With whatever (slight) reservation may be due, publicity in university management is of substantially the same nature and effect as advertising in other competitive business; and with such reservation as may be called for in the case of other advertising, it is an engine of competition, and has no aggregate effect. As is true of competitive gains in business at large, so also these differential gains of the several university corporations can not be added together to make an aggregate. They are differential gains in the main, of the same nature as the gains achieved in any other game of skill and effrontery. The gross aggregate funds contributed to university uses from all sources would in all probability be nearly as large in the absence of such competitive notoriety and conformity. Indeed, it should seem likely that such donors as are gifted with sufficient sense of the value of science and scholarship to find it worth while to sink any part of their capital in that behalf would be somewhat deterred by the spectacle of competitive waste and futile clamour presented by this academic enterprise; so that the outcome might as well be a diminution of the gross aggregate of donations and allowances. But such an argument doubtless runs on very precarious grounds; it is by no means evident that these munificent patrons of learning habitually distinguish between scholarship and publicity. But in any case it is quite safe to presume that to the cause of learning at large, and therefore to the community in respect of its interest in the advancement of learning, no appreciable net gain accrues from this competitive publicity of the seats of learning.
In some slight, or doubtful, degree this competitive publicity, including academic pageants, genteel solemnities, and the like, may conceivably augment the gross aggregate means placed at the disposal of the universities, by persuasively keeping the well-meaning men of wealth constantly in mind of the university's need of additional funds, as well as of the fact that such gifts will not be allowed to escape due public notice.
But the aggregate increase of funds due to these endeavours is doubtless not large enough to offset the aggregate expenditure on notoriety. Taken as a whole, and counting in all the wide-ranging expenditure entailed by this enterprise in notoriety and the maintenance of academic prestige, university publicity doubtless costs appreciably more than it brings. So far as it succeeds in its purpose, its chief effect is to divert the flow of funds from one to another of the rival establishments. In the aggregate this expedient for procuring means for the advancement of learning doubtless results in an appreciable net loss.
The net loss, indeed, is always much more considerable than would be indicated by any statistical showing; for this academic enterprise involves an extensive and almost wholly wasteful duplication of equipment, personnel and output of instruction, as between the rival seats of learning, at the same time that it also involves an excessively parsimonious provision for actual scholastic work, as contrasted with publicity; so also it involves the overloading of each rival corps of instructors with a heterogeneous schedule of courses, beyond what would conduce to their best efficiency as teachers. This competitive parcelment, duplication and surreptitious thrift, due to a businesslike rivalry between the several schools, is perhaps the gravest drawback to the American university situation.
It should be added that no aggregate gain for scholarship comes of diverting any given student from one school to another duplicate establishment by specious offers of a differential advantage; particularly when, as frequently happens, the differential inducement takes the form of the extra-scholastic amenities spoken of in an earlier chapter, or the greater alleged prestige of one school as against another, or, as also happens, a surreptitiously greater facility for achieving a given academic degree.
In all its multifarious ways and means, university advertising carried beyond the modicum that would serve a due "publicity of accounts" as regards the work to be done, accomplishes no useful aggregate result. And, as is true of advertising in other competitive business, current university publicity is not an effective means of spreading reliable information; nor is it designed for that end. Here as elsewhere, to meet the requirements of competitive enterprise, advertising must somewhat exceed the point of maximum veracity.
