AM a professor in a small college. When I took my degree of Doctor of Philosophy, fifteen years ago, I had very definite ideas of what my future was to be. By dint of severe economy, and with the aid of scholarships, prizes, tutoring, and vacation earnings, I had managed to complete my undergraduate course with fair credit. I liked study, and had always been much with books; quite naturally, therefore, I determined to make teaching my profession. I realized, however, the need of further study if my teaching was to be very successful; and, accordingly, though after considerable hesitation, I decided to continue my work for three years and obtain, if possible, the coveted doctorate. The great difficulty in the way was lack of money. To overcome that, I borrowed fifteen hundred dollars, on practically unlimited time, and with this, supplemented by a fellowship which I was fortunate enough to hold for two years, I paid my university bills. In the meantime I married, under the delusion that I could not wait and that two could live almost as cheaply as one. My wife, like myself, was poor, but she was well educated, practical, and with faith in me beyond what I have ever felt I deserved. An opportunity to attend to some business matters for a friend, and at the same time to convoy a small party of boys, gave us a chance to spend a summer in Europe. This was devoted to travelling and sight-seeing, as I purposed returning to Germany before long for a more extended stay. At the end of the three years i obtained my degree, and about the same time had the satisfaction of seeing my name attached to a technical article in a magazine the first fruit of my anticipated career as a scholar. I was then twenty-five years old. I had been well trained, knew what sound scholarship meant, and was regarded by my instructors and friends as a man of promise. The next thing was to get a chance to teach. VOL. XXII.-66

I had several times heard painful accounts of the difficulties and trials of university graduates in their quest of employment, and how some of them, after drifting about for several years from one thing to another, had ended by "accepting" positions in preparatory schools. Fortune was kinder to me. In the course of a few weeks three opportunities presented themselves. The first was an instructorship in the university, with a salary of $1,000 a year and a reasonable chance of promotion. The proposition was attractive, and seemed quite in line with my scholarly ambitions; several of my friends in the faculty urged me to accept. After careful deliberation I declined, my real reason (not, however, the one publicly stated) being that the salary was too small to allow me to live in

tial.

in the style that I deemed essenNot only must I live, but I must also pay my debt; and fifteen hundred dollars, with accumulating interest at seven per cent., began to seem a large sum. The next offer came from a scientific school in a distant city, where I could have an appointment for five years as assistant professor at a salary of $1,800 a year, and after that, if my work was satisfactory, a full professorship and $2,500 a year. This I also refused, mainly because a former instructor, in whose judgment I had great confidence, told me he feared that I would find the atmosphere of a scientific institution uncongenial, and my work, which was not in physical science, of secondary importance. By this time my state of mind was one alternately of lofty independence, in view of the flattering offers I had received and declined, and of anxious desire to get my immediate future settled. So when, a little later, I was asked, without solicitation, to allow my name to be presented as a candidate for a vacant professorship in an old and well-known college, I consented, with only so much apparent hesitation as would give the impression of deliberateness and careful consideration. I was elected without opposition, and in due time was formally installed.

As I came to think of the matter more in detail, I flattered myself that I had acted with great wisdom. The situation was a simple one. I had to earn my own living. So far as I knew, the combined wealth of all my relatives would not, if bestowed upon me, have yielded an income sufficient to keep me in clothes; and my wife sadly confessed that her own family was no better off. Moreover, it was clear that I must earn a little more than enough to live on; for there was that debt, which somehow began to haunt me more and more. Inexperienced as I was, I knew something of the comparative cost of living in different communities, and very easily came to the conclusion that a small college town, where I could live inexpensively, repay my borrowed money, and accumulate a little surplus, was exactly the place for me. Of course, such a location would be only temporary-three or four years at the most, I said to myself. I should make no effort to become a permanent part of the institution I had joined; indeed, some of the associations of my university life had led me rather to look down upon colleges as not very worthy or honorable affairs, certainly not places in which a scholar would wish to spend his days. And I meant to become a scholar-to study hard, be learned, write books, and be quoted as an authority. To this end, however, a few years of study in a quiet place would not come amiss; besides, I needed experience-and money.

