February, ’20] 
BUSINESS PROCEEDINGS 
7 
asking the nomination of one of our members to represent this Association as a member 
of the Council in the Division of Biology and Agriculture. 
With the approval of the Executive Committee the President nominated Mr. 
P. J. Parrott, as the Association’s representative. Mr. Parrott accepted the appoint¬ 
ment and has instituted measures of great interest and value to the profession. 
It is recommended that the Association provide for regular and permanent repre¬ 
sentation on the Council by electing a member to serve as its representative for a 
term of three years, election for such term to take place at this meeting in the regular 
order, after nomination by the nominating committee. 
Salaries in Entomology 
The fact that most professional men whose income is in the form of a salary are 
hard pressed by the increased cost of living is too well recognized to need proof. The 
condition prevails through practically all salaried positions except those of a commer¬ 
cial nature. 
Teachers and experimenters have probably suffered more than any other class 
through this unfortunate state of affairs. This is for several reasons. Their salaries 
were relatively low ten years ago, before the rise in costs began. They have necessary 
living and professional standards to maintain. Their work is of such nature that an 
outside income of a substantial character is not usually possible. 
The actual increase in cost of living in the past five years cannot be set down in 
definite and final figures. This is in part because commodity prices vary in different 
parts of the country, in part for the reason that the proportion to which a given article 
enters into the living expenses of a family varies. The rise in price of these several 
different articles has been in different degree. 
In a prior study that was made by your President in another capacity a year ago, 
a comparison was drawn between college salaries in general in 1898 and those of 1918; 
and a further comparison between commodity prices in those two periods. In 
arriving at living costs, information was asked of various economic authorities. The 
average of their statements indicated that the dollar which was worth 100 cents in 
1898 was worth only 45 cents in 1918. The figures as to salary were secured by a 
request sent to college authorities. The result of this indicated that the average, 
reasonably competent head of department received approximately 82,000 in 1898 
and approximately 83,000 in 1918. In other words in the course of that twenty- 
year period, living costs had increased considerably over 100 per cent while salaries 
had risen 50 per cent. 
Taking a more recent period, for comparison and setting up on one hand the living 
costs of five or ten years ago and on the other hand those of the current year, it seems 
reasonable to state that for the salaried professional man the cost of living in that 
time has doubled. 
In a discussion of this subject, recently printed and distributed by Harvard Uni¬ 
versity in the course of its campaign for increased endowment, the following state¬ 
ments occur: 
“The fact is that this ideal toward which Harvard has striven during nearly three 
hundred years is less likely now of attainment than ever before. Because of under¬ 
payment of the teaching staff, Harvard is threatened with the loss of some of her 
brilliant men and with increasing difficulty in replacing them with teachers of equal 
calibre. 
“When a man becomes a teacher, he does not look forward to the accumulation 
of a fortune. His dominant motives are love of teaching and devotion to the aims 
of scholarship. He must, however, have a material basis for the realization of his 
ideal, namely, a competence sufficient to insure a living conforming to the modest 
