execute such statutes and rules as they may consider needful for
the best administration of their trust, to appoint committees from
their own number, or of those not otherwise connected with the
college, and to prescribe their duties and powers." It is theirs
to appoint "all officers of government or instruction and all
employees needed for the administration of the institution whose
appointment is not otherwise provided for." They determine the
duties and salaries of officers and employees and may remove,
either with or without notice, any person whom they have appointed.

In being governed undemocratically from without by a self-perpetuating
body of directors, Wellesley is of course no worse off than the
majority of American colleges. But that a form of college government
so patently and unreasonably autocratic should have generated so
little friction during forty years, speaks volumes for the
broadmindedness, the generous tolerance, and the Christian
self-control of both faculty and trustees. If, in matters financial,
the trustees have been sometimes unwilling to consider the scruples
of groups of individuals on the faculty, along lines of economic
morals, they have nevertheless taken no official steps to suppress
the expression of such scruples. They have withstood any reactionary
pressure from individuals of their board, and have always allowed
the faculty entire academic freedom. In matters pertaining to
the college classes, they are usually content to ratify the
appointments on the faculty, and approve the alterations in the
curriculum presented to them by the president of the college; and
the president, in turn, leaves the professors and their associates
remarkably free to choose and regulate the personnel and the
courses in the departments.