The lapse of fifteen years finds me still a professor in that same college. Looking back over the interval, I wonder that I have been as fortunate as I have. I paid my debt in full, principal and interest, but it took eight long years of the most rigid economy to do it. I have worked hard and studied much, and should be ashamed to admit that I did not know a great deal more than I did when I left the university; but I am not learned, no one thinks of me as a scholar, and I am not regarded as an eminent authority even in my own department. Two or three acquaintances, who are professors in other colleges, tell of an experience similar to mine, so I know that my case is typical and not exceptional, and that there is something about the conditions of life in a small college that holds a man to it, even in the face of his scholarly ambitions and

earnest desire for professional advancement.

Since my object is not to idealize my experiences, but to tell the truth, I may say frankly that the principal reason why I have remained here has been the financial one. My salary is $2,000 a year. It is a small sum for any professional man to earn, and it is certainly less than the college would gladly pay if it were able; on the other hand, it comes nearer to coinciding with the cost of living here than do the much larger salaries of some friends of mine who occupy chairs in the great universities. Most of the people, even the more prosperous of them, in the community in which the college is located, do not have so large an income as do the professors, and we even find ourselves—rather uncomfortably, it must be said looked upon by our townsmen as a sort of local moneyed aristocracy. But the conditions of living are unquestionably easier and, in many respects, more attractive here than in many other places. Rents, for example, are decidedly lower. My house, while not on the main street, is centrally and pleasantly located, with a generous strip of lawn, a bit of garden in the rear, and some fruit and shade trees. The house is very plain, somewhat old fashioned, and imperfectly arranged, but it is in good repair, and has, unlike the houses of most of my neighbors, the modern conveniences of gas, furnace, and bath-room. The rent is $350 a year. A house equally good and as well located could not be had in any university town or city that I know of for double that sum. On the other hand, meats and groceries are not very much cheaper here than elsewhere; indeed, my wife often regrets the absence of large city markets and stores, with their lower range of prices. I have recently been comparing expense accounts for a number of years back, and find that the annual budget averages about as follows:

250 00

40 00

125 00

.$1,820 00

This leaves $180 for miscellaneous expenses a pretty small margin, but one whose limits experience has taught us to observe. I am sure none of the above items can be thought extravagant. Sixtyfive dollars a month for table expenses for a family of four-I have two children now-and one servant, and including the wages of the latter, is certainly not large; still, while too little to admit of much variety or many delicacies, it supplies our necessities. To keep the cost of the family wardrobe within the limits indicated takes careful planning, and the item for books and periodicals means doing without all save the imperatively necessary "tools" of my profession. The allowance for miscellaneous expenses has had to cover in some years considerable sums for medical attendance. Practically, then, my salary is just sufficient to meet the barely necessary living expenses on a most economical basis; but we are, by this time, used to economy, and are glad to know that the account is likely to balance at the end of each year, instead of showing a deficit.

It is impossible, however, to think of saving anything out of my salary. When I began my work as a professor, two thousand dollars seemed a good deal of money to have the spending of every year, and I am quite sure that I fully expected to live on half of it, and save the rest. Needless

to say, I never succeeded. And I have long since given up all hope of ever having my salary raised. There was said to be a "prospect," about the time I was asked to come here, that the salaries would be increased "in the near future;" but in point of fact there has never been the least likelihood of any such thing, and there is none now. I have been driven, therefore, by sheer necessity, to earn as much as I could in other ways; and here, again, I have learned how unfounded were some of my early anticipations. I do not know just why I thought so, but somehow I had an idea that a college professor was in the way of making quite a bit of money in addition to his salary, chiefly, of course, by writing and lecturing. Both of these latter I have tried persistently, and with moderate success, but the financial returns have never tallied with my expectations. The articles contributed to special periodi

