Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/127

Rh with his work so exhausting that, during term time, any prolonged study beyond that which is necessary becomes irksome.

Two generations ago, college trustees kept themselves more or less in touch with the professors and made diligent effort to become familiar with details of the work. With vast expansion in resources and equal expansion in the curriculum, personal relations between professors and trustees practically ceased and the latter have no longer time, opportunity, or, in too many cases, inclination, to acquaint themselves with the nature or extent of the work done by individual professors. University faculties have rarely any direct representation in the board of trustees or before it, the common mouthpiece being the president, who, no matter how earnest and faithful he may be, is not, in the very nature of things, competent to understand all matters or to present them properly. In too many cases, the professors are not consulted even in the matter of appointments and the trustees place the responsibility for these upon the president, as though the institution were a country academy. Naturally enough, trustees have come to regard themselves as the institution and the professors as merely their employees, as, indeed, has been asserted. This has gone so far that in one institution, at least until a very recent period, all appointments were for the period of one year—a plan admirably adapted to secure adherence to the powers in control. For trustees having this conception of their powers and duties, the usefulness or worth of an instructor is not measured by his ability as teacher or investigator.

Certainly the attractions making the profession so inviting in former days no longer exist in such form as to be magnetic to ambitious young men.

It might be supposed that, on the whole, salaries have been increased so as to compensate in some degree for the losses; and the relation of income to number of instructors, as given in the opening paragraph, appears at first glance to confirm the supposition. But not so. Salaries, always small, have not been increased to keep pace with cost of living or even with other demands unknown two generations ago. On the contrary, taken as a whole, the salaries have decreased. The writer recognizes that salaried men are at a disadvantage in comparison with ordinary wage-earners, the advance of salaries being slow and the periods of rest usually long; but college men are at especial disadvantage owing to peculiar conditions, which have been intensified during recent years.

College income must come mainly from endowments or their equivalent. Students' fees, though not unimportant, pay but a small part of the cost. Little more than two generations ago, when college faculties were small, the course compulsory and free tuition almost unknown, fees were the chief source of income. With increase in number of students, old buildings became insufficient and new buildings were secured by sale of long time scholarships at low rates, the future