450 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



The low salary paid is a more potent cause of failure, and more gen- 

 erally recognized — especially in faculty circles. Married professors are 

 expected to live on salaries ranging from a thousand to fifteen hundred 

 dollars, pay from twenty-five to thirty dollars a month house rent (for 

 houses can not be had in our section of town for less), dress in such 

 fashion as to be be able on occasion to meet the trustees and their 

 friends socially, and contribute to the formal entertainment of the 

 student body four or five times a year. Needless to say, after the satis- 

 faction of these demands nothing remains for the purchase of books, 

 for travel or for study at eastern or European universities. The pro- 

 fessor and his family are fortunate if they get through a year without 

 running deeply in debt, and the almost inevitable result of an illness in 

 the family or other unforeseen catastrophe is the starting of a train of 

 evils from which the unfortunate teacher escapes — if he escape at all — 

 only by finding a better paid position in some larger institution. Most 

 of our faculty are so harassed by financial worries that their efficiency 

 as teachers is seriously impaired. Such a condition as this might seem 

 explanation enough of our failure to secure the best results, yet, serious 

 as it is, it is not the fundamental difficulty in our college. It is a symp- 

 tom rather than a primary cause. 



A few courageous professors might so far endanger their popularity 

 as to suggest that the overemphasis placed on athletics has some relation 

 to our failure in realizing our ideals, and in this they would not fall far 

 short of the mark, yet after all the explanation is not entirely satisf}^- 

 ing. The overemphasis placed on athletics is in the final analysis but 

 a symptom. The disease from which the college suffers might exist 

 were there no such thing as athletics, and it were unfair to make ath- 

 letics alone the scapegoat. 



The trouble that afflicts our college and other colleges of its class is 

 one that can not be cured by the excision of this or that diseased part. 

 The situation, indeed, does not lend itself kindly to the metaphors of 

 surgery; would we describe it truly we must employ a spiritual meta- 

 phor, for it is a rebirth that our college needs, and only by a rebirth can 

 it be saved. The root of the difficulty lies deep in its very constitution. 

 If we would discover why the institution has more or less persistently 

 and systematically fallen short of its recognized duty, and prostituted 

 its own ideals, we must look for the ultimate cause in its fundamental 

 organization. 



Ere we depart on this quest, however, let it be clearly understood 

 that the personal ideals of the faculty with regard to scholarship are, 

 for the most part, absolutely irreproachable. "We know what sound 

 scholarship is, and we honestly recognize the fact that we are not giving 

 our students all that we ought to give them, though naturally we do not 

 make the fact a subject for general conversation. Neither do we admit 

 that the cause of this condition lies entirely within our own control. The 



