Apeil 1, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



503 



teachers in each grade of university work were 

 made public for each of the institutions in 

 question, the reader might then draw his own 

 conclusions based upon the relative standings 

 of the institutions. 



Aside from personal observation, there are 

 two reasons which make it unlikely that the 

 best work of a teacher should extend beyond 

 a moderate term of years. In the first place, 

 the world moves forward so rapidly that in a 

 period of thirty-five or forty years, methods, 

 view-points and subject-matter of the sciences 

 are all more or less transformed. Few of our 

 universities provide a sabbatical year in which 

 the opportunity is offered the professor to 

 make himself over, even if he be constructed 

 of sufliciently plastic materials. In the second 

 place, few men can go year after year over the 

 same tasks without reaching a condition which 

 in the athlete would be designated " stale." 

 The enthusiasm of earlier years is bound to 

 become more or less dulled, and enthusiasm 

 and interest are vital elements to the teacher. 



There is another important function of the 

 teacher which should be carefully brought into 

 consideration, for an insidious encroachment 

 has been made upon it during the past decade. 

 I refer to research, which, it will generally be 

 admitted, should in every possible way be 

 encouraged in the university professor. There 

 is no really great university that has not done 

 its part in widening the horizon of the known 

 through the investigations by its professors. 

 It might be safely predicted that a university 

 which relinquished altogether this function 

 would speedily degenerate to an inferior rank. 

 The spirit of inquiry and of testing conclu- 

 sions is, in fact, that which differentiates 

 higher instruction from that of lower grade. 

 It may not be generally recognized, but it 

 seems to be true that in respect to research 

 the American universities are to-day in a 

 somewhat critical position as a resxdt of the 

 great fortunes built up through consolidation 

 of business interests. American research is 

 fast becoming institutional. It will probably 

 have to be admitted that the immediate results 

 have been so much the more increased, even 

 though the universities have suffered by it. 



The enlargement of government and state 

 scientific bureaus, the private foundation of 

 great laboratories in the interest of medical 

 science, and the laboratories of practical sci- 

 ence established in connection with the great 

 industrial concerns, have withdrawn from the 

 universities many of the men who have made 

 reputations by their researches. To some of 

 those that remain the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington has offered some advantages, but 

 the avowed policy of that institution is now to 

 centralize its work more and more in the city 

 of Washington and in its own special labo- 

 ratories. 



The problem thus thrust upon the universi- 

 ties is one that they can not afford to ignore, 

 since it is not always easy to convince boards 

 of regents or trustees that a professor is filling 

 his chair with credit when a considerable por- 

 tion of his time is devoted to purely research 

 work. The service pension of the Carnegie 

 Foundation, while not offering a full solution 

 of this problem, had yet made the outlook 

 more promising. If it be true that the average 

 professor between the ages of fifty-five and 

 sixty-five is on the whole less efficient as a 

 teacher than the man ten years his junior, 

 I believe that as regards research the reverse 

 would more nearly represent the facts. Most 

 men who have gone far in investigation have 

 begun with smaller problems the original study 

 of which has suggested kindred questions, so 

 that as they have advanced the field of their 

 studies has constantly widened until far more 

 general and fundamental questions have been 

 forced upon the attention and been made the 

 subjects of inquiry. Thus the ripe period 

 from fifty to sixty-five years of age is with 

 little doubt the one which under favorable 

 conditions offers the greatest opportunities for 

 research. A paragraph in President Prit- 

 chett's letter of April 24, 1908, shows his 

 appreciation of the opportunities the univer- 

 sities would secure if professors retired upon 

 service pensions could continue their work in 

 research upon the groionds of the university: 



I can imagine no better thing for an institution 

 of learning than to have about it a group of men 

 who are engaged in active research and who are 

 not burdened with the load of teaching which 



