October 19, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



503 



educational work, but in this case I believe 

 the parallel holds good. 



The first step toward reform is to recognize 

 the principle that no man should be appointed 

 to a full professorship in any subject merely 

 because that subject needs to be taught. If 

 there is a man of eminence in the subject who 

 has a genius for discovery or teaching, the 

 fact that such a gap exists creates an addi- 

 tional reason for calling this man to a pro- 

 fessorship. But if no such man is to be found 

 the place should be filled by an assistant pro- 

 fessor. The fact that we have departed from 

 this principle in the past, and now have on 

 our faculties as full professors a number of 

 men who ought to be only assistant professors, 

 does not alter the necessity for a change of 

 policy in this respect. I am glad to say that 

 nearly all the members of the several faculties 

 of the university cordially accept the principle 

 here laid down, and are willing to try in future 

 to appoint none but a first-class man to a grade 

 higher than an assistant professor, even 

 though this policy may for the moment ap- 

 parently weaken the strength of our teaching 

 force. This weakening will be apparent rather 

 than real. There is nothing which really 

 weakens the teaching force so much as the 

 permanent appointment of a man of the wrong 

 type, who lowers the standard held before the 

 students and blocks promotion among the 

 younger instructors. It is far better to have 

 a subject taught by ambitious young men who 

 see an opening ahead than by a somewhat older 

 man who has little to recommend him except 

 his maturity. 



With the diminution of numbers, an increase 

 of salaries can follow as a matter of course. 

 This process has already begun, and many of 

 the professors who have hitherto received 

 $3,760 are now to receive $4,000. But this 

 should be regarded as only a beginning. Just 

 as soon as the university finances admit it, 

 there should be a further increase to $4,500, 

 and then to $5,000 or even $6,000. There 

 should also be an increase in the number of 

 assistants, who can relieve the professor of the 

 burdensome necessity of reading papers or di- 

 recting some of the details of individual study. 



If a professor is really able and mature, the 

 ideal method is not to give him a division of 

 forty or fifty or sixty, as we used to, with a 

 class-room which would be partly examination 

 and partly lecture, but to let him talk all at' 

 once to as many students as possible, be it two 

 hundred or five hundred; and then have these 

 men met as often as once a week in very small 

 groups by a younger instructor, who can talk 

 over the work that they are doing and examine 

 the progress that they are making. Both here 

 and at Harvard this scheme has increased both 

 the teaching efficiency and the financial econ- 

 omy. 



We must, however, guard ourselves against 

 the danger of creating a separate or privileged 

 class of research professors. In some univer- 

 sities there is a tendency to set some men 

 apart for discovering new truth, while employ- 

 ing other men to teach old truth. This is a 

 mistaken policy. We are not dealing with an 

 ordinary case of division of labor. The chief 

 argument for division of labor is that it makes 

 each man more expert and more efficient in his 

 own field of work. In university work, how- 

 ever, the man who tries to investigate without 

 teaching is apt to become sterile, while the 

 man who attempts to teach without investi- 

 gating becomes a worse teacher instead of a 

 better one. We want the opportunities for re- 

 search and investigation distributed as widely 

 as possible throughout the teaching force and 

 the student body. We want to impress upon 

 every man that teaching and discovery are 

 both done at their best when done in combina- 

 tion. Not that every man should be compelled 

 to lecture to classes, whether he is able to do 

 so or not. There is a great deal of valuable 

 teaching which is not done in the class-room, 

 or even, in the laboratory. There are some 

 men who teach best by their writings, their 

 conversations, their intelligent suggestions for 

 the work of others; but they should under- 

 stand that they are part of the teaching force, 

 and are simply doing their teaching in a dif- 

 ferent way from other men. Instead of setting 

 such a man apart as a research professor, we 

 should let him understand that withdrawal 

 from the lecture room and relief from the 



