ABSTRACT
The doctors and lawyers guard their autonomy by powerful forms of association. Power of a certain kind seems to be an important factor in the case—power so formidable that sometimes the State itself seems to bow before it. In the case of some of the professional groups a good deal of history lies behind this power. There is more reality in the historical profession or the world-wide company of botanists than in the academic profession as such. The prime preoccupation of the academic profession must be the consideration of the ideal, the maintenance of standards and the vindication of liberty. The unity of the academic profession becomes broken, and, even on the fundamental issues which once united them, one part will be in conflict with another. The educational ideal narrows into a concern for one's own subject, and there ceases to be an overall view—there is only an anarchy of local views.
