Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/132

128 is more exacting than that for any other profession, medicine not excepted.

The prospect of spending seven years in preparation, of working afterwards as an assistant for several years at a salary of $700 or $800, for several years more at a small advance, and of attaining by middle age a salary not much greater than the wages of a switchman in an eastern railway yard, with at the end little hope of a pension is by no means alluring to a man unwilling to remain celibate throughout life. Thoughtful young men in the higher classes of our colleges recognize this condition and recognize also that the compensating privileges of social standing and leisure for research have been reduced to the minimum. This feeling respecting the status of American professors is so widespread that, unless the conditions are modified quickly, the next generation will see a notable change in type of professors; some will be teachers because unwilling to be anything else; some will be men of independent means desiring a not too burdensome occupation; but a large proportion will consist of men carried along on scholarships and fellowships into a profession for which they have neither fitness nor inclination—perfunctory teachers, lamenting their fate in being compelled to 'waste themselves on a parcel of boys.'

To prescribe a remedy is not difficult; to bring the patient into receptive mood is apt to be difficult. The writer suggests a remedy; the administering must be left to others.

The first step should be elimination of mimic universities and restoration of the college with a fixed curriculum, intended to develop the man and to lay foundation for a broad education. By thus removing odds and ends of elective courses and attempts at types of work belonging altogether to graduate study, relief will be given from much which is of doubtful utility to the undergraduate, and the professors will regain that leisure, which for so many years was utilized to the advantage of the whole community.

The second step should be complete readjustment of the relation between the corporate and educational boards. Times have changed and with them the conditions also, but the powers and duties of the corporate board have remained unchanged. Trustees are chosen in view of their fitness to manage the financial affairs, very rarely with reference to their familiarity with educational matters; yet their board has, as of old, the power to appoint professors and even to create new chairs, thus controlling not only the selection of the faculty but also the curriculum, matters with which, in the very nature of the case, they cannot deal intelligently—as a board. The teaching board should have the sole right to name candidates for appointment, to determine all matters concerning the curriculum and the corporate board should be called upon to confirm the action, pro forma, whenever a business contract is involved. Details respecting methods of procedure do not