39S POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



standard, so that in an honest effort to perform his duty, he is in danger 

 of receiving censure from both. 



The change in relations of the educational and corporate boards is 

 due to a drifting apart of the two boards, leading to the loss of that 

 sympathy, which was the bond, and to a reversal of the relative impor- 

 tance of the boards. Formerly trustees existed to care for the faculties ; 

 now many trustees evidently feel that the faculties are appendages to 

 the board of trustees. 



But while the conditions in respect to the relations between educa- 

 tional and corporate boards have undergone a change, on the whole, de- 

 cidedly for the worse, the conditions in respect to the professor's rela- 

 tions to the communit}* and to his work have undergone a change no 

 less radical, not indeed for the worse, but at a cost to himself so serious 

 as to impair his usefulness and to threaten that of the institutions 

 themselves. Here lies, in the opinion of many thoughtful men, the 

 secret of deterioration observable in the output. 



The common belief is that the college professor's teaching work is 

 purely incidental, an easy method of obtaining a good living, that he 

 may pursue his studies without anxiety respecting worldly matters. 

 Whatever may have been the case in some prehistoric period, it is cer- 

 tain that in our day there is no calling in which the pecuniary compensa- 

 tion is so low, while the intellectual requirement is so high as in that 

 of college professor. The average salary of college men in New York 

 city is much less than the average salary of clerg}mien. The expansion, 

 one may almost say the very existence, of American colleges is due to the 

 consecrated devotion of those who give the instruction. Of the im- 

 mense gifts made to American colleges, comparatively little goes toward 

 increasing salaries of professors already at work ; almost the whole goes 

 to meet the insatiable demand for expansion. 



Nor is the college instructor a man of ' abundant literary leisure, as 

 many still suppose. College professors of a generation and a half ago 

 were, for the most part, recluses — made so by the nature of the studies 

 then included in the college curriculum. The hours of teaching were 

 short, and beyond those the institution demanded little. There was 

 abundant leisure and it was used well in study. But now, in many de- 

 partments the hours are long, often covering in one way or another 

 the whole day, while other requirements are severe. The college de- 

 mands that the professors be encyclopedic in knowledge of the sub- 

 jects covered by their chairs, no matter how broad these may be, that 

 they contribute frequently to the journals, that they be prominent in 

 social, scientific, political or religious affairs. How much of the literary 

 leisure remains in some departments one may imagine — and the increas- 

 ing requirements, all involving pecuniary expenditure, have come with 

 decreasing salaries. For the most part, professors are no longer doctri- 



