Besides the possible but not always probable motives for making large gifts referred to above every other conceivable influence has affected educational benefactions. George Ade’s breezy Chicago magnate who slaps the college president on the back and says: “Have a laboratory on me, old fellow,” is slangy, to be sure, but not altogether fabulous. It is a very common misconception that financial assistance is the only thing needful in higher educational work. President Schurman of Cornell University expressed the views of many of his colleagues among the great university executives of the country when he lamented that “rich men who give their money to educational institutions cannot be induced to give also their time and energy to the management of them.”[49] So neglectful an attitude on their part, by the way, is hardly consistent with the theory that they are engaged in a conspiracy to pollute the wells of knowledge. When we consider the immense number of contributors, large and small, to the cause of higher education it is impossible to escape the conviction that behind many of their generous acts lay real sacrifice, an adequate conception of the great function of university teaching, and the purest and most humanitarian motives. Often, too, there has been full realisation that “the gift without the giver is bare,” and patient, unstinted, intelligent service has accompanied money benefactions. In the same fine spirit nearly all our colleges and universities have accepted and employed the resources so generously placed at their disposal. While due weight should be given to the honourable influences ordinarily accompanying benefactions, candour also compels the frank discussion of those cases where constraint of professorial opinion has been attempted. There have been a few flagrant instances of the dismissal of teachers on account of utterances displeasing to men who have been drawn upon heavily for financial support. One can readily understand the feeling of the latter that, considering their large gifts, they have been most ungratefully and unjustly abused, and also the action which they accordingly instigate, although it is as silly in most cases as the Queen of Hearts’ peremptory command:—“Off with his head!” Men in other walks of life frequently behave in the same way. There is, for example, the very commonplace case of the church member who, disgruntled because of pulpit references—no matter how impersonal—to his pet sin, cuts down his contribution and seeks to drive the minister from his charge. The consequences of the dismissal of a professor because of conflict between his teachings and the outside interests of college benefactors are so widespread and dangerous, however, that they cannot be passed over lightly simply because occurrences of this sort are relatively infrequent in the academic world.