548 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 954 



This passage is at once a misleading ac- 

 count of the original service-pension policy of 

 the foundation, and a peculiarly discreditable 

 act of injustice to the seventy gentlemen who 

 received service pensions (in " accepted insti- 

 tutions ") under the former rules. It is to be 

 supposed that if the trustees had in 1906 the 

 intentions now retrospectively ascribed to 

 them, they had sufficient access to dictionaries 

 of the English language to be able to give 

 some expression to those intentions. But in 

 fact, they gave no hint then, or in the follow- 

 ing years, that they meant the service-pension 

 to be subject to any other limitations than 

 those clearly specified in the rules; and they 

 plainly indicated they did not regard it as a 

 disability pension, since, in the annual records 

 of retiring allowances granted, three classes 

 have from the first been distinguished — those 

 granted " on basis of age," " on basis of serv- 

 ice," and " on basis of disability." What the 

 foundation did was to declare that a certain 

 number of years constituted " the limit of 

 service upon which a pension may be earned," 

 the pension coming then " upon exactly the 

 same basis as " the recipient's " active salary." 

 Having offered pensions to a number of men 

 on these definitely specified terms, President 

 Pritchett now publishes reflections upon them 

 for accepting the pensions upon those terms. 

 It can not even be said (what Dr. Pritchett 

 implies) that the recipients of service pensions 

 had reason to know that they were taking " for 

 their greater comfort pensions that would 

 mean great relief to more needy teachers." 

 For the first report gave assurance that the in- 

 come was sufiicient to provide for all pro- 

 fessors in many more institutions than were 

 on the accepted list; and that it was even 

 hoped that after trial " a more generous scale 

 of pensions " than that then in force could be 

 adopted, " either by extending [sicl the limit 

 of age or of service, or by increasing the 

 amount of the individual pension."" 



(6) It now becomes evident that, if the fu- 

 ture policy of the trustees is to be guided by 

 the views of the president, the old-age pen- 

 sion also is destined to great modification, and 



° First report, p. 15. 



probably to abolition. Dr. Pritchett now 

 writes on this as follows : 



The experience of the foundation shows that the 

 minimum age limit should be set higher than sixty- 

 five. . . . Just what age is the best to set as a 

 minimum limit it is difficult to say. The whole 

 matter comes back to a conception of the pension 

 which is someivhat different from that which we 

 all very naturally entertained at the beginning, 

 that is, that the pension is not intended to assist 

 the man of strong body and mind to get out of 

 teaching at any assigned age, it is to take ca/re of 

 him when his powers fail and he can no longer do 

 his work well. To raise the limit of age works no 

 hardship to the man who is broken in health at 

 sixty-five. Such a man would be retired on the 

 ground of disability. One places a different ideal 

 before the teacher, moreover, when he suggests 

 retirement on the ground of approaching weaTcness 

 rather than on the ground of a definite limit of. 

 age.' 



Thus the entire system of professorial pen- 

 sions may be expected soon to be based upon 

 only one — and that the last — of the three 

 grounds originally recognized, viz., disability. 



3. There naturally goes with this change 

 an abandonment of the purpose of " freshen- 

 ing" the teaching in the colleges by facili- 

 tating the retirement (under the age limit) of 

 men not physically disabled but of impaired 

 efiiciency. 



The anticipation of college presidents that in- 

 efficient men could be disposed of by a pension 

 has proven another delusion.' 



2. As the foregoing suggests, Dr. Pritchett 

 has already very nearly come to look upon the 

 foundation over which he presides as essen- 

 tially eleemosynary in its purpose. With some 

 indirection, yet unmistakably enough, he inti- 

 mates that, in his opinion, teachers possessing 

 " an adequate or modest income " can not with 

 entire propriety accept pensions. He finds 

 that the teacher does not " receive his retiring 

 allowance on exactly the same basis as that 



" Seventh report, p. 69 ; italics mine. It should 

 be added that President Pritchett regards the plan 

 of contributory pensions as the ideal one, though 

 he does not definitely urge its adoption by the 

 foundation. 



' Seventh report, p. 84. 



