18 Transactions of the Royal Canadian Institute 



was a candidate for the position. The outside electors, however, said 

 that they must have a stronger research man and it was decided in this 

 sense. 



In America there are no recognized safeguards for the professoriate 

 such as exist on the other side of the Atlantic. There are no traditional 

 standards by which the candidate for a professor's chair must qualify. 

 It is not always a question of scientific achievement. Local pull is 

 frequently in evidence. Executive and committee work within the 

 university and outside activities with an advertising value often receive 

 their reward. Where, too, it is the intention of the appointing power 

 to make the scientific status of a candidate the determining factor the 

 scientific advice invoked is often far from competent. Some years ago 

 the American Mathematical Society, recognizing the existing state of 

 affairs, named a, committee to consider whether it might not be possible 

 to bring the knowledge and experience of the society to bear in the 

 making of mathematical appointments in universities and colleges. The 

 committee, however, reported that they were unable to devise any 

 means for attaining the desired end. 



The material which goes to make up the teaching staff of an American 

 university is most heterogeneous. Not all the young men who enter the 

 academic profession are of the idealistic type to which I have referred 

 a little earlier. Their average, however, would compare favourably, I 

 think, with the average in any other walk of life. They all look forward 

 to professorships of course, and one or all may ultimately arrive. Pro- 

 motion in an American university is slow. The gradations leading up 

 to a professorship are more numerous on this side of the Atlantic than 

 in Europe. Though the scientific qualifications in America are on the 

 whole less exacting than in Europe, advancement, for the man of ability 

 at least, is not as rapid. The man of high attainments will find himself 

 a professor at an earlier age in Europe than in America. However it 

 may be in other departments of human activity America is not the land 

 of the young man in the field of academic work. 



I have taken 'occasion to speak of the overloading of members of the 

 American universities' staffs with teaching. This had reference to the 

 professors in general as well as to the junior members of the staffs. The 

 number of lectures which a professor in an American university is called 

 on to give is much in excess of that demanded of his European compeer. 

 In response to a question of mine as to the number of lectures which he 

 was expected to give in the course of a year, a professor on the staff of 

 Oxford told me that his position required him to lecture 28 hours in the 

 course of the year. As a matter of fact, however, he lectured 56 hours. 

 In France a professor is expected to lecture 3 hours a week. This is 



