90 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVIII. No. 446. 



the professorial staff, the president consults 

 members of the faculty concerned. He in- 

 vites their opinion as to who is the fittest man 

 to £11 the vacant chair. But the president 

 does not confine his inquiries to his immediate 

 circle of colleagues. University presidents 

 and professors in America constitute almost 

 a caste of their own. By virtue of well-organ- 

 ized clubs and associations, which cover the 

 great continent like a network, they keep 

 closely in touch one with another. Knowledge 

 of the reputations that men are acquiring in 

 academic work is wonderfully well diffused. 

 The president who is seeking to fill a vacant 

 chair has at command ready means of com- 

 munication with presidents and professors of 

 other universities. He is usually in corre- 

 spondence with foreign scholars and teachers. 

 He neglects no opportunity of collecting evi- 

 dence as to the qualifications of professors, 

 assistant professors and instructors in various 

 parts of his own country. Finally, after due 

 and thorough investigation, he forms his de- 

 cision as to how the vacant post may be filled 

 with greatest advantage to the institution 

 over which he presides. He forwards an in- 

 vitation to the chosen person to occupy the 

 vacant office. The wisdom of his choice is 

 rarely, if ever, questioned. 



At every stage the election is the antithesis 

 of a piiblie contest. There are no self- 

 nominated candidates. Consequently no one 

 is defeated and no one triumphs over another. 

 Everybody's feelings are scrupulously re- 

 spected. The preliminary inquiries are pur- 

 sued in the strictest confidence. Most im- 

 portant of all, no open advertisement on the 

 part of either elector or elected is permitted. 

 Every American professor with whom I spoke 

 on the subject deemed it an intolerable strain 

 on a scholar's proper modesty to require him 

 to nominate himself for election, to describe 

 his own attainments, to print a statement of 

 his qualifications for a vacant office. Still 

 more repugnant to the American code of 

 academic ethics is it for a would-be professor 

 to invite his acquaintances to eulogize his 

 character or his writings with a view to circu- 

 lating ' testimonials ' in printed pamphlets. 



Such conduct is generally held in the United 

 States to be ignominious. Testimonial-hunt- 

 ing, as it is pursued in this country would 

 prove a fatal bar there to jjromotion of any 

 reputable kind. 



The only argument that I have heard ad- 

 vanced in favor of the British system, whereby 

 everybody is at liberty to offer himself for 

 election for a vacant professorship, to de- 

 clare his own merits, and to solicit confirm- 

 atory compliments from his friends, is that 

 the elector's field of choice is thus usefully en- 

 larged. But this argument is open to most 

 serious question. Men of ordinary sensitive- 

 ness often refuse to submit themselves to the 

 humiliating o*deal of public or semi-public 

 competition for a vacant professorship, which 

 in many respects reduces them to the level 

 of advertising vendors of quack medicines. 

 In effect the prevailing system often narrows 

 the field of choice open to the electors, who 

 are not in the habit of looking outside the 

 panel of self-appointed candidates; it is, in- 

 deed, doubtful if honorable regard for the 

 terms of their public advertisement permit 

 them such a course of action. 



It ought to be an easy matter for the heads 

 of colleges and universities in Great Britain 

 to adapt the American method to home re- 

 quirements. The difficulties incident to the 

 enormous area and population of the United 

 States and to the vast and increasing number 

 of academic institutions which are worthy 

 of consideration there, are not present in this 

 country. To pronounce the American sys- 

 tem unworkable here is a confession of in- 

 feriority, from the point of view alike of 

 ethics and practical efficiency, about which 

 one would prefer to be silent. 



Sidney Lee. 



108 Lexham-gabdens, W., 

 June 3, 1903. 



CURRENT NOTES ON METEOROLOGY. 



THE CLIMATE OF BENGUET, PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 



" There is no region in the United States 

 which has a more healthful or delightful 

 climate than is afforded by the Benguet high- 

 lands, where a white man can perform heavy 

 field labor without excessive fatigue or in- 



