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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1031 



There are a lot of Manehus in our Amer- 

 ican universities. One of the worst of 

 these is the insecurity of the teaching posi- 

 tion held by the professor. It is a tremen- 

 dous element in the development and su- 

 premacy of the German university that her 

 professors are appointed for life and are, 

 to all intents and purposes, not removable 

 for anything short of murder. Big men 

 enlist for such prizes, but not for jobs 

 which terminate automatically every aca- 

 demic year or at the pleasure of a new presi- 

 dent or new board of trustees. It will be 

 answered to this that men inadequate for 

 professorial positions must be gotten rid 

 of for the benefit of the university. True, 

 but the way out of the difficulty lies not in 

 the dismissal of professors. The men con- 

 cerned should never have been appointed 

 to professorships, for assumption of their 

 chairs could hardly be expected to change 

 them much. 



But as certainly as our professors should 

 not be subject to dismissal except under the 

 most exceptional circumstances and then 

 only when judged by their peers, equally 

 certainly should there be a quiet burying- 

 ground for the walking dead. The con- 

 quest of our universe is the advance of an 

 army, into which many have entered and 

 all should be allowed to, but of which only 

 the picked may live to take final command. 



The recruiting of our university facul- 

 ties begins to-day in the positions for grad- 

 uate students, fellows and assistants. They 

 form good starting-points and should be as 

 numerous as possible in order to give all 

 those who are called or think themselves 

 called, an opportunity. Of the numerous 

 starters, merit should in due season bring re- 

 ward to the better ones, and these be made 

 instructors, assistant professors, or, if you 

 please, associate professors. It is in this 

 ascent of the hill that the weak should drop 

 out and under. If properly supervised 



they might be pushed out and under. It 

 should be understood at all times that a 

 university is not a hospital for the infirm. 



HastUy viewed, our present system seems 

 to offer just such opportunities, but in 

 practise an almost opposite result is ob- 

 tained. It can hardly be said that every one 

 may enter the lists for a university career. 

 On the other hand, once in, the purest bone 

 with long life and robust health may at- 

 tain a top place. Everything encourages 

 this. If short in virility and long in servil- 

 ity any one may mount in the course of sev- 

 eral years from four hundred to a thousand 

 or fifteen hundred. Non-objection to do- 

 mestic service tempts him into matrimony, 

 and pity for the young couple encourages 

 the raise to eighteen hundred. The third 

 reel tells the story of the rest of this uni- 

 versity man's life. He is acknowledged no 

 good, he has not the desire or nerve to quit, 

 and he is not pushed out because he is 

 married. Our universities are full of such 

 men. They are the food of caricaturists 

 and satirists and yet our universities them- 

 selves make them. Nor will they become of 

 historical interest only until we stop filling 

 up our teaching bodies with men whose first 

 virtue is their cheapness. The day must 

 come when we will frankly draw a mone- 

 tary dead line at the point where a man 

 can just live alone and bid him die there 

 unless the character of his work is such 

 that he is accepted into the fold of uni- 

 versity-sized men and thereby at once as- 

 sured decent compensation for a family and 

 life tenure of office. There should be no 

 stepping-stones across this gulf. How- 

 ever agreeable to the chief the placid ac- 

 ceptance of his ideas by the subordinate, 

 however admirable length of service, such 

 do not make the university professor, and 

 university rewards should not be his. 



There should, however, be opportunity 

 for the capable university man who has 



