NA TURE 



80 1 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 25, 1921. 



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University and Civil Service Salaries. 



UNIVERSITY teachers, and not least those 

 outside Oxford, will be grateful to the 

 provost of Worcester College for his outspoken 

 letter in the Times of August 15, in which he 

 contrasts the higher salaries in the Civil Service 

 with those of university professors and tutors in 

 Oxford. The correspondence which this letter has 

 evoked is most interesting, and raises certain 

 points which have not escaped notice in these 

 columns. 



It may be recalled that the Select Committee 

 on Estimates appointed by the House of Com- 

 mons, in taking evidence regarding salaries, asked 

 the representative of the Treasury questions re- 

 garding (i) comparable positions outside the Civil 

 Service, and (2) stipends of university professors 

 and tutors. The provost of Worcester College 

 states that in Oxford " the stipend of the best-paid 

 professorships was, and still is, gooZ." In this 

 connection it should be pointed out that the 

 average stipend for a university professor in the 

 other universities and institutions of university 

 rank in England and Wales is about 850Z. per 

 annum, wliile not a few receive no more than 500Z. 

 a year. 



NO. 2704, VOL. 107] 



On the other hand, there are many Civil 

 Servants receiving double the salary that "the 

 greatest learning and distinction can obtain at 

 Oxford, and many receiving much more than 

 treble such stipends." But this is not the full 

 tale, for the salaries of the permanent heads of 

 Government Departments are at present 3500Z. per 

 annum — emoluments considerably beyond those 

 received by the highest-paid officials in the uni- 

 versities. The tutorial fellow at Oxford, with his 

 modest 800L a year or so, may perhaps be par- 

 doned if he fails to appreciate the point of view 

 of the writer of the letter to the Times who may 

 be taken to represent the views of the Civil 

 Service, when he plaintively refers to the fact that 

 after September i the salaries of these permanent 

 heads of Government Depairtments will be " only " 

 3000Z. a year. And all the more so if he believes 

 with the provost of Worcester College that "with 

 few exceptions Civil Servants of the highest 

 class are men who in intellectual attainments, 

 by virtue of which as tested in examination 

 they were appointed, fell considerably short 

 of the standard of a tutorial fellowship at 

 Oxford." 



From the point of view of the university 

 teacher, whose emoluments at their highest do not 

 approach to anything like this figure, and at their 

 lowest are mere pittances, the situation is not 

 without irony or even humour. Notwithstanding 

 the very favourable comparison with the staffs of 

 the universities, the Civil Service, we are told, is 

 under the impression that it has not received the 

 consideration to which it is entitled, and appar- 

 ently is advocating a reference of the whole ques- 

 tion of its stipends to the National Whitley 

 Council for the Civil Service ! Now it is not our 

 purpose to argue the pros and cons of this ques- 

 tion. What we are immediately concerned with 

 is the obvious inadequacy of the remuneration of 

 university teachers. "Academic remuneration is 

 a disgrace to the nation," says one of the corre- 

 spondents — a Civil Servant — in the Times ; 

 " University professors are scandalously under- 

 paid," sa'ys another; while the provost of 

 Worcester College brings a serious charge against 

 the Government by accusing it of having done 

 much to make it impossible for the universities 

 to attract and retain the service of the very ablest 

 men. Such statements without further support 

 might be open to criticism, but it so happens that 

 they are confirmed by statistics and evidence col- 

 lected by the Association of University Teachers, 



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