Omaha daily bee., 1908-07-13
WHAT is A PROFESSOR Pads,
Modest Compensation of Leader OF
Higher Education.

Modest Compensation of Leader OF
Higher Education.
The Carnegie pension fund has gathered
facts from 100 colleges and universities and
finds that the pay of a full professor varies
from 1880 to $500 a year, the average be
ing somewhere near $500" This is now,
but it shows an advance in fifteen years.
President Harper Of Chicago university
gathered facts from 1874 Institutions in 1888,
and he concluded that "the average pay of
professors was $1,47O.5O." In eighteen city
colleges the average was S1,911, and in
sixty-two country colleges $1,3S5.
Both Investigations deal, says the Phila-
delphia Press, with the same field and their
results show a decided rise in the pay OF
professors. This advance is, however,
mostly In the larger institutions. Harvard.
Yale, Columbia and Princeton have raised
large funds which have been employed TO
increase professors salaries in the last
five years. President Harper by his admin
istration of Chicago university left as his
chief monument an advance in the range
Of professors salaries, and the smaller col
leges in New England have in some cases
been forced to raise salaries to keep good
men. This has been little done in small col
leges elsewhere.
with all its advantages the average OF a
professors pay given by the Carnegie
Foundation, $500, is low. 1t is higher thar
~clergymen's salaries. II is far lower than
the pay of professional men of like ability
In law medicine and engineering. The pro-
fessor possesses, It is true, great advant.
ages. He has a vacation of three or -four
months. He holds a life position. He has
a pension. He enjoys high social considera-
ton.
The real difficulty and lack with Ameri-
can professors salaries is, as the Carnegie
report points out. that there are no big
prizes, as is the case abroad. The eXcep-
tionally able man does not get recognition
In Germany, France, England and Scotland
the successful professor gets more than the
best men are paid here.sThe average mar
in a professors chair here, or the In,
structor or assistant professor, gets from
two to four times as much as the man II
Germany who is doing mediocre or subordi.
nate work.
But this is the American rue and practice
In the army and navy, relative to other
lands. we pay low salaries to the genera
and admiral and high pay to the soldier and
sailor. The clerk, railroad hand and day
laborer gets more than abroad. The mar
farther up the ladder is not relatively SC
well paid in salary and position combined
as abroad.
This does not alter the wisdom of the plea
made by the Carnegie Foundation for some
big salaries in each institution. Conspicu.
ously able men in our colleges should have
special salaries. There is something wholly
out OF proportion where a man like Prcsi-
dent Eliot receives 5000 salary, or adding
a fair rent for the residence he has as
president and a special allowance, about
$1,000. On the other hand, when a year ago
the government offered to chemist inspect
ors posts at from $3.50 to 5000 a year in
work requiring about the training of a col
lege professor, out of l,4OO men offering not
enough passed to fill forty places. The
men qualified were plainly better paid in
college or out, generally out, but often in
college.