February 25, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



291 



teachers have persuaded themselves that 

 they are specially intended for research. 

 Some of these have a small income which, 

 even with the minimum pension, promises 

 a safe, if not ample, support. Others are 

 "tired of teaching." It seems that this 

 rule offers too large a temptation to certain 

 qualities of universal human nature. 

 Furthermore, the object of the Carnegie 

 Foundation is not the encouragement of 

 research (desirable as that may be), nor is 

 it concerned with the transfer of men from 

 the calling of the teacher to some other. 

 Its object is the advancement of teaching. 

 Experience seems to prove that the attain- 

 ment of that object lies in providing se- 

 curity and protection to those who remain 

 in that calling. It seems to me that Rule 

 2 in its present form is a mistake. As I am 

 in the main responsible for this, I have 

 sought in the light of experience and 

 through consultations with numbers of 

 teachers to ascertain what changes can at 

 this time fairly and wisely be made. I 

 have also sought to obtain the opinion of 

 actuaries and others as to the general re- 

 sults of service pensions. The literature 

 of this subject is meager, but the testimony 

 from all sources seems to indicate that, 

 while a disability pension is a helpful fea- 

 ture of retirement plans, a service pension 

 ought to rest on the basis not of a mini- 

 mum but of a maximum service. It is 

 clear also from correspondence and con- 

 sultations with teachers that the features 

 of the present service pension which are 

 most highly valued are the protection 

 to the teacher after twenty-five years 

 of service in case of disability, and the 

 protection of his widow in the case of 

 death. These two features should, in my 

 judgment, be preserved. I recommend, 

 therefore, that Rule 2 be amended in such 

 manner that retirement at the end of 

 twenty-five years of service, and before the 



age of sixty-five, be available to a teacher 

 only in case of disability so serious as to 

 unfit him, as shown by a medical examina- 

 tion, for the work of a teacher. Such a 

 change will command the approval of the 

 great body of devoted and able teachers 

 and is in accordance with the spirit of the 

 rules as originally framed.^ 



One other feature of the administration 

 of these rules has proven difficult and in 

 some respects unsatisfactory. This is the 

 retiring of professors in the schools of med- 

 icine and law. 



It is important that the medical school 

 and the law school become more closely 

 parts of the general system of education 

 and more truly related to universities and 

 university ideals. This result is coming, 

 and an increasing number of teachers in 

 schools of both medicine and law are giving 

 their entire time to teaching and to investi- 

 gation. At the present time, however, the 

 bulk of teachers of law and of medicine 

 are practitioners. The presence of such 

 men in the schools is desirable, but the re- 

 tiring allowance system was never intended 

 for them. As matters now stand, however, 

 it is difficult to determine where the line 

 should be drawn in the cases of such pro- 

 fessors. The rule provides at present that 

 "teachers in professional departments of 

 universities, whose principal work is out- 

 side the profession of teaching, are not in- 

 cluded." This does not seem definite 

 enough. The question as to whether the 

 practise or the teaching is the principal 

 work of a teacher of law or of medicine re- 

 mains to a considerable extent a question 

 of individual estimate. It seems desirable 



* The changes here recommended by the presi- 

 dent of the foundation were adopted by the trus- 

 tees at their annual meeting on November 17, 

 1909, and the rules as so amended and as they are 

 now effective will be found in an appendix to this 

 report. 



