Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 86.djvu/544

540 his efficiency. He is unable to demonstrate it, in the ordinary sense, even to himself, to say nothing of the world.

Add to these reasons that even if the college professor could demonstrate his importance, he would be the last man to do so in the blanks of a questionnaire, and you have my excuse for presuming to speak for him when the professional investigator is already in the field.

The college professor's work may be considered in several aspects.

The first of these aspects is the one most familiar to the general public, and is consequently the basis on which his work is usually estimated. This is the classroom aspect.

But even this aspect is only superficially understood. The profession of teaching is thought of as an occupation in which a certain amount of previously acquired knowledge and method is applied in routine. It is like the goldsmith's occupation, or the dentist's, or any other calling with fixed office or working hours. The professor of liberal arts himself is thought of as a person who spends a minimum of time in routine work, has a great many unemployed hours during the school year, and during a very long vacation is absolutely free.

The fact is, however, that the average college professor spends almost as much time in class room and office as the average clerk in the employ of corporation or state. Count in the time he is in the laboratory and office before and after classes—in faculty and committee meetings, in conferences with individual students and colleagues—and you will find him employed more hours than the clerk. Count in the time he spends after these duties are done—in reading and correcting themes, exercises and notes, in reading and refining on the lessons and lectures of the next day—and you will find him far exceeding the limits of the carpenter's and bricklayer's day, and even that of the common laborer.

Nor is this all the time and effort he expends. The professor's work is never out of his mind. Coming or going, eating and drinking, the college and its affairs are always with him. If he is not talking of them or doing them, he is thinking of them. The Saturday which he is supposed to give up to recreation is more likely than not a busier intellectual day than the others. The Sunday which he is supposed to devote to worship and meditation is also given in no small part to reading and thinking which inevitably center about the college work. His very recreation becomes, in spite of him, a part of the college business. He walks with a friend, and they discuss college problems. He reads with his wife, and they choose their magazine articles and books with a view to the effect upon his college work. He engages in physical exercise, and it is for the sake of intellectual efficiency. The significance to him of red blood is that without it he can be neither inspired nor inspiring. And the long vocation—on that, too, he looks with the professional eye. The long vacation is his great opportunity for the reading and writing