332 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



ability ; their activities too constantly dominated by an oppressive sense 

 of accountability ; when even their bread and butter is imperiled ; when 

 they are subjected to the humiliation of having others pass them by 

 who have yielded where they have stood steadfast, who is there shall 

 cast the first stone? 



I had hoped to carry through my purpose without once more ex- 

 posing the collegiate family expense account to the patronizing scrutiny 

 of the affluent publi«. But, alas ! it may not be. Bear with me in a 

 brief " aside." The lack of proportion between the professor and his 

 salary is regrettable yet remediable. More regrettable and I fear more 

 difficult to remedy is the mode of determination and adjustment of 

 such honorarium. Yet in this as in all related adjustments enlighten- 

 ment is to be found in the common principle of academic supremacy. 

 Here more than anywhere else must commercial encroachment and 

 standards be resisted, not meekly, but strenuously. It seems plausible 

 that if an incumbent of a professional chair is worthy to sit in the 

 cathedra, he is worth the provision of a suitable living. The professor 

 must not ask more nor for other reasons ; the university must not offer 

 less nor guide its offer by extraneous considerations, least of all of 

 those that obtain in the auction room or the stock market. Professor 

 Palmer says very plainly that Harvard University pays him for 

 doing what he would gladly pay the university for the privilege of 

 doing; and most professors pay and pay dearly for the privilege of the 

 academic life. So let it be. But persistently and evasively are 

 academic standards ignored, and ignored by those who do and those who 

 do not understand. All honor to the few — alas the very few colleges, 

 but among them the worthiest in the land — that have retained an 

 academic adjustment of salaries. In the main, the influence of the 

 college presidents has in no direction been more baneful, more in- 

 sinuatingly subversive of what other merit their services have brought, 

 than in this practise of speaking of supply and demand, the meeting of 

 emergencies, the offset of a call from another institution, and a 

 spurious attempt to apply a doctrine of merit and prizes. When a 

 university president regards himself — a mere mortal — as capable to 

 translate academic worth into dollars and cents even to the fraction of 

 a dollar per weekly wage, I do not know whether to regard his position 

 as an educational alchemist as sublime or ridiculous. I confess that it 

 is astounding to me that men in this position, of such high attain- 

 ments, such clearness of vision and sterling virtues, should maintain 

 such a large and efficient blind spot when contemplating the salary 

 question. Many a fellow professor in the mellow confidence of a grow- 

 ing intimacy has confided to me that he looks upon the attempt to 

 apply such a procedure to himself as a farce, an affront or an evasion. 

 Usually it is the last; for the answer given to Professor A is not that 



