786 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 750 



sive and in pursuit of which we find our 

 institutions engaged in an undignified 

 rivalry with vast expenditures caused by 

 unnecessary duplications of staffs and 

 plants. This is a waste to be stopped. 

 We are dissipating our means and energies 

 ^nd in this the professors are their own 

 worst enemies. Taking the liberty of 

 quoting from a letter from President Eliot 

 to the vtrriter/^ touching upon this point 

 we find: 



There can be no doubt that the increase in 

 university salaries has not kept pace with in- 

 ■creased cost of living during the last fifteen years. 

 At Harvard — and I believe at other American 

 universities — the failure to make the rise of sal- 

 aries keep pace with the rise in the cost of living 

 has been due in part to the natural desire to 

 increase the teaching staff in proportion to the 

 increasing number of students, and also to the 

 keen demand for an increased provision of costly 

 apparatus for teaching, particularly in the sci- 

 ences. At Harvard I have seen with great regret 

 a large increase in the expenditures for all sorts 

 of objects which are not for direct teaching, 

 though in themselves useful and desirable. The 

 scale of living for colleges as well as for families 

 has distinctly increased of late years, and the 

 adoption of this new scale has interfered with the 

 adequate raising of teachers' salaries. 



Although President Eliot here lays 

 stress on costly scientific apparatus, it 

 must be borne in mind that in a recent re- 

 port he took his faculty to task for ex- 

 travagant book lists for the library — 

 delicately calling attention to the fact that 

 the need for many of the books called for 

 could not be so very urgent, since it took 

 a considerable portion of the time of the 

 library staff to eliminate from these order 

 lists the names of volumes already in the 

 library. And it would not be out of place 

 to recall here certain figures from the 

 tables previously quoted from the reports 

 of the treasurer of Yale University show- 

 ing that in the order of cost of instruc- 



" In comment on advance sheets of some of thj 

 charts of this paper. 



tion the departments stand— theology, 

 forestry, medicine, academic, art and then 

 Sheffield Scientific; the cost per student 

 year in the latter being $17.19 less than 

 the average of all departments. We 

 may sum up, that we are all equally of- 

 fenders in extravagant and ostentatious 

 expenditures. 



Coming back to the lesson to be taught 

 from the statistics of degrees granted in 

 1905-6, coupled with the waste involved 

 in unnecessary duplication, we can foresee 

 that the next great step in educational re- 

 form will be along the line of limitation of 

 field, particularly in the differentiation of 

 the college from the university. 



The great demand of the nation to-day 

 is for collegiate training— a great deal 

 better teaching of fundamentals with a 

 view toward developing character and ca- 

 pacity. And ninety-nine one-hundredths 

 of our present institutions could well 

 limit themselves to this field with vast im- 

 provement in our educational efficiency. 

 One important reform which this step 

 would bring with it would be a new recog- 

 nition of the almost forgotten fact that 

 the prime function of the teacher is to 

 teach — thus leading to adequate recog- 

 nition and reward of teaching ability and 

 devotion to the students' good— rather 

 than discrediting this type of loyal service 

 as is now the case. 



There is already a strong trend toward 

 a limitation of function by the institu- 

 tions to those courses in which they can 

 afford to give thorough instruction, sup- 

 plementing each other rather than un- 

 necessarily overlapping. A few institu- 

 tions of ample endowment may be able to 

 carry on for some years longer the com- 

 bined function of university and college, 

 but in these we shall find a sharper and 

 shai"per division-line drawn between the 

 college and university work, with a marked 

 difference in the handling of the students. 



