178 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The German plan of calling the best man without regard to whether 

 he will accept or decline is better than our secret process. The Eng- 

 lish plan of having an expert board of electors for each chair possesses 

 certain advantages. Migration of instructors as well as of students 

 is desirable. Much would be gained if instructors in different univer- 

 sities would exchange places for a year, and especially if men from 

 the small colleges were called to spend a year as lecturers at the 

 great universities. When a national university is established at Wash- 

 ington, it would be well for its faculty to consist in part of men from 

 other institutions who should spend one year in five or seven at the 

 central university. 



It is difficult to find the right man; and it is particularly unfortu- 

 nate when the wrong man has been selected. Academic rights and 

 academic freedom are troublesome problems. It seems that an oppor- 

 tunistic policy must be followed rather than definite rules. A uni- 

 versity can not be conducted as a factory; and even a factory does not 

 entirely ignore the human element. It is better that an occasional 

 man should be retained who is not quite up to the standard, rather 

 than that all professors should feel that their chairs are insecure, sub- 

 ject to the automatic law of supply and demand, or to the possible 

 caprice of an individual. Assistants and instructors should be ap- 

 pointed for limited terms of years, and better men should replace them 

 if better men can be found. They should never be promoted simply 

 because they are the men on the ground. A professor's appointment 

 should be for life, unless he violates the conditions implied in the 

 contract. In making such an appointment, the university should 

 accept the responsibility, fully realizing that a man, however carefully 

 observed, is subject to a large probable error. Even on the commercial 

 side it pays to take the risks, for with permanent tenure, men will 

 accept smaller salaries; but the chief gain is the moral advantage of 

 securing the complete loyalty of the professor and setting him free 

 to do his work. Less competent men should not, of course, be per- 

 mitted to teach required courses, and the departments to which they 

 belong should be strengthened. Permanent tenure of office carries 

 with it as a corollary a pension system. Some men are old at sixty 

 and others are young at seventy, but as it is difficult and rather invid- 

 ious for any authority to decide to which class a man belongs, it is per- 

 haps desirable to pension all professors at a fixed age, permitting 

 them thereafter to offer elective courses or not as they prefer. 



Academic freedom is a subject that has not lacked discussion dur- 

 ing the past year. So long as universities are dependent for support 

 on gifts from rich men or on appropriations made by a legislature, 

 there is real danger that the teaching of economics, sociology and some 

 departments of history and philosophy may suffer improper limitations. 



