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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 791 



ALLOWANCES FOR TEMPORARY DISABILITY 



The discussion of these statistics will be 

 most profitable if the two groups are again 

 considered separately. 



(A) Retirements on the Ground of Age 



(Rule 1) 



On the whole the results obtained under 

 the use of this rule present a satisfactory 

 outcome. Teachers who have passed the 

 minimum age at which a retiring allow- 

 ance may be claimed have apparently 

 availed themselves of the opportunity to 

 retire in much the manner in which the 

 trustees had anticipated. 



With regard to the objection voiced by a 

 considerable group that they were retired 

 while still capable and eager to discharge 

 their duties, a word may be said. The 

 question of compulsory retirement at a 

 fixed age is one which has been much dis- 

 cussed. Several institutions have adopted 

 such a rule, the age of retirement being 

 fixed at ages ranging from sixty-five to 

 seventy years.* In the case of any individ- 

 ual the active service may be lengthened 

 by action of the college trustees. The ques- 



*The following institutions have adopted more 

 or less definite regulations for the retirement of 

 professors upon reaching a given age. In most 

 instances provision is made for the extension of 

 the age limit by the trustees: University of Cin- 

 cinnati, 65 years; Cornell University, 65; Dart- 

 mouth College, 70; Harvard University, 60 volun- 

 tary, 66 compulsory; Grinnell College, 70; Leland 

 Stanford Junior University, 65; Marietta College, 

 65; Oberlin College, 65 voluntary, 68 compulsory; 

 New York University, 65; University of Minne- 

 sota, 68; University of Pittsburgh, 65 (tacit 

 understanding, but no rule) ; Swarthmore College, 

 65; Vassar College, 65 voluntary, 70 compulsory; 

 Williams College, 65 voluntary, 68 compulsory; 

 Yale University, 65 voluntary. 



tion whether compulsory retirement is a 

 wise provision in an institution of learning 

 is one upon which something may be said 

 on both sides. 



It is clear that the artificial closing of 

 the work of a great teacher is a matter to 

 be regretted, and in the active professions 

 of the world sixty-five, or even sixty-eight, 

 is a period in which many men do their best 

 work. In trade, in politics and in the pro- 

 fession of the law the years between sixty- 

 five and seventy are those in which men as- 

 sume successfully the heaviest responsi- 

 bilities. Viscount Morley at seventy-one 

 is framing a new plan of government for 

 an empire of three hundred million people. 

 Chief Justice Marshall guided the delibera- 

 tions of the Supreme Court of the United 

 States with unabated vigor until his death 

 at eighty. Lord Pakaerston first became 

 Prime Minister of England in his sixty- 

 ninth year. Von Moltke was seventy at the 

 beginning of the Franco-Prussian War. It 

 would have been a great loss to scholarship 

 to have retired at sixty-five Bunsen, who 

 taught at Heidelberg until he was seventy- 

 eight ; or Von Ranke, who taught at Berlin 

 until he was seventy-six; or Von Ranke 's 

 colleague, Mommsen, who was still teach- 

 ing when he died at the age of eighty-six. 

 The University of Glasgow would have 

 suffered if it had not permitted Lord Kel- 

 vin to occupy his professorship until his 

 voluntary retirement at seventy-five, and 

 the University of Jena is a stronger insti- 

 tution because Ernst Haeckel is still pro- 

 fessor of zoology there, in his seventy-sixth 

 year. Lord Acton was sixty-one before he 

 began his eleven years' fruitful service in 

 the chair of modern history at Cambridge, 

 and Edward A. Freeman was the same age 

 when he accepted the corresponding chair 

 at Oxford. Upon Freeman's death in his 

 seventieth year he was succeeded by James 

 Anthony Proude, then seventy-four. It 



