A UNIVERSITY PENSION 511 



upon the colleges themselves. Where the foundation has enabled a 

 college to retire in a dignified and just way teachers who had worn out 

 their usefulness and where it has enabled colleges to substitute in their 

 place younger men of fresh and alert spirit, the result has been to 

 quicken and vivify the whole intellectual life of the college. Here 

 again is a result whose benefit no one can question. 



On the other hand, there is another side which can not be lost sight 

 of. The presence of the altruistic spirit amongst college teachers is 

 strong, but perhaps no stronger than amongst other men. As in every 

 calling a large number of those in the profession of the teacher are 

 drawn to it by bread and butter motives. The offering of a pension 

 can not fail in some cases to minister to the selfish side of human nature. 

 There will always be certain individuals who, when they find them- 

 selves in possession of a given advantage, whether that take the 

 form of a benefit in the hand or one to be acquired in the future, 

 will trade upon the possession or the prospect of that benefit. There 

 will be under such an arrangement a certain number of teachers 

 who will count the years and the days until the coming of the mini- 

 mum age which enables them to resign the duties which they now 

 perform in a perfunctory and routine way. There are still other 

 men facing responsibilities and difficulties in administrative places 

 or in teaching who would gladly use the way of the pension to es- 

 cape from the perplexities and responsibilities of their positions. Every 

 president considers his own case an exceptional one. He is prepared 

 to prove to the foundation, even when he is turned out of office by 

 the trustees for alleged incompetence, that he is entitled to a pension on 

 the ground of extraordinarily meritorious service. Every teacher, too, 

 thinks his own situation is unique and that he is entitled to considera- 

 tion of a special sort by reason of his particular and unusual service. 

 All this arises out of the qualities of human nature. On the whole, the 

 number of those whose selfishness is touched by such a benefit is small, 

 as small perhaps as one ought to expect, and in the long run much of 

 this will disappear as the teachers themselves become accustomed to a 

 system of pensions. In time teachers will realize that it is to their own 

 interest and in the direction of their own happiness to continue work as 

 long as they are really fit and able to serve. The late William T. Harris 

 always insisted that a college professor was at his best between the ages 

 of sixty-five and seventy-five, and he strongly urged the trustees of the 

 Carnegie Foundation at the inception of the trust not to make the 

 minimum retiring age lower than seventy. Mr. Harris's argument was 

 a partial one, but it had truth in it. There are many teachers who are 

 at their ripest and at their best between sixty-five and seventy-five and 

 such men ought, of course, to remain in their profession. In the long 

 run it will be found that they will do so, although for a few years the 



