824 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVII. No. 699 



matter of small importance ■when compared 

 ■with the conditions under ■which work is done. 



The Carnegie Foundation is to be regarded 

 as one of these environing conditions, the im- 

 provement of ■which has done so much for 

 American education during recent years. It 

 gives security and freedom from -worry for 

 ■wife and child, the lack of -which has forced 

 many a professor to sacrifice good -work to 

 the need of meeting some unexpected outlay 

 for ■which his regular salary fails to provide. 

 Sickness, accident, life insurance and other 

 extraneous burdens have been met by ■work 

 that forced the teacher to do some toilsome 

 unremunerative task such as ■writing revie^ws 

 at $3 a page, or hack ■work for publishers at 

 similar rates. The pay for such ■work is 

 usually not so high as could be obtained by 

 ditch digging or street cleaning. I call to 

 mind a friend who earned this extra cash by 

 directing ■wrappers. He was secretary of a 

 learned society that appropriated $300 a year- 

 for this purpose and he could not let the 

 money slip through his fingers even at the 

 cost of descent to degrading routine and poor 

 health. The university paid him $5 an hour 

 for its work ; he earned his extras by work- 

 ing for ten cents an hour. Surely this is a 

 fiasco calling for some environing change. 



It also seems odd to me to call schemes for 

 enviroimiental improvement paternal and 

 socialistic. The confusion of thought in- 

 volved in these statements is due to not see- 

 ing clearly the difierence between the provi- 

 sion which each age makes for i^ts successors 

 and the care and control which some indi- 

 viduals exert over their contemporaries. We 

 can leave '.little to our descendants except 

 better conditions, sound constitutions and a 

 freedom to utilize the forces of nature and 

 society upon which their daily lives depend. 

 We make for them the conditions under 

 which they work; the distribution of current 

 income they must settle for themselves. 

 Paternalism and socialism seek to control this 

 annual recurring income and the acti^vities of 

 those who cooperate to create current wealth. 

 Every scheme of social progress calls for a 

 constantly improving environment; but every 



scheme can not therefore properly be classed 

 as socialistic and paternal. Is it paternalism 

 for parents to give their children a sound 

 constitution? Should their children at ma- 

 turity be allowed to choose between health and 

 the present worth of a good body, say $20,- 

 000? Is the man who tries to buy his health 

 with pills and nostrums superior to him whose 

 health is a gift from his ancestors? Should 

 universities say to professors, " you can have 

 $200 a year or the use of the library; $1,000 

 a year or the use of a laboratory; $500 a year 

 or the advantages of a cultured society " ? 

 And should they say to students, " we wiU 

 give you $150 a year or the use of the dormi- 

 tories and gymnasium, and $100 a year or the 

 right to associate with your teachers and fel- 

 low students " ? 



The correct view is that the environing con- 

 ditions of a university are the gift of past 

 generations to the present. They do not 

 limit the freedom of the present generation. 

 On the contrary, they vastly increase it. So 

 too is the home an accumulation of benefits 

 which past generations give to the present. 

 And all society, to a less degree but in the 

 same way after all, is creating changes which 

 accrue to the benefit of succeeding ages. The 

 inheritance of an improved environment is 

 civilization, not socialism. To confuse en- 

 vironmental change with the social control 

 which socialism seeks to establish is an error 

 that only clear thinking can avoid: but when 

 we do see the contrast it becomes apparent 

 that Mr. Carnegie has wrought for the col- 

 lege teacher a new and higher environment 

 which will give him more freedom, greater 

 zeal and better opportunities to raise the 

 standards and ideals of the young men it is 

 his duty to instruct. Pensions do not differ 

 in effect from lecture rooms, libraries, 

 laboratories, and other environing conditions 

 of university life. May each generation for 

 ages to come produce more men who ■will add 

 to the efficiency of teachers and universities 

 by bettering the environing conditions of 

 teacher and pupil. 



Simon N. Patten 



Univeksitt op Pennsylvania 



