Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 21.djvu/184

174 to the effect that any member of the faculty could be called upon to teach any subject, under penalty of dismissal if he refused. This ignorance puts a premium upon intellectual dishonesty. It needs no argument to show that all such cases result in inefficiency and superficiality; the colleges represented by them are shunned by competent men, they suffer in reputation, and at last they dwindle into mere local academies. Fortunately, the law of natural selection holds good among institutions as among animals, and in the long run only the fittest flourish and survive.

But all vices are not great vices, and small crimes against college morality are committed even by old and famous institutions. For example, a certain Professor of Natural History has been wittily de-scribed as "a good theologian, slightly tinctured with zoölogy"; his appointment having been secured by raising false issues of the ultra-sectarian kind. It is hardly necessary to add that the highly respect-able college in which he teaches is not recognized as a shining center of zoological research. In the same institution a teacher of mathematics was to be appointed; and an enthusiastic friend praised the mathematical ability of a leading candidate. "No matter about his mathematics," said one of the authorities, "we want to know if he is a man of good moral character." The remark was suggestive. Of course, moral character was essential, and to be scrupulously considered, but not above other qualifications equally important. Character and competency need both to be regarded; since a man may be a model of purity, and at the same time incapable of teaching even the alpha-bet. Candidates for professorships are often sharply catechised. "What church do you go to?" "What are your views upon such and such doctrines?" These questions are almost invariably asked. "Are you a professor of religion?" said a college trustee to a young candidate for a position. "No, sir, I am a professor of chemistry," was the reply, and rejection followed. Curiously enough, the college represented by this instance was not a sectarian school, but a State institution, founded upon the congressional land-grant of 1862. From such-like impertinent questions some of the ablest scholars in America have suffered. Pure character, unblemished reputation, high scholar-ship, and great achievements, are not sufficient for answers. Only a rigid conformity to certain dogmas can render the candidate's calling and election sure. Hypocrisy may succeed where real merit would avail but little.

Since a tutorship is the natural stepping-stone to a professorship, tutors should be chosen for qualifications essentially the same as those which are demanded of professors. There are now available a multitude of competent young men, who are ambitious to win professor-ships, and who, with that aim in view, have devoted years of laborious study to special preparation for special teaching. Some are chemists, who have pursued original investigations at Berlin, Leipsic, Bonn,