NOVEMBEE 23, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



669 



chiefly due to the inability of the colleges to pay 

 adequate salaries. 



The committee thereupon recommended 

 that the salaries of the professors of Greek, 

 chemistry, mathematics and astronomy, moral 

 and intellectual philosophy, mathematics, 

 mechanics and physics and Latin be fixed at 

 $7,500 each. 



This report was accepted and its recom- 

 mendations were adopted. This very satis- 

 factory scale of compensation for professors 

 was not, however, maintained for more than 

 a few years. One or two new chairs were 

 established and their incumbents compensated 

 at this rate. About this time, however, began 

 the rapid expansion of the college into a uni- 

 versity, and the resources of the corporation 

 were far from sufficient to permit the pay- 

 ment of this compensation to the large num- 

 ber of new professors who were from time to 

 time appointed. 



As a consequence, while the maximum sal- 

 ary paid to a professor in the university has 

 not been altered since the action of the trus- 

 tees in 1876, it is a long time since any ap- 

 pointments have been made at that maximum 

 compensation. The budget for 1906-7 shows 

 that there are 119 professors and 39 adjunct 

 professors in the service of the university at 

 the present time, excluding clinical professors 

 and those upon the Barnard College and 

 Teachers College foundations. Of these. 111 

 professors and all 39 adjunct professors are 

 in receipt of compensation. The average sal- 

 ary paid to the 111 professors in receipt of 

 compensation is $3,746.85, and the average 

 salary paid to the 39 adjunct professors is 

 $2,126.92. It will be seen, therefore, that the 

 average salary paid to a Columbia University 

 professor in 1906 is almost exactly one half 

 of the sum named by the trustees in 1876 as 

 necessary to enable him to maintain his proper 

 position in the community. 



Serious as this comparison appears at first 

 glance, a consideration of all the attendant 

 circumstances will make it more serious still. 

 If the professors of 1876 were able to make 

 successful appeal for an increase of compen- 

 sation because of the increased cost of living 

 as compared with 1857, what shall be said of 



the professors of 1906, who have to meet a cost 

 of living increased far beyond the standard 

 which prevailed in 1876? 



It is possible, by reference to undisputed 

 authority, to show with some precision what 

 changes have occurred during the past thirty 

 years in the price of those articles which 

 enter most largely into the cost of living. 



From 1860 to 1873 wholesale and retail 

 prices in the United States, expressed in terms 

 of the gold dollar, rose irregularly until in 

 the latter year they were substantially 27 per 

 cent, higher than in 1860. This conclusion 

 was reached in the ' Senate Report on Whole- 

 sale Prices ' in 1891 (Part I., page 99) and 

 is substantially confirmed by the index num- 

 bers made use of by the London Economist 

 and by the computations made by Sauerbeck, 

 the high German authority. Professor Mayo- 

 Smith in a careful critical article on ' Move- 

 ments of Prices,' which appeared in the Polit- 

 ical Science Quarterly for September, 1898, 

 accepted as substantially conclusive the gen- 

 eral agreement of Sauerbeck, the Economist 

 and the senate report, so far as these early 

 figures are concerned. 



The senate report in question was devoted 

 chiefly, however, to the fall of prices alleged 

 to have occurred from 1873 to 1891. Many 

 statisticians hold that the senate report, be- 

 cause of the particular articles selected by 

 it for price quotation, greatly exaggerated the 

 decline of prices between 1873 and 1891. 

 Professor Mayo-Smith regarded the figures of 

 Sauerbeck and the Economist as the more 

 trustworthy for the later period. After siun- 

 marizing Sauerbeck's index numbers from 

 1879 to 1898, Professor Mayo-Smith reached 

 this conclusion: 



It will be observed that this table is based en- 

 tirely upon the wholesale prices of foods and raw 

 materials. The total index number shows that 

 since the period 1866 to 1877 there has been 

 a fall of 36 per cent, in average prices. The 

 fall has been greatest in textiles; the next heav- 

 iest fall has been in sugar, coffee and tea; the 

 least fall has been in animal food. In most cases 

 the fall seems to have reached its lowest point 

 about 1896. (Statistics and Economics, p. 203.) 



Analyzing groups of commodities used in 



