134 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 605. 



from it. Professor N. S, Shaler has well 

 said: 



I believe that no teacher should be so burdened 

 with instruction that he can not do inquiry to a 

 reasonable extent. If he accepts the office of 

 teacher he must make that work his principal 

 end. He should understand that inquiry is neces- 

 sary to fit him for teaching. 



I think that the effect would be bad of having 

 certain men set aside as inquirers even for a part 

 of their time. It would tend to increase that 

 already painful division of our instructors into 

 men who are alive and men who are dead. A 

 man should look upon research as he does on 

 traveling — something that, if he is a breadwinner, 

 he has to take by the way. Only a blessed few 

 who have the rare combination of money and 

 purpose can devote themselves to it. 



In the same vein, Professor James Perrin 

 Smith observes : 



One teaches better by example than precept, and 

 every university professor should be an investi- 

 gator in the work that he teaches. But routine 

 teaching must be done and the setting aside of 

 a certain number of men as a sort of priesthood 

 to do nothing but research will make the burden 

 of teaching fall more heavily on the less favored 

 ones, some of whom may contain the germs of real 

 contributions to science or literature. In this way 

 both the research and the teaching will tend to 

 become poorer. 



Dr. John C. Branner says: 



1 do not think that every one who is interested 

 in or capable of carrying on investigation has, or 

 should be encouraged to believe that he has, some 

 sort of right to a professional position. Every 

 professor (not emeritus) should be required to 

 give an important part of his time to personal 

 instruction or to the supervision and direction of 

 instruction. At the same time, the professor who 

 is not engaged in research of some kind is not a 

 fit person to be a professor, though he may be a 

 valuable man for giving certain kinds of instruc- 

 tion. Such a person should not be promoted 

 beyond a subordinate position. 



My final answer to the question before 

 US is this: 



The -university should recognize the 

 necessity of research to university men and 

 in a much greater degree than is now the 

 case in any American university. It 



should provide for this in the way of all 

 needed appliances, material, books, clerical 

 help, artists, assistants, leisure and free- 

 dom. These needs can not be enumerated 

 categorically, for they must vary with each 

 individual man. Among them should be 

 named provision from some source to en- 

 sure adequate publication. The plan of 

 granting regularly to one or more pro- 

 fessors each year a research leave of ab- 

 sence or of freedom from all other duties 

 is especially to be commended. Each com- 

 petent investigator can be trusted to indi- 

 cate his own needs ; the university authori- 

 ties need concern themselves only as to his 

 competence and their own ability to re- 

 spond. Leisure without responsibility 

 serves no useful purpose, and adequate pay 

 is necessary to give fruitfulness to leisure 

 or freedom. Men should not be encouraged 

 to undertake research in order to gain pro- 

 fessorships. Eather they should gain pro- 

 fessorships in order to make research fruit- 

 ful. A university need not provide for 

 research fellowships or research professor- 

 ships. If it possesses the man of a thou^ 

 sand who can be best used by such provi- 

 sion, it can build a chair about him and his 

 needs, this chair to be abolished at once 

 when the incumbency shall cease. We 

 should grant freedom from cheap and ster- 

 ile activity— from reading papers, sharpen- 

 ing knives and copying letters ; from su- 

 perfluous committee meetings and from 

 routine work any subaltern could do just 

 as well; and, above all, from the thousand 

 makeshifts of poverty. This relief is far 

 more needed than relief from teaching. 



Once in a generation [says a correspondent], per- 

 haps appears a man whose work is so important 

 that he should be entirely freed from instruction, 

 and as much as possible from administration; 

 Darwin is an illustration. Otherwise, the impor- 

 tance of bringing the men of first and second rate 

 training and working power into contact with 

 receptive pupils is so great as considerably to out- 

 weigh the value of any scientific investigations 



