The Portland daily press., 1893-10-04
Professors and Their Pay.

President Harper, of the Chicago Uni
versity, has been suggesting in con-
temporary magazine that college profess
sors should have more pay. None OF
them, he says, are paid as well as the
head menSSin the business world. Only
professors of the highest grade get as
| much as the lower grades of responsible
officers of railroad and insurance COM
panies, while the salaries of the lower
class of professors compare with the
wages of skilled workmen in the mechan-
zeal industries, DR.. Haprer thinks such
compensation painfully inadequate He
says that the professors cannot keep up
on what they are getting, to say nothing
of buying the books they need and
spending their vacations in improving
travel. His preaching on the subjects
twins absolutely with his practice, since
as will be remembered he is the identl-
cal President Harper who was lately
imp Heated in a conspiracy to bull the
brains market by offering all the best
professors in the world large pecunlary
inducements to come to Chicago. His
experience with professors has doubtless
persuaded him that he knows what they
most need, and he is probably right
when he suggests that it is more money.
But it is that way with almost all OF us.
We all need larger salaries. II there was
any immediate prospect that the profes-
sors would get the increase that DR.. Har-
per recommends no word should be Ut
tered here to hinder it. Inasmuch. how
ever, as no such prospect theatens, or
can be frightened by argument, there is no
harm in recalling that except IN the
matter of pay the professor has one OF
the delightfullest of all the jobs. He
has the long summer vacation that
makes him the envied of all men except
the preachers He does not have to ne
elect his mind, as other men do, IN order
to focus his faculties on his work, but
his very business in life is understood
to be the cultivation and enlargement
of his intellectuals. Every one is expected
to sacrifice something to success In his
calling. What would the professor sacri-
flee if not money? If he were adequately
paid, what dams or barriers would sufilce
to keep the multitude from swooplng
down on the pedagogical calling and
swapping it W it'll competitions?
But there are better grounds than these
ON which we who are not professors may
comfort ourselves about the professors
paw for it may be sincerely argued that
comparatively poor professors are more
truly and usefully instructive to us than
rich ones would be. In world that is
ter us by their elaborate scale of living
we have reason to be grateful for the
perpetuation of few orders OF men
whose circumstances encourage them to
set the example of a comparatively fru-
gal existence The professors, by con-
tinuing poor and at the same time
highly respectable and agreeable, make
it easier for us to keep our hold on plain
living, and to remember that a mans
highest happiness does not necessarily
lie in the elaboration of his domestic
apparatuses Moreover, the professors
and their wives being clever people and
fertile of resource, the rest OF us get
the methods and expedients to which
they have recourse to make small salaries
yield the greatest amount of simple COM
fort. We notice where they spend their
summers, and whether or not their
children go barefoot in the country, and
what their amusements are, ana how
much regard they find it advisable to
pay to shifting fashions in raiment By
living as they do on such incomes as they
have they help to keep the scale of civil
lied living within feasible bounds, and
though it may not be especially exhilar-
ating to them to do 1t, 1T is vastly uSeful
to us,to have it DONE In olden times
we used to hear about the New England
preachers who reared and educated large
families on a salary of five hundred dol
lars year. 1t was an encouragement to
persons of limited means to know that
such exploits were actually possible. So
now it is solace and help to be aware
how intelligent and enviable an exis-
tence can be maintained in college towns
on such salaries as professors receive.
-Harper's Weekly.