THE COLLEGE PROFESSOR 279 



I am standing, not for trade-union methods, but only for the trade- 

 union principle, namely, the principle of self-assertion. If your col- 

 lege professor can assert himself in no better style than the labor-union, 

 bis intelligence is an illusion and he has no case. The working man 

 can conceive of no way of bettering himself except at his employees 

 expense. In his view there is a fixed margin of profit between a fixed 

 cost of production and a fixed market-price, and what is added to wages 

 must be deducted from profits. And having no personal authority, by 

 virtue of education or social position, he can conceive of no way of as- 

 serting his claims without the exercise of economic pressure or physical 

 force. It should be the aim of the college professor to prove, in ways 

 already suggested, that he may indefinitely better his position, not at 

 the expense of his college, but in the very process of making it a more 

 worthy and influential institution; and that for this the chiefly potent 

 force will be the authority of his position and of the argument that he 

 is able to present. 



But for this purpose it will be unnecessary to form a special organi- 

 zation. For the college .professor is already organized. Practically 

 every member of the profession is a member of a college faculty and 

 also of one or more learned societies. The latter, of course, as associa- 

 tions of men united by the interests of a special line of work, bear a 

 nearer resemblance to the trade-union; and they would not be going 

 out of their way if they should include the advancement of the scholar 

 in the advancement of learning. But for our immediate purpose the 

 college faculty is more important. Tor as a member of the faculty the 

 college professor already holds a franchise of considerable possibilities, 

 and a place where he is authorized to speak, where, indeed, he is re- 

 sponsible for expressing himself regarding the welfare of his college, 

 and where, as I think, he may also rightfully represent his own claims 

 and those of his order. Simply to make a responsible use of his official 

 prerogative would go far toward improving his position. And if the 

 college professor is ever to assert himself, this is the place to begin. 



For this in fact is the point at which he is most conspicuously weak. 

 Nowhere does he appear to less advantage than as a member of the 

 faculty in faculty-meeting. It may be doubted whether any other 

 assembly of men indulges in more ill-considered talk and more ill-con- 

 sidered action than the average faculty. Men who habitually talk sense 

 seem here to talk nonsense. They advance confident opinions on mat- 

 ters that they have never considered; on the spur of the moment they 

 offer motions, often of a far-reaching import, whose meaning they are 

 afterwards unable to explain; they entrust special business to com- 

 mittees and then ignore the committee-reports; and they constantly 

 illustrate the law of action and reaction by reversing at the next meet- 

 ing the measures of the last. The fact is that the individual college 



