A UNIVERSITY PENSION SYSTEM 509 



as to all other classes of men who offer themselves for employment, but 

 the experience of the foundation up to the present time indicates that 

 this factor is relatively negligible. Since the inauguration of the 

 Carnegie Foundation salaries of professors in colleges have steadily 

 risen. The existence of a pension system in a cbllege, while it may 

 now and then be used to induce a man to undertake a particular work 

 for a smaller salary, is nevertheless so small a factor that it does not 

 count materially in the presence of other large factors in the matter 

 of salaries. 



The justification for a pension system, however, can not be found in 

 its negative qualities, or in its comparative freedom from injurious 

 results to the individual and to society. It must not only prevent suf- 

 fering and inefficiency, but it must also raise the quality of service 

 amongst those to whom it applies. 



That a rightly administered pension system does this is already 



fairly proved. Particularly is this true where the labor of those under 



the system is mental labor, and still more when that labor is partly of 



a creative nature and upon subjects of no immediate concern to the 



individual. Anxiety and apprehension are the most deadly foes not 



only to mental exertion, but to the higher intellectual qualities of 



imagination and invention. A man may indeed put forth unusual 



intellectual effort for a few years in facing the problems of individual 



and family support, but to assume that concentration on such problems 



during a series of years, accompanied by distressing uncertainty as to 



his future, will help the quality of his teaching or his research is against 



human experience. Profitable study and the cheerful performance of 



severe tasks are aided by serenity, not perplexity of mind. Especially 



is this true of the fruitful period of middle life. If it be true that we 



are still so uncivilized that a prospect of serene and helpful old age is 



demoralizing to men of high intellectual training, then the cure for this 



situation does not lie in making old age uncertain and insecure, but in 



the gradual education of men to a better ideal of life. The experience 



of the Carnegie Foundation, short as it is, carries a strong argument in 



favor of the betterment in the work of the college teacher which comes 



from a knowledge that his old age is protected. Outside of all direct 



results to society arising from pensions, the argument drawn from 



humane and religious reasons probably will alwa} r s appeal most strongly. 



The system of employment which uses the services of a highly trained 



individual at meager pay up to the point where he is no longer effective 



and then takes no concern for his welfare and for those dependent on 



him has a remnant of barbarism about it which arouses a protest in the 



conscience of civilized man. Our religious and our humane ideals 



demand that some effort should be made to solve this problem. 



