62 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1019 



should have in its hands the essential conduct 

 of the institution, as at present. Only one 

 power which it now has it should not have : the 

 direct power of appointing or of removing a 

 " professor." For the professoriate should be 

 composed just of the men bearing the title 

 " professor," whose rights should be : (1) Ap- 

 pointment only on election by the profes- 

 soriate, according to its own rules of election. 

 (2) Removal only after trial by the profes- 

 soriate, according to its own rules. (3) Assur- 

 ance of a certain minimum salary — determined 

 by the custom of the institution — so long as 

 the title of " professor " remain unrecalled ; 

 and (4) assurance of the right to teach the 

 subject defined by his complete title, during the 

 like period. 



Under such a division any administration 

 could impeach any professor, demanding his 

 trial by the professoriate, but it could not 

 remove him until this trial had resulted in 

 the revocation of his title. On the other hand, 

 no professor would be allowed administrative 

 control of any department or school except on 

 appointment to such work by the administra- 

 tion. Further, there should be allowed vari- 

 ous titles, such as " assistant " or " associate 

 professor," to be given by the administration 

 to men to whom it wished to encharge work 

 newly introduced as well as by the younger 

 men who might be regarded as candidates for 

 the rank and position of "professor." These 

 men, in each institution, woidd be serving a 

 probation, preliminary to their final election 

 to the body of the professoriate. There should 

 be nothing to prevent the administration from 

 paying such men even higher salaries than the 

 professorial minimum, and indeed nothing to 

 prevent any advance in salary to a " pro- 

 fessor" above this minimum. Of course any 

 " professor " should be eligible to any adminis- 

 trative office without sacrificing his profes- 

 sorial rank and rights. 



This scheme, viewed a priori, ought to be 

 easy to introduce and maintain. A charter 

 body of professors should be selected from the 

 staff already in service by the administration 

 of each university and college, and contractu- 

 ally endowed with the rights named. Presum- 



ably, the body so selected would represent the 

 present sentiment and ideals of the institu- 

 tion, while the natural conservatism of a self- 

 perpetuating body would ensure a reasonable 

 constancy in its character. Young men would 

 be tried out before being elected to the body; 

 while the administration would retain ample 

 power to guide the general development of the 

 institution. 



Our present plan, in which the head of the 

 institution is, internally to it, the benevolent 

 autocrat, and, externally to it, the responsible 

 politician, is an ugly makeshift. The plan 

 here proposed ought to lighten the cares of 

 such a head by lessening his responsibilities, 

 while at the same time it would relieve the pro- 

 fessorial profession of the stigma of servility, 

 and it would give the supporting public a less 

 flickering consciousness of the fact that in 

 calling a man to the thankless task of thinking 

 they are incurring obligations as well as 

 receiving benefits. 



H. B. Alexander 



University of Nebraska 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 The Antiquity of Man in Europe, heing the 



Munro Lectures, 1913. By James Geikie, 



LL.D., F.R.S. Pp. XX + 328, 9 text illust., 



xxi pi. and 4 maps. 



This is a series of lectures upon a subject 

 with which Professor Geikie's name has been 

 associated for more than a third of a century. 

 His "Prehistoric Europe" appeared in 1881 and 

 the matter received more than incidental con- 

 sideration in the third edition of his " Great 

 Ice Age." The work is an argument from the 

 geologist's standpoint, the most important of 

 all, since geology is the final court of appeal. 



The subject is outlined in the first lecture. 

 The general features of Pleistocene climate 

 and its extreme variations are shown in a dis- 

 cussion of the several faunas and floras, which 

 affords opportunity for comparison with pres- 

 ent conditions in Asia and North America. 

 He is led to believe that, while there is ample 

 proof that man existed early in the Pleistocene, 

 there is thus far no positive evidence of his 



