August 19, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



245 



gives the average professorial salary in the 

 Western University of Pennsylvania (now the 

 University of Pittsburgh) as $1,864. The 

 third annual report of the same institution, 

 published October, 1908 (p. 44), gives the 

 average as $1,718. The figures I have ob- 

 tained for the academic year 1908-9 show the 

 average as $1,609 for full professors in the 

 college and school of engineering, not in- 

 cluding the heads of the two or three depart- 

 ments who had only the rank of instructor. 

 These figures show that the university in 

 three years by careful management was able 

 to reduce the average expenditure for pro- 

 fessors' salaries by $250. 



On the other hand, the salary of the chan- 

 cellor has undergone a steady and rapid in- 

 crease. Up to 1900 the regular salary was 

 $2,500. In 1901 it was increased to $5,000. 

 In 1904 the present chancellor assumed office 

 at that salary. The following year the 

 amount was increased to $6,000. After 1907 

 the salary schedule no longer appears in the 

 financial report, but I have learned that in 

 1908-9 the chancellor received $7,500. Thus 

 it appears that while the salaries for instruc- 

 tion have been gradually but surely decreasing 

 for some time, that for administration has 

 been rapidly increasing. The salaries for in- 

 struction and administration seem to vary in 

 inverse proportion. 



In this institution, the University of Mani- 

 toba, as I find, salaries are on a very different 

 scale. All professors receive exactly the same 

 salary, $2,500, and assistants are likewise on a 

 regular schedule. Up to the present time 

 there has been absolute equality in profes- 

 sorial salaries, and for the future the mini- 

 mum, at any rate, is certain to be no less. On 

 account of the system of denominational col- 

 leges that until a few years ago constituted 

 the teaching bodies of the university, there 

 has been no president. But now that the 

 university itself has a large staff of teachers 

 a president is to be appointed. Within the 

 past month the committee has fixed the salary 

 at $6,000. 



Similar proportions are shown by the fig- 

 ures for some other universities that are 



neighbors to the University of Pittsburgh. 

 For instance, in West Virginia University the 

 minimum professorial salary is $2,200, having 

 been recently increased from $2,000. The 

 vice-president receives $2,600, and the presi- 

 dent $4,200 and residence, or a total of about 

 $5,200. The average salary of professors is 

 given in Carnegie Report No. 2 as $2,025 

 (evidently made up before the increase). 

 Summing up, we have the following table: 



Were the salary of the chancellor of the 

 University of Pittsburgh arranged on the 

 same scale as in the other two universities, it 

 would be a very different amount. Comparing 

 only with West Virginia University, where 

 there is a similar range of figures in all the 

 columns, if made to bear the same relation to 

 the minimum, it would be approximately 

 $2,800, and if based on the maximum it would 

 be $4,000, instead of the $7,500 it actually 

 was. Apparently, in the University of Pitts- 

 burgh, no attempt is made to keep the salaries 

 of professors at any established proportion of 

 that paid to officers of administration. Who 

 is responsible for the anomalous condition it 

 is difficult to tell. 



It clearly ought not to be possible in any 

 institution of learning for the head to profit 

 by the decrease of the salaries of teachers, nor 

 for the head of a university to obtain between 

 four and five times the average of that of the 

 full professors. The salaries of teachers 

 ought not to be subject to exploitation by the 

 head, but teachers should receive in aU insti- 

 tutions (whether state or not should make no 

 difference) a fair share of the proceeds of the 



