850 
exposure of the situation when the presi- 
dent of our largest university can write: 
Almost without exception the men who to-day 
oceupy the most conspicuous positions in the United 
States have worked their way up, by their own 
ability, from very humble beginnings. The heads 
of the great universities were every one of them 
not long ago humble and poorly compensated 
teachers.* 
It would be well if some universities 
would maintain professorships so highly re- 
warded and regarded that the possibility of 
a call would exercise a beneficial influence 
throughout the country, and if each uni- 
versity would establish from one to ten 
professorships having a salary and a pres- 
tige equal at least to that of the presidency. 
Vacancies in these professorships should be 
filled by cooptation or election by the fac- 
ulties or by a faculty committee; but even 
under the present system of presidential 
nominations, it would be better to have a 
few important appointments made publicly 
than a number of small increases in salary 
made secretly as the result of presidential 
favor. 
I venture to supplement my argument 
by quoting from an address’® made ten 
years ago, which seems less radical now 
than then, since socialism has ceased to be 
a nightmare for respectable citizens, since 
pensions have become general, since Har- 
vard has adopted the plan of equal salaries 
with increments of $500 after each five 
years of service, since Senator Villas has 
made provision at the University of Wis- 
consin for super-professorships, since the 
president of a university is no longer sacro- 
sanet. The paragraph reads: 
4<¢The American as he 
Nicholas Murray Butler. 
1 Read before the members of Phi Beta Kappa 
of the Johns Hopkins University, on May 2, 1902, 
and printed in The Popular Science Monthly for 
June, 1902. 
is,’’ 
by President 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 909 
The university is those who teach and those who 
learn and the work they do. The progress of the 
university depends on bringing to it the best men 
and leading them to do the best work. Our presi- 
dent, Mr. Remsen, in his admirable inaugural 
address, told us that the chief function of the 
university president is to find the right man, and 
his chief difficulty the lack of enough such men 
to go round. He considered the question of how — 
far an increased salary would add to the supply 
of good men. I quite agree with Mr. Remsen 
that a professor will do about the same kind of 
work whether his salary is $4,000 or $10,000. If 
anywhere, in the university it should be to each 
according to his needs, from each according to 
his ability. The professor who must live in a city 
or who has children to educate should be given the 
necessary income. He should have an adequate 
pension in old age or in ease of disablement; the 
university should insure his life in a sufficient 
sum to provide an income for his wife and minor 
children. The professorial chair can be made 
attractive by freedom, responsibility and dignity, 
rather than by a large salary. Still it must be 
remembered that we live in a commercial age, and 
men are esteemed in accordance with their incomes. 
While it may not, or at all events should not, 
matter greatly to the professor, it may be well for 
the community that those who do the most for it 
should be paid on the same scale as those of equal 
ability in other professions. It may not be neces- 
sary to double the salaries of all university men, 
but it would probably be desirable to have certain 
prizes that would represent to the crude imagina- 
tion of the public the dignity of the office and 
would perhaps attract young men of ability. The 
average salaries of teachers are about the same as 
in the other professions, but there are no prizes 
corresponding to those in the other professions. 
A clergyman may become a bishop, a lawyer may 
become a judge, a physician may acquire a con- 
sulting practise; and they may earn incomes of 
from $10,000 to $100,000. A professor can only 
earn a large salary and an apparent promotion by 
becoming president of his university; and this I 
regard as unfortunate. As Mr. Remsen told us 
that the professor would be pleased, but not par- 
ticularly improved, by an increase in salary, I may 
perhaps be permitted to suggest that a president 
might be pained, but would not be seriously in- 
jured, by a reduction of his salary to that of the 
professor. My preference in this matter would be 
for the professor to have a fixed salary—perhaps 
$3,000 to $6,000, according to the expense of living 
