meeting the requirements of the
college curriculum. The effects of this curriculum upon the professors
are deeper and farther-reaching than is usually perceived. It is
in accordance with facts to call American professors, as a class,
unproductive. But it would be unjust and inconsiderate to ascribe this
want of productivity to the disposition called laziness. Laziness is
not a national fault of Americans. On the contrary, we are pushing,
active, restless: we yearn, Alexander-like, for something new to
overcome. Our professors are of the same stock as our business-men,
our lawyers, our doctors, our politicians. But the spirit of progress,
if we choose to call it by that name, has been repressed in them. The
spirit of emulation, of aggressive competition, which marks our trade,
our banking, our manufacturing interests, our railroads, and even our
professions, stops at the threshold of our colleges. There is rivalry,
true, between Harvard and Yale, for instance. If the former erects a
handsome dormitory, the latter must have one larger and finer. If the
former establishes a new professorship, the latter must do likewise.
The colleges compete among themselves. But we see no signs of
competition among the professors of a college, or between the
professors of different colleges--competition, be it observed, in the
sense that the individual professor regards his attainments and views
as a proper subject for comparison with the attainments and views of
another professor in the same branch. Once established in his chair,
his individuality is merged in the general character of the college.
His time, his knowledge and his energy are subordinated to the
curriculum. He can teach only so much as may be fitted into his share
of the time and may be suited to the capacities of a mixed audience.
It matters little whether the curriculum be good or bad, whether it
take in a wide or a narrow range of subjects, whether it be behind
or up to the times: so long as it is a real curriculum it tends to
prevent the full assertion of his individual excellence. He may study
for himself, but he cannot teach more than the regulations permit.
However advanced he may be in his specialty, however sincere and
earnest his wish to impart the choicest fruits of his research, he
must admit to himself that there is a point beyond which he is unable
to carry his students. They are borne off to something else; they have
no more time for him; they slip from his h