THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



615 



THE PROGRESS OP SCIENCE 



THE SALARIES OF PROFESSORS 

 At the eleventh annual conference 

 of the Association of American Uni- 

 versities Professor G. H. Marx, of 

 Stanford University, presented an 

 elaborate study of the problem of the 

 assistant professor. It appears that 

 assistant professors in the leading- 

 universities are of an average age of 

 thirty-seven years, and have an average 

 salary of $1,800. Four fifths of them 

 supplement their salaries from outside 

 sources and many are in debt. They 

 have on the average one child. There 

 seems to be considerable difference in 

 the status of the assistant professor in 

 different universities. In some institu- 

 tions they have nearly the same influ- 

 ence as the full professor in faculty 

 legislation and departmental control, 

 while in others they state that they are 

 practically ignored. The larger sal- 

 aries paid to professors are about the 

 same at Harvard and Columbia, but at 

 Harvard the minimum salary of the 

 assistant professor has recently been 

 increased to $2,500, while at Columbia 

 it has been placed at $1,600. 



The higher cost of living and the 

 cost of higher living combined— the 

 increase in the price of the necessities 

 of life and the more exacting stand- 

 ards of comfort— bear heavily on those 

 having fixed wages, and perhaps uni- 

 versity professors suffer more than 

 any other class. Railway employees 

 can threaten a strike; they are paid 

 more, and rates for passengers and 

 freight are increased, not to the advan- 

 tage of the professor. Even the clergy- 

 man and his congregation can adjust 

 matters. But the university has an 

 income which does not increase auto- 

 matically, and the larger the number 

 of students the poorer does it become. 

 With the best of will the administra- 



tion can not obtain an adequate num- 

 ber of teachers and pay them adequate 

 salaries. In the course of the last ten 

 years salaries have remained station- 

 ary, while the cost of living has in- 

 creased fifty per cent, and the stand- 

 ards of living have probably increased 

 in an equal degree. The effective sal- 

 ary of the professor is only about half 

 what it was ten years ago. 



While professors are underpaid in 

 comparison with successful men of 

 business or leaders in the other pro- 

 fessions, it is not certain that this is 

 the case in comparison with the great 

 mass of their fellow citizens. They are 

 the least privileged members of the 

 privileged classes. There is but little 

 abstract justice in the rewards which 

 the world gives. People get what they 

 can, and what they can get depends 

 on extremely complicated conditions. 

 Lord Kelvin received several million 

 dollars for his inventions and eno-i- 

 neering advice, a modest salary as a 

 university professor and nothing at all 

 for his great contributions to mathe- 

 matical physics. Probably his services 

 to society were the most in the work 

 for which he was not paid and the 

 least in the work for which he was 

 paid the most. But even in the latter 

 case he produced far more wealth than 

 he received. In like manner Mr. Alex- 

 ander Agassiz earned several million 

 dollars as the result of three or four 

 years devoted to mining, but paid 

 large sums to carry on his scientific 

 work which is of such high value to 

 society. 



Society has no way of paying men 

 such as Faraday or Darwin for their 

 immense services. The competitive 

 system applies to teaching, but not to 

 original research and productive schol- 

 arship. The importance of teaching. 



