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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 1005 



for productive scholarship and scientific re- 

 search. Three quarters of the scholars and 

 men of science in this country hold academic 

 positions. Services to individuals can be 

 paid for by those benefited, but vre have no 

 machinery in a democracy by which services 

 to society are paid for by society. Public 

 service can thus be rendered only by those 

 who can spare the time, and is rewarded by 

 recognition, reputation, honors, etc. Under 

 aristocratic institutions men of inherited 

 wealth may serve without salaries as members 

 of parliament, magistrates, university chan- 

 cellors, scientific men, scholars and the like, 

 and may have their reward in social recogni- 

 tion, titles, membership in exclusive societies 

 and similar non-rational sanctions. These by- 

 products of oligarchy are its historical justi- 

 fication; responsibility for public service is 

 placed on those who have wealth and privilege. 

 But in a democracy power and wealth, in so 

 far as they are desirable, should be the rewards 

 of public service, not its prerequisites. Trus- 

 tees of universities and members of school 

 boards who serve without salaries are likely to 

 render services about equal in value to the 

 payment they receive. 



Amateur work, whether by the man of 

 wealth or by the teacher, becomes increasingly 

 ineffective as the boundaries of knowledge are 

 enlarged. The university instructor, impelled 

 by sheer love, carries on a research, getting 

 the time by working between hours and after 

 hours. But he can not complete it or put it in 

 its place in the orderly development of the 

 science. He hopes to do so in the summer, 

 but family bills accumulate, and he must en- 

 gage in the sweat-shop labor of the summer 

 school or some hack work. The research be- 

 comes cold, perhaps something of the same 

 sort is done elsewhere, it is published in a 

 slovenly way or not at all. I have somewhat 

 recently had the privilege of visiting the 

 Bureau of Standards, the Eockefeller Insti- 

 tute for Medical Research and the Research 

 Laboratories of the General Electric Company. 

 Here we have three institutions, conducted, 

 respectively, by the government, under private 

 endowment, and by an industrial concern, be- 



side which the laboratories of physics, chemis- 

 try and physiology in our best universities are 

 distinctly amateurish and inferior. 



The men in these institutions have larger 

 salaries and better facilities for their researches 

 than are given in the universities; but their 

 great advantage is that they are investigators 

 by profession paid directly for the work they 

 do. The professor, paid for his most impor- 

 tant work in the fiat currency of reputation 

 and petty honors, is in a position completely 

 undemocratic. It is no wonder that we have 

 the demitasse storms of academic politics and 

 social life. There is one thing more absurd 

 than for professors to march in processions in 

 the order of their dignity advertising by 

 brightly colored gowns and hoods the degrees 

 they have received, and that is to make the 

 financial reward of scientific and scholarly 

 work transfer to an executive position which 

 prevents doing such work thereafter. 



The undemocratic aspects of our academic 

 life are almost wantonly enhanced by the posi- 

 tion attained by the president with the en- 

 suing hierarchy of deans, heads of depart- 

 ments and other ofiicials. The extraordinary 

 material development of the country, with no 

 balanced aristocratic system, has led to exces- 

 sive power in the hands of a few individuals, 

 whether in polities, in business, or in educa- 

 tional work. Every sensible person believes 

 in individual initiative and individual respon- 

 sibility. The safety in a multitude of coun- 

 selors is usually due to the one who does the 

 job. Government is a rough business, and 

 this holds to a certain extent for educational 

 institutions. The university or college presi- 

 dent must do the best he can under hard con- 

 ditions, and it is no wonder that he takes as 

 much power as he can get. He has at least 

 six masters — the trustees, the faculty, the 

 students, the alumni, the general public and 

 the bearers of the purse — not to speak of his 

 wife's social and his own political ambitions. 

 Each of them has different and discordant in- 

 terests and ideals. It is not surprising that 

 he finds it troublesome to ride these various 

 horses and sometimes 



