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SCIENCE. 



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



ency is to lecture more and more, with a loss of 

 time and energy which should be spent on re- 

 search itself. 



Where it is not specified that the professorship 

 is for research, my answer would be that the 

 amount of relief from instruction ought to de- 

 pend largely upon the qualifications of the pro- 

 fessor himself. Some professors who are good 

 lecturers and teachers and valuable as such are 

 not by nature qualified to be investigators, except 

 in a very limited sense. I see no reason why 

 such persons should be relieved from doing what 

 they can do well, on the chance that if relieved 

 from lecturing they might do original work. At 

 the present day there is connected with investiga- 

 tion an idea of superiority over the mere exposi- 

 tion of a subject, and most professors desire to be 

 regarded as investigators. If, however, experience 

 makes it probable that a professor is a good 

 teacher but a poor investigator, I see no reason 

 why he should be relieved of lecturing. 



There remains another and a large class of 

 professors, some of whom are good lecturers and 

 teachers, and some of whom are not, but who have 

 a capacity for good, original work, if allowed time 

 for it. It is to this class of students that your 

 question, as I understand it, especially applies. 

 In this case it seems to me that the nature of 

 the subject in which the professor is an expert 

 should -be considered. In the more special and 

 technical subjects, those in which the largest addi- 

 tions to the stock of the world's knowledge is to 

 be expected, but where that knowledge, when ob- 

 tained, is such that it can be absorbed by a com- 

 paratively feAV advanced students, my opinion is 

 that the professor should be allowed at least 

 half of his time — or, better still, more than half 

 of his time — for his own special work, and have 

 the amount of his lecturing and teaching corre- 

 spondingly reduced. 



Other subjects, as, for instance, certain branches 

 of political economy and history, and possibly 

 branches of chemistry, physics and biology, are 

 of such a nature that it may be expected that the 

 results will be of immediate value to a considerable 

 number of students, who, furthermore, should be 

 encouraged to become themselves investigators. 

 In this case it is desirable that the professors 

 should not be so pressed by the work of instructing 

 and lecturing that they have not sufficient time 

 and strength left for individual work in investi- 

 gation. During the college term, it seems to me 

 that such persons should be allowed at least one 

 third of their time for their own original work, 

 and, what is important, all their college vacations. 



This last point seems to me to be important, 

 especially in subjects like biology. The tendency 

 is to increase the number of courses in what are 

 called ' summer schools,' as they attract students 

 who increase the total enrollment of a college. I 

 object strongly to having those whose whole time 

 during the college year has been spent in lectur- 

 ing and in original work, called upon to take 

 classes in a summer school. By all professors 

 who amount to anything the three months of 

 summer vacation are not spent in idleness, but 

 used for original investigation or preparation for 

 the lectures of the year to come. 



A correspondent makes the useful sug- 

 gestion of occasional research professor- 

 ships to be held for one year. In such ap- 

 pointments, work well under way should 

 have precedence over work contemplated 

 or merely begun. He says : 



It seems to me, also, that our great universities 

 w^ould find it a wise policy to have each a small 

 number of highly paid research professorships, 

 which might perhaps not be each for any specific 

 subject, but be assigned from time to time to 

 members of the faculty, somewhat as fellowships 

 are now assigned to superior students. It would 

 add greatly to the attractiveness of university 

 life if professors could feel that there was a chance 

 of having their salaries kept up while for a year 

 or two they were left entirely to devote themselves 

 to investigation. 



From others whose views in the main 

 coincide with those of this paper I may 

 quote a few well-put paragraphs. 



A correspondent says : 



I believe that the professor is, or ought to be, 

 primarily a teacher, and that his first duty is 

 toward his pupils. But I think tha^; mere in- 

 struction-giving is the lesser part of his calling. 

 It is teaching by example that best takes root, 

 and it is the leadership into fields of new truth, 

 of the few who have the zeal to enter, that brings 

 the largest and most permanent returns both to 

 the professor and to his institution. The uni- 

 versity has a right to expect of the professor that 

 he will give the impress of his personality to both 

 the administration and the teaching of his de- 

 partment. But it has no moral right to demand 

 that he spend all his time and energy in depart- 

 mental drudgery. To what extent he should be 

 relieved of this in order that he may engage in 

 research will depend on many things — among 



