The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-02-03

opportunities to a desirable extent,
anH peTents sandn t Hefy
daughters out of the state for their
college work largely on account of the
insufficient and inadequate and unsaI-
isfactory housing conditions at Law
renee, and the lack of desirable super
| vision. There should be erected on
| the campus dormitories capable of ac-
commodating at least the freshmen
| girls Too much cannot be said about
the Importance of the first year in
college,; and, especially, during the
first year, the girl student, who is
upon the average IS years of age,
should have pleasant and comfortable
surroundings and degree of wise
supervision and direction, which could
best be given under the dormitory
The Question of Salaries.
A study of the salaries of the col
| lege faculty reveals the fact that dis
regarding a number of assistant in
structors receiving from three to SIX
hundred dollars each per annum, Ind
considering only those who are re-
garded as regular members of the
faculty, seventy-two men and women
receive more than 500 each, their
average being S2,140 per annum, and
Seventy-three men and women re-
ceive a salary of $1,000, or less, being
an average salary of $1.124 per an
| mum. Naturally more hours of in
struction are given by the seventy
three younger instructors than by the
seventy-two older and better paid in
structCrs. it being desirable that full
professors shall have fewer hours of
instruction and more hours for orig
inaI work and investigations; so that
the major part of the instruction n
the college is given by instructors re-
ceiving average salaries of silica a
year.
Many of these men are married and
have families to support. 1t is prob
ably desirable that all should be mar
ried because it is the unanimous YER
dict of all great corporations that
married employees as rule give the
greatest satisfaction. Many of these
instructors have spent four years IN
college and three years in post-grad-
uate work, making seven years of
preparation after the high school. A
number Of industrial corporations in
this country employ promising 'sclen-
tific graduates at a minimum or S9OO
year and advance them rapidly and
substantially. Such men. at the END
of the third year-at the time when
these young university instructors
were receiving their doctors degree
are receiving not less than Sl,oO0
year. Our colleges ought to have the
pick of the graduates; but they can
not have it unless they pay at least
living salary Furthermore the Uni
versity of Kansas is constantly losing
its best young instructors thru calls
from other institutions which pay bet
ter salaries. This is not all. With
salaries so low, instructors with fam
lilies must be constantly harassed by
financial difficulties, so that they can
not do the best work of which they
are capable The students are en-
titled to receive that best work.
Eleven hundred and twentyfour
dollars has not been an adequate sal
airy for college instructor for very
many years; and it is particularly in
adequate now that the cost of all the
necessities of living has risen so enor-
mously. There is hardly a large in
dustrial corporation in the country
hardly an employer of any kind
that has not recognized this increased
cost of living either by an advance in
pay or by the granting of special pay
ments or bonuses at the end of the
year 1916. These grants were not
made. we are informed, as a matter
of generosity or humanity, so much as
a matter of sound business judgment.
Employees were in financial difficulties.
They were restless and uneasy. The
advances were made as a matter of
mere justice and to hold the en-
ployes and secure the best work from
them. 1t is not practical to grant
bonuses to these instructors working
for an average salary of 81, 124 year.
1t is practicable to make a material
raise in their salaries. These lower
salaries are too low under any condi-
ton and they are doubly and shame
fully low at this time. The state of
Kansas is just as well able to increase
these salaries as any corporation in
the United States has been to in
crease its salaries; and Kansas should
be Just as accessible to consideration
and plain justice and sound business
judgment. This recommendation, like
the others, is made, not from the