258 



SCIENCE 



[iSr. S. Vol. XXV. No. 633 



In a teaching university, every student 

 must be reached. The classes taught must 

 fairly represent the subject and the num- 

 bers in each class must not be greater than 

 the teachers can properly handle. 



In the small college under the old 

 regime, this work was divided among a 

 group of professors. The elective system 

 demands many more teachers and better 

 ones, so far as class-room work is concerned, 

 than the English system. It is, in fact, the 

 element of choice, whether between fixed 

 courses, or between courses, which is re- 

 sponsible for the great extension of the 

 American college system, which is now at 

 its height. 



Needing many more teachers, without 

 the means of making them all professors, 

 and with the opportunity of trying them 

 out before promotion, has called into being 

 the great army of assistant professors and 

 others of intermediate grade, who do most 

 of the actual work with students in the 

 American colleges and universities to-day. 



It is manifest that no system of auto- 

 matic promotion by which each of these 

 can ever be assured of a professorship in 

 his own institution, is possible. There will 

 never be professorships enough to go 

 around, and even the best men must often 

 look for promotion elsewhere. Besides 

 this, only a small percentage of these men 

 show that combination of personality, char- 

 acter, scholarship, productiveness and force 

 which should make them worthy of first- 

 class professorships anywhere. In the pro- 

 motion of these men, the interests of the 

 university or college as a teaching body, in 

 other words, the interests of the students, 

 constitute almost the sole consideration. 



It is a matter of wise administration to 

 sllow a reasonable minimum in each grade, 

 -enough to enable a man to live decently. 

 It is well to make a small automatic addi- 

 tion to this from year to year. It is well 

 that this addition should cease when 



further promotion is not in the univer- 

 sity's own interest. It is almost as in- 

 jurious to overpay a mediocre man as to 

 give a good man too little. The only 

 justification for either is found in the 

 limitations of financial ability and in the 

 absence of means for exact valuation of 

 the achievements and the possibilities of 

 the various instructors. The rapid promo- 

 tion of exceptional men is, under our sys- 

 tem, a necessity. Equal pay under equal 

 conditions considers the position, not the 

 man, as the unit, and it is only possible 

 under static conditions. Applied to the 

 American university of to-day it would 

 leave to the institution only the dregs of 

 the faculty, unless its equal pay was held 

 level with the maximum in other institu- 

 tions. Except in two or three of our 

 strongest universities, that course is at 

 present impossible. 



Because the university has assumed re- 

 sponsibility for all the necessary teaching, 

 and this with the exaction of low fees, and 

 in some parts of the country none at all, 

 the assistant professor is part of the system 

 as much as the professor. At the same 

 time, the assistant professorship has risen 

 through necessity, not through the volun- 

 tary choice of university authorities. We 

 are not certain what he ought to be paid, 

 how rapidly he should grow, or what 

 should be his status in academic matters. 

 These matters are mostly determined for 

 us by necessity. "We have not yet reached 

 agreement as to whether he should have an 

 equal voice or any voice in academic mat- 

 ters. University legislation usually tends 

 to give him a nearly equal voice, regard- 

 ing the academic executive as merely first 

 among equals. University custom tends to 

 hold the executive responsible for his asso- 

 ciates, after the fashion of business cor- 

 porations. There is justice in both points 

 of view, and it is Avell for the universities 

 that the two tendencies should continue 



