May 31, 1912] 
versities and colleges, 106 in the govern- 
ment service, 59 in research foundations. 
It is the duty of these institutions to pro- 
vide adequately and liberally for their sup- 
port and for their work. 
The rewards of the academic and scien- 
tific career deserve detailed discussion be- 
cause they are of fundamental importance 
to the university and to society. Professors 
and investigators should have adequate in- 
comes, as large as is desirable for any social 
class, but above all they should have oppor- 
tunity to lead a life free from distracting 
or dishonorable compromises. It should be 
emphasized that nothing here written is 
intended to promote a privileged class of 
university professors. Valparaiso Univer- 
sity and Mr. Edison’s Menlo Park Labora- 
tory are useful, as well as Harvard Univer- 
sity and the Rockefeller Institute for Med- 
ical Research. My concern is only that the 
university should be of the greatest pos- 
sible service to the people and to the world. 
It may be that the great bulk of routine 
teaching and routine research can be done 
most economically under the factory sys- 
tem, with a manager to employ and dis- 
charge the instructional force and bosses 
to keep each gang up to a square day’s 
work. But then the highest productive 
scholarship and creative research must find 
refuge elsewhere than in such a university. 
It is truly distressing that our univer- 
sities should be so conventional and un- 
imaginative, each trying to follow the lead 
of those bigger than itself, all lacking in 
fineness and distinction. The Johns Hop- 
kins, Clark, Stanford and Chicago were 
founded one after the other with promise 
of higher things, and each has relapsed 
into the common mediocrity. Harvard 
and Yale maintain the traditions of schol- 
arship; the Johns Hopkins and Chicago 
have not abandoned the ideals of research; 
Columbia looms up with the vastness and 
SCIENCE 
853 
erudeness of the metropolis; the state uni- 
versities exhibit the promise and the imma- 
turity of our democracy. But each and all 
unite the scholasticism of the twelfth cen- 
tury with the commercial rawness of the 
twentieth century. Can there not be one 
university where the professor will have a 
study instead of an office, where the ideal 
set before the young instructor is some- 
thing else than answering letters promptly 
and neatly on the typewriter, where men 
are weighed rather than counted, where 
efficiency and machinery are subordinated 
to the personality of great men? Could 
there not be a university or school, domi- 
nating some field of scholarship and re- 
search with its half-dozen professors and 
group of instructors and students drawn 
together by them? Might not means be 
devised by which the professor would be 
paid for the value of his teaching, service 
and research, and then be set free to do his 
work how and when and where he ean do 
it best? It is not inconceivable that there 
should be a national or state university, 
with some features of the royal academies, 
rewarding with fellowships men of unusual 
promise and with professorships men of 
unusual performance, endowing the indi- 
vidual instead of the institution. 
If it is not possible at present to have 
free professors and independent schools, 
we can at least strive for greater freedom 
of the individual and larger autonomy of 
the department within the university. As 
the position and salary of the professor 
should not depend on the favor of a presi- 
dent, so the department or school should 
be allowed substantial autonomy. There 
is nothing more disheartening to the mem- 
bers of a department or school than to 
have its activities prescribed or limited, its 
annual appropriation apportioned, by a 
centralized system. A great danger con- 
fronting the modern university is its own 
