JUL*, 1912.] 



65 



Miscellaneous. 



Object lessons of spoiled investigators 

 are specially common in many of the 

 smaller colleges, and even in many of the 

 larger ones ; yet the time may never 

 come when it will be safe to measure 

 the fitness of all men for college teaching 

 solely, or even chiefly by their research 

 output. Nevertheless, one cannot but 

 recognize the desirability of encouraging 

 teachers to practise exhaustive reading 

 on special subjects, or to undertake 

 special advanced research, whenever 

 the demands of their positions and 

 the attendant circumstances render it 

 possible. 



From what has been said it would 

 appear that all teachers, and those 

 who are selected to conduct research, 

 should have at least three years 

 of university training superimposed 

 upon the college foundation. In 

 saying this the writer recognizes that 

 some of the best men in the country 

 have not had this experience, but yet 

 have won an enviable reputation in 

 their respective lines, even in certain 

 cases outstripping many who have 

 enjoyed a more extensive fundamental 

 training. It must, nevertheless, be re- 

 cognized that such men have succeeded 

 not in consequence of their handicap, 

 but in spite of it. They were close 

 observers, diligent students and were 

 possessed of original and judicial minds. 



Admitting that the university training 

 is a great desideratum in all cases, the 

 problem presents itself of lending suffi- 

 cient encouragement to young men so 

 that they will be willing to devote three 

 of the best years of their lives, and a 

 large sum of money, to university study. 



At almost every session of the Asso- 

 ciation of American Agricultural Col- 

 leges and Experiment Stations some 

 college or university president or station 

 director has bemoaned the difficulty of 

 finding adequately trained men to fill 

 the higher positions, especially in re- 

 search, Indeed, the Secretary of Agri- 

 culture, the Hon. James Wilson, has 

 repeatedly stated in public addresses 

 that the Department of Agriculture 

 finds it impossible to secure in this coun- 



try men adequately qualified for many 

 of the positions in the federal service, 

 on which account his department is 

 forced to train its own men. This leads 

 to the query : "Why does not the same 

 principle of supply and demand hold as 

 in lines of industry ? It is a fact, which 

 I think will be disputed by none who 

 are well informed that this country 

 furnishes exceptional opportunities to- 

 day for the young man just out of col- 

 lege. Perhaps, indeed^ if some of them 

 like men known to the writer, forced to 

 begin, after completing a four-year col- 

 lege course, at a salary of from $16 to $20 

 per month, all of which was required 

 for board and clothes, they might be 

 willing to make greater sacrifices than 

 at present in order to insure for them- 

 selves a future, by securing a university 

 training at whatever cost. To-day, 

 however, the young graduate can readily 

 command an initial salary of from $800 

 to $1,200, and many have been advanced 

 within from two to three years to 

 salaries as great as, or greater than, 

 those paid in other reputatable colleges 

 to much older and more experienced 

 men who have enjoyed a university 

 training. 



When these young men look about 

 them in the institutions with which they 

 are connected they may even find others 

 at the head of departments who have 

 never enjoyed graduate study. They 

 may also find those who have made the 

 sacrifice, struggling by all sorts of means 

 to add enough to their insufficient in- 

 comes to enable them to support a small 

 family, with few comforts, no luxuries, 

 and even with deprivation and need 

 before them, in case of unusual illness or 

 misfortune. It is no wonder, under such 

 circumstances, that he thinks " a bird in 

 the hand is worth two in the bush " and 

 prefers to go accumulating, rather than 

 to spend three years' time and the 

 savings of other years in order to secure 

 the mere intellectual advantage of fur- 

 ther study. As I have several times 

 pointed out in public addresses, there 

 can be no permanent remedy for such a 

 condition short of an assured pension 