cals, relating to the work of my own department, and averaging one a year for the past ten or twelve years, have brought me some fame and many pleasant acquaintances, but no money. I know now, what I did not know when I began, that periodicals of this character do not, as a rule, pay for contributions-in only one instance have I been paid, and then I received $25 for a fifteen-page article, the preparation of which took all my spare time for a month. In other directions I have had better luck. Two high-school text-books, written soon after I came here, have met with gratifying success, and yield me an income of about $250 a year. Book reviewing, of which two well-known weekly journals give me all I can comfortably do, brings in about $200 a year; besides, I have the books, most of which I keep. Then there are the monthly magazines and weekly papers, to a number of which I have contributed from time to time, and from which I receive, on the average, $150 a year. Nearly all of this last is hack-work pure and simple, and some of it I have felt constrained to publish over an assumed name; but it brings me money, and I have to do it. As to lecturing, I have never found that very remunerative. Being a new man," I had not been here long before I was asked to lecture in different places, and for awhile did so for my expenses, hoping to make a reputation. I have every reason to suppose that my lectures were well received, but, for some reason, they ceased to be called for when I set a price upon them. At present I charge $25 and travelling expenses, and average not more than three lectures a year. One of my colleagues does much better than this; but he lectures on popular scientific subjects, with apparatus and a stereopticon, while my lectures are just plain talk. Altogether, writing and lecturing add about $675 to my yearly income. Most of this I always mean to save, but I have never been able to lay by more than $500 in any one year, and I can see that, as my children grow up, even this small sum is certain to be reduced more and more.

How we have managed to get along on so little I have never been quite able to understand, perhaps because the credit of it belongs principally to my wife. As I look

over my house, I see that it is furnished comfortably, but with a plainness so extreme as often to cause me a pang. The floors are painted, and covered with inexpensive rugs: I have never seen the time when I felt able to afford a Brussels carpet. I have a piano, bought on instalments, and a few choice pictures and pieces of bric-a-brac, most of them wedding presents. My library is small, and made up largely of French and German books in paper covers, and of books sent for review; the college library, however, is well selected, and I depend upon that for books by English and American writers. My

table is amply furnished with plain food, and at rare intervals we treat ourselves to a glass of ordinaire for Sunday dinner. My wife makes her own clothes and those of my daughter, and I never have occasion to be ashamed of their appearance. Both the children take music lessons of a good teacher, and I have money enough laid by, with what I can hope to save from year to year, to send them to college when the time comes. There are two red-letter days in the year-one in the Spring, the other in the Fall-when we hire a horse and carriage and give ourselves a day in the country. A few years ago I bought a little place among the hills, to which we go every summer; it has a few acres of good land and a bit of wood, and each year there is pleasant satisfaction in improving it a little. When the fruit-trees have grown I hope to derive a little income from them.

A residence of fifteen years has failed to make me feel quite at home here. I still feel as though I were a temporary resident, in no real sense a part of the community; and I cannot help thinking that the community as a whole takes the same view. It is a curious old town, strangely compounded of provincialism, conservatism, and aristocratic pretension. There are a number of old families, now somewhat decayed but proud of their ancestry, jealous of newcomers, and inclined to hold aloof from persons not of their own set. I have never been able to discover that any one of them has ever done anything in particular for the town except to live in it, but they are almost always opposed to modern improvements, and seem bent upon preserving a local life identical with that of fifty years ago. A few of them, judged by local

standards, are well-to-do, and several have been, at one time or another, connected with the college in the person of a professor; but I have been surprised to find a number of them who rarely read a magazine and never buy a book, never contribute anything to the church or any public object, and live, in the winter, mainly in one or two rooms of their large houses. From most of them we have received, at long intervals, formal calls, which we have regularly returned; beyond this, none of them has ever manifested any particular interest in us. I have long since ceased to wonder at this or be disturbed by it since discovering that they treat each other in much the same way. The church is as old as the town, and almost as conservative; its funds are raised with difficulty, and only the pastor seems to have an interest in modern methods and ideas. Society is clannish and runs to cliques, with a distinct line between the "town set" and the college set," though a few persons, of course, belong to both.

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For a long time this constant feeling that people expected me to go somewhere else after awhile, troubled me greatly, and the more because of my inability to account for it. Lately I have come to think that it is, in part at least, only a reflection of the attitude of the college. The college is old, with an honorable history. Among its graduates are numbered many distinguished men. It is poor, however—its income is less than $75,000 a year-it no longer receives large gifts, and its enrolment shows no special gains. Of the small faculty, somewhat more than half are themselves graduates of the college, who have taught here for periods ranging from twelve to thirty years. So far as is known, no one of them ever received a call to go elsewhere. They are most estimable men, praiseworthy alike for charm of manner and for fidelity to duty. They represent the traditions of the college, the old way of doing things, and, knowing little of what educators nowadays are thinking about, they are inclined to throw their influence in favor of keeping matters pretty much as they have always been. The minority of younger men, in which class I include myself, are thoroughly respected, and their scholarship is freely admitted; but on questions of college policy they find their judgment dis