Febbuary 15, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



255 



by a considerable number of excellent men as a 

 substantial promotion even though unaccompanied 

 by much increase in salary; and I should think 

 it proper for a university with a moderate income 

 to act upon this known fact of human nature. 

 I am pretty sure it would be able to retain better 

 teachers, in the long run, this way, and that is 

 the principal object to be gained by salary rules. 

 Perhaps even such a variation as that just sug- 

 gested could be made the subject of regulation by 

 constituting heads of departments a higher class 

 than full professors. 



23. 



As there are many diflferent degrees of worth, 

 or value to the university, among the men of its 

 faculty, and as but a limited number of these 

 degrees is represented in the usual scale of titles 

 composing the faculty organization, I should say, 

 decidedly, that the same salary should not neces- 

 sarily be paid to men bearing the same title. 

 The dilTerenees in salary should correspond as 

 nearly as possible and expedient to the differences 

 in degree of worth of the men to the university. 

 The factors determining this worth are several 

 and various. Some of them a,ppeal primarily to 

 our ideal professional qualifications; others ap- 

 peal more to our recognition of the practical neces- 

 sities of university administration. Theoretically, 

 the ideal qualifications should be the preferred 

 and most rewarded ones : actually both categories 

 of qualifications must be taken into account. But 

 there is no scale of degrees of worth determined 

 either on the basis of ideal qualifications alone, 

 practical necessities alone or (as is inevitably the 

 real basis) of a combination of these two, that 

 does not include in its series more degrees of 

 gradations of importance than are represented 

 by the conventional scale of faculty titles ■ or 

 positions. These degrees should be recognized 

 and rewarded by differences in salary, even 

 though they can not be by differences in title. 



24. 

 I believe there should be a minimum standard 

 of salary for a given title, but that the maximum 

 should be varied to suit the class of men engaged 

 in such work. Many valuable men deserve an 

 advance in salary before they deserve promotion 

 in rank; in fact, some exceedingly helpful men 

 may never deserve a high rank as to title, but 

 become increasingly useful as members of the 

 teaching faculty. It is my feeling that a pro- 

 fessorship should not be awarded simply and 

 solely because of scholarly attainments or ability 



as an investigator; the title has a greater content 

 than these qualifications imply. 



Under the present economic condition the sala- 

 ries now being offered to college workers are so 

 meager as to offer no incentive to young men of 

 ability to enter the profession. Of course, many 

 young men of ability are entering it, but they are 

 doing so with no hope of any financial reward 

 and many of them are not conscious of the dif- 

 ficulties that await them. It is easy to say that 

 the best men are willing to make sacrifices, but 

 it is not so easy to see that the sacrifices which 

 they are called upon to make are many times 

 serious detriments to their advancement. For 

 example, comparatively few men in college work, 

 relying wholly on their salaries, can afford to 

 hire a stenographer or reader to do certain 

 amounts of detailed and more or less mechanical 

 work. This is not as it should be. Much more 

 time could be given to investigation, and they 

 would have more desire to investigate and de- 

 vote their energies to essentials, if they could be 

 relieved of the purely mechanical work. At 

 present, as I say, relying wholly upon their sala- 

 ries for support, this is practically impossible. 



In conclusion: people of the country are, in 

 general, of the opinion that college professors are 

 poorly paid, hence there would be no serious ob- 

 jection on the part of the public to a cliange for 

 the better. 



'25. 



Tlie titles do not represent ranks of men in 

 military alignment, but a group of runners spaced 

 out yonder on the track. Our hope is to space 

 them out more widely still by evoking from each 

 best one his utmost effort and speed. A prize — 

 of some sort — is what human nature demands in 

 all such cases. ' To him that hath shall be 

 given ' is never truer nor more just than here. 

 Now the title itself is a prize. But the title of 

 itself affords no further inducement to him who 

 has already won it; and for those of the highest 

 academic rank no further prize of that sort is 

 possible. But this last is precisely the group 

 that most needs such stimulus. 



To rely upon the desire of fame alone to fur- 

 nish the needed spur seems to me not quite all we 

 may rightly do. Fame depends upon too many 

 accidents, and generally comes too late to avail 

 the individual for further effort. It seems, more- 

 over, not quite fair that the world generally 

 should be left to pay the debts of the university 

 for exceptional service rendered first of all to the 

 university itself. The evils which are feared in 

 this connection — bitterness, jealousy and the 



