482 
cause that the organization is supposed to 
serve. 
This question presents itself in a very 
acute form in our colleges. A large pro- 
portion of the colleges overwork their 
teachers in the effort to take more students 
or to teach more subjects. College loyalty 
is constantly invoked to justify the placing 
of an additional burden on the shoulders 
of an already overworked teacher, and col- 
lege loyalty looks less frequently to thor- 
oughness and quality than size. Under 
these circumstances, is there not a clear 
duty resting upon the college authorities to 
use part of the income in their hands in 
the support of those who grow old or break 
down under this régime? 
There is a widespread tradition that cor- 
porations have no souls. But of all soul- 
less corporations, the colleges probably 
have the smallest compassion so far as the 
question of dealing with their old servants 
is concerned. Few business corporations 
would be as heartless toward an old officer 
as a very large proportion of American 
colleges are. In the most of these, a worn- 
out president, an aged professor or a 
teacher struck down by illness is simply 
turned out to shift as best he may. In fact, 
the college trustee has been surrounded by 
such influences that he invokes his respon- 
sibility as a trustee to justify the plea that 
under no circumstances can he use any of 
the income of the college, whether from 
endowment or tuition, to care for those who 
break down in the college service. It is 
exactly here that the question of the duty 
of the college arises. Has any corporation 
the right to use the service of individual 
men of high devotion and intelligence up 
to the end of their working ability, without 
assuming some responsibility for their fu- 
ture? Is it to the interest of society, of 
human progress, of education itself, that 
any corporation should divest itself of such 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 900 
responsibility? This is a question that all 
organizations of society must face, and the 
college, to say the least, can no more escape 
it than can the industrial organizations. 
The colleges have undeniably failed in the 
ethical leadership that might have been ex- 
pected in these matters. It is impossible, 
however, to believe that they will not rise 
to the moral standard now set by the busi 
ness world. 
The public perhaps scarcely realizes how 
indifferent the colleges have been in the 
past to this question. The correspondence 
of the foundation during the last five years 
throws an interesting light on this whole 
matter, and brings out in the sharpest re- 
lief the fact that the very idea that the col- 
lege has a moral obligation to its worn-out 
professors has not yet presented itself to 
most college officers and trustees as one of 
the things with which they are to reckon. 
Communications like the following are 
typical. The president of a board of trus- 
tees writes that Professor A., having served 
the college faithfully for twenty years and 
having broken down absolutely in health, 
is compelled to stop work altogether. He 
is without means and has a family. It is 
plain that he is not eligible, under the rules, 
to a pension from the Carnegie Founda- 
tion, but, writes the president of the board, 
will not the foundation waive its rules in 
this case in view of the high service and 
pathetic situation of the teacher and care 
for this excellent man? For, he adds, 
““Of course the college can do nothing.”’ 
And yet this college had an income that is 
generous when compared with those of most 
colleges. It had spent a large sum on an 
athletic field the previous year, and it was 
spending at that time more money on ad- 
vertising than would be necessary to pay 
such a pension several times over, and this 
in spite of the fact that it had more stu- 
dents than it could care for decently. The 
