mines (Applied Science), Political Science, Philosophy, and Pure Science, which conduct all courses leading to the university degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy.

"The point of contact between the college and the university is the senior year in the School of Arts, during which year students in the School of Arts pursue their studies, with the consent of the faculty of arts, under one or more of the university faculties. The term 'university faculties' includes all the faculties except the faculty of arts. "The various schools are under the charge of their own faculties, and for the better conduct of the strictly university work, as well as of the whole institution, a university council has been established."1

THE UNIVERSITY COUNCIL.

"The university council consists of the president, the deans of the several university faculties, and of a representative chosen from and by each faculty for the term of three years, and of the dean and the secretary of the School of Arts ex officio.

"The council (subject to the reserved power of control by the trustees) has power, and it is its duty, in all matters not referred by statute to the president or the several faculties—

'Columbia College. Historical sketch and present condition. New York, April, 1893, p. 16.

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