848 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 101.5 



tistics of our higher institutions by think- 

 ing of the teaching staff as sharply graded 

 by a few academic titles, and of each title 

 as significant of a given salary. Where 

 there are professional schools, the salary 

 attached to the title of professor may, in 

 the same institution, range from $500 to a 

 maximum of $5,000, there being actually 

 twenty-five different sums received as an- 

 nual salaries by the full professors in a 

 single American university. In this insti- 

 tution thirteen different sums, ranging 

 from $750 to $4,000, were received by per- 

 sons who held the title of associate pro- 

 fessor; fourteen different sums, ranging 

 from $1,800 to $3,600, by assistant pro- 

 fessors; and eighteen different sums, rang- 

 ing from $200 to $2,000, by instructor. 

 There were also clinical professors, clinical 

 instructors, and several other academic 

 grades causing further variability, and 

 within each of these grades there was a 

 still further variability of its own. 



Even where there are no professional 

 schools, the variation of salary is very 

 great. For example, in two institutions 

 without professional schools nineteen differ- 

 ent sums, ranging from $2,000 to $5,000, 

 were received by professors ; thirteen differ- 

 ent sums, ranging from $600 to $1,700, by 

 instructore ; and sixteen different sums, 

 ranging from $1,000 to $3,000, by officers 

 of intermediate grades. This variation is 

 for the salaries of men — were women in- 

 cluded, it would be greater. So far as 

 could be ascertained, all of the salaries 

 considered, except perhaps some of those 

 for instructors, were for the full year's 

 work of full-time teaching. There were 

 both lower and higher salaries than those 

 mentioned, but these were for exceptional 

 conditions, as of part-time teaching or 

 administrative work. 



Both institutions illustrate the overlap- 

 ping of academic grades with respect to 



salarjr. Over one fourth of the teachers 

 of intermediate grade receive salaries as 

 high as, or higher than, the lowest full pro- 

 fessor's salary; nearly one fourth of the 

 instructors receive salaries reaching or 

 passing the lowest point for salaries of 

 teachers of intermediate grade. Such over- 

 lapping is in no sense exceptional ; in the 

 larger institutions the fact that certain 

 individuals of lower rajik receive more 

 salary than other individuals of higher 

 rank is so frequent as to be almost the rule. 



THE SALARIES OP THE TEACHING STAPF OP 

 COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES IN 1912-13 



Such variability of salarj^ for the same 

 academic grade, either by the separation 

 into distinct salary steps or by a gradtial 

 ranging, together with the overlapping of 

 academic grades in salary, make the finan- 

 cial statistics of higher institutions difficult 

 to present and interpret without mislead- 

 ing. The difficulty is increased by the dif- 

 ferences in practise between institutions 

 and between the same institution in differ- 

 ent years, with respect to the significance 

 of a given academic rank. For example, 

 associate professors may be far above assis- 

 tant professors in dignity and salary in one 

 institution and in another be substantially 

 on a level with them. The average salary 

 of assistant professors may appear to have 

 been lowered between 1907-08 and 1912- 

 13, when in reality such service was better 

 rewarded than before by the addition of a 

 higher intei'mediate grade or title for those 

 performing this service, and the relegation 

 of the title of assistant professor to those 

 performing a different service. Other com- 

 plexities are added by differences in policy 

 as to the distribution of salaries within 

 the same grade, differences in the services 

 performed by different individuals of the 

 same grade, and the like. 



The only sound and adequate basis for 



