Apeil 2, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



537 



but these are exactly those who do not need 

 pensions. Any who may be disabled after 

 twenty-five years of service and before 

 reaching the age-limit gain; they are, how- 

 ever, but few and should be otherwise pro- 

 vided for. It appears to be a mistake to 

 hold up retirement from the life-work of a 

 professor as a prize or reward. The usual 

 professor can not afford to retire unless he 

 engages in money-making, and the plan will 

 thus lead to commercialism and the discour- 

 agement of research. He is permitted by 

 the rules to do anything except teach — that 

 for which he should be most competent and 

 that which he should most enjoy. Research 

 work and advanced teaching can be carried 

 on far better in conjunction than divorced. 

 In order to reward a professor after long 

 years of service, he should be relieved, not 

 of half of his salary and the privilege of 

 teaching, but of so much routine instruction 

 and administration as interfere with his 

 research. This is now done in our better 

 universities; professors of distinction who 

 wish to devote themselves mainly to ad- 

 vanced students and research work are en- 

 couraged to do so. 



There is a minor difficulty in the way of 

 retirement— whether it is to be a reward 

 or a punishment — after twenty-five years 

 of service as professor in that it is impos- 

 sible to date fairly the beginning of such 

 service. In every university some pro- 

 fessors between the ages of fifty and sixty- 

 five will be liable to retirement on the basis 

 of age and others not, but there will be no 

 significant difference in the work that has 

 been accomplished for education and schol- 

 arship by the two classes. According to the 

 circumstances of the ease, it will be an ad- 

 vantage or a risk to have been given the 

 title of professor at an early age in a small 

 institution. It may on the whole be re- 

 garded as fortunate that the Carnegie 

 Foundation has not the means to continue 

 these annuities for length of service. They 



will, I fear, tend to demoralize both the 

 "humble and iU-compensated" professor 

 and the "conspicuous" and much-tempted 

 president. 



A very useful service that the Carnegie 

 Foundation could perform for the professor 

 and for academic life would be some form 

 of pension for disability, as this can not be 

 purchased. Another useful service would 

 be the pensioning of widows and minor 

 children. Personally, I should prefer 

 to let the professor purchase voluntarily 

 at cost the disability annuity and the 

 life insurance; but I am instinctively an 

 extreme individualist. Certainly the pen- 

 sioning of the widows of professors entitled 

 to pensions by statute instead of by favor 

 is a notable advance made by the founda- 

 tion last year. The enforced pensioning of 

 widows is even more socialistic than the 

 enforced purchase of annuities; for ulti- 

 mately the unmarried professors will be 

 compelled to pay part of the premiums on 

 behalf of their more fortunate colleagues. 

 But it may be that people who bring up 

 children deserve more from the world; cer- 

 tainly those who have only the annual in- 

 come which they earn for those dependent 

 on them should insure their lives, and per- 

 haps they should be compelled to do so. 

 The weakness of the system of the Carnegie 

 Foundation is that it applies only where it 

 is least needed. It is the instructor or 

 junior professor with young children, hav- 

 ing had no chance to save, who finds it 

 hard to pay an insurance premium and 

 sometimes neglects it. 



It is not clear to the writer how it was 

 estimated that a fund of five million dollars 

 would provide pensions for the state uni- 

 versities and colleges. The demands on the 

 foundation will depend on whether retire- 

 ment is mandatory or whether it ordinarily 

 follows only on disablement. At Harvard 

 University there are at present seven pro- 

 fessors on the retired list, two widows re- 



