144 



SCIENCE. 



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



dilettanteism is quite patent to the average under- 

 graduate. 



It seems to me clear that no educational system 

 can afford to be dependent upon the chances of 

 genius and temperament, even where these do 

 slightly favor the unscholarly man. But as a 

 matter of fact the chances seem to favor the 

 scholar. 



The great academic personalities seem, to my 

 recollection, to have been men who enjoyed the 

 dignity and the straightforwardness of scholars. 



I believe therefore, that it is to the advantage 

 of the university to have the same men discover 

 and teach the truth. Professors should not be 

 relieved of instruction, if this is to result in the 

 specialization of the teaching function and the 

 research function. 



Furthermore, I do not see any possibility of 

 fairly discriminating between individuals in this 

 respect. The one or the other class (and under 

 present conditions it is bound to be the teaching 

 class, because of the recognition the scholar re- 

 ceives from outside) will be a degraded class, 

 and this I should imagine to be fruitful of discord 

 and jealousy. 



I can not see that a moderate amount of instruc- 

 tion can interfere with a man's scholarship, and 

 it is likely to afford him the sort of social service 

 that he needs for his manhood. 



I should suppose, then, that it would be wisest 

 to make the required amount of instruction uni- 

 form and fix it at a moderate number of hours — 

 say ten per week. 



Still another says; 



In many cases the complaints of professors 

 that they have not sufficient time for research 

 work, because of the undue amount of instruc- 

 tional work required of them, are not well 

 founded, but are rather due to an inherent in- 

 capacity upon the part of the men to do effective 

 research work, which they attribute to the large 

 amount of teaching which they have to accom- 

 plish rather than to a natural dislike of hard 

 work. 



Another says: 



Roughly stated, it is the function of a univer- 

 sity to discover and disseminate truth, to train 

 scholars, and to develop character. The relative 

 stress laid upon these competing ends must vary 

 with the conditions surrounding the institution, 

 and in a specific case must be affected by the char- 

 acteristics of the teacher, of his subject, and of 

 his students, and also by the public opinion in the 

 constituency of the institution and in its faculty 



and trustees. That public opinion seems to me 

 to be adjusted into rough conformity with what 

 average amount of instruction should be expected 

 from the average teacher, and I should be dis- 

 posed to regard this as the best basis available, 

 to be deviated from in individual cases as circum- 

 stances might indicate. 



In my own case, for example, I doubt that it 

 would be wise for Cornell University to leave me 

 more free from duties of instruction, with the 

 deliberate purpose of letting me give more time 

 to research. Such relief would make me less 

 effective, I am convinced, as a teacher, and could 

 be justified only if it was felt that my efficiency 

 in research was greater than my efficiency as a 

 teacher, or else that the need for research in my 

 special field was greater. In some lines of work 

 I believe it might be wise for the institution to 

 provide a small group of junior appointees who 

 might give all their time to research, and to allow 

 ready transfer from the class of junior appointees 

 whose main work was teaching to the class whose 

 sole Avork was research, and the other way. 



Another says: 



I am strongly of the opinion that a university 

 which is aiming at the highest ideals of university 

 work should, when it finds men of real and proved 

 capacity for original research of a high order, 

 relieve them as far as possible of educational and 

 administrative drudgery, though there can be no 

 doubt that our universities probably could not 

 afford^ to do this in the case of a very large num- 

 ber of their professors, nor perhaps would this be 

 desirable. In point of fact, however, men of the 

 type I have in mind are not numerous in any 

 university. I believe that the activity of such 

 men in a imiversity brings in a very rich return 

 through the atmosphere and example which it 

 creates, and it seems to me that the best service 

 of such men to their university lies in their own 

 research work and that of the advanced students 

 who come under their direction and influence. 



I believe that such a man, for example, as Bal- 

 four did far more for his university in this way 

 than through his lectures and other routine work, 

 but I also think that to remove such men wholly 

 from contact with the students would be a mis- 

 take from every point of view. My feeling is 

 that such men should be relieved as fat as pos- 

 sible from the drudgery of class work, elementary 

 laboratory instruction, and above all, from ad- 

 ministrative detail, for which they are very often 

 unfitted by taste and temperament. I do not 

 have in mind so much the time that is given to 



