THE SCOTCH PROFESSOR OF TO-DAY.
AMONG the strenuous idlers of the season, there is always to be found a per-centage of intelligent, but sub-priggish persons, who haunt the sea-aide resorts, and follow the beaten tracks of the Continent, mainly to hunt up what the Ferro's, in Mrs. Hodgson Burnett's "Louisiana," style "new types" of humanity. They are quite indifferent about ozone, they are too insincere to gush, although they are also too polite to yawn, over scenery that privately they think a bit of a bore. They are to be found, indeed, in the picture-galleries, but not because they love Rubens, or Raphael, or Paul Potter, but that they may hear what they term the "charming naivet6 " of their neighbours' criticisms. They have their innings, however, at the six o'clock table d'hôte. They spend the dinner hour listening, and, if need be, "draw- ing," with a view to forming what it delights them to consider " estimates of character." Their holiday is a failure, they think, if at the end of a month or six weeks of table d'hotes, they do not succeed in discovering a "new type," to share the honours and the chat of afternoon tea during the winter, with the new play at the Lyceum and the new novel by Mr. Henry James. This mania for " types " is, on the whole, a harmless one, although it produces a great number of long letters—the male "type"-hunter is, indeed, the only adult of his sex who writes long letters now-a-days—and .
leads too many cleverish women to write fiction of the Howells- and-water variety. There is one " type " which seems as yet to have escaped the social entomologist, although he can hardly be said to be new. He is now-a-days to be found any- where and everywhere, in Oban and Bournemouth, in the
Engadine and the Trosachs, in the Louvre or on the beach at Scheveningen. He has even leisure enough to go to Australia, vici San Francisco, and has been known to take advantage of it. He has a decided, though not obtrusive, per- sonality. Several little things, such as a weakness for appearing in broadcloth at all times and under all circumstances, and a habit of pausing and reflecting before answering a question, mark him out as holding a place midway between the layman and the clergyman. Some of the younger men of this "type," indeed, are said to affect modern ways, to smoke cigarettes, play lawn tennis, worship Miss Ellen Terry, and even on occasion to throw off a triolet. But the majority of them are distinguished by an agreeable old-fashionedness. The crape on their hats may be too deep; their hair may be too long for these "prison crop" days; in-talk they may not be able, after the fashion of the hour,
"To slip from politics to puns, To pass from bfahomet to Moses."
But if you get behind the superficialities of a mere table d'hôte acquaintance, you find in them genuine culture, genuine knowledge of things, and even of men ; above all, a gentle humour, and an Emersonian serenity that sit well only on men who have attained that easy competence which abolishes the "English hell of not getting on," without costs. Why has not Mrs. Oliphant included a full-length portrait—no mere vignette or "side-face "—of the Scotch Professor in her National Gallery, and so saved him from the all too "instantaneous photography" of the holiday." type "-hunter, which is sure to mark him for its victim one of these days?
The sword of doom is reported to be hanging over the large fees, if not also over the short sessions, of the Scotch Professors. The Bill for handing over the Universities North of the Tweed to the tender mercies of an Executive Commission, which had to be abandoned this year, will, we are told, be brought forward again next Session. With any each measure or prospect, however, we are not now concerned. Besides, it may be doubted if any Government or any Exe- cutive Commission will impair or " reduce " the material pro- sperity of the Scotch Professor ; what it may take away from him in fees it will surely give back in direct endowment. What
that material prosperity exactly is may be gathered from!. little Parliamentary paper giving the emoluments and pensions of the "Principals, Professors, and other Officers, in each of the
Scottish Universities," which was published shortly before the Session closed, and which has in consequence received no atten-
tion. Some of the figures contained in this Return throw a certain amount of light on the amount of oatmeal on which Scotch Professors cultivate their different Muses. Of
the thirty-nine Professors by whom Edinburgh University is manned, eighteen, or nearly a half, are in receipt of upwards of £1,000 a year. Of the eighteen, five are in receipt of upwards of £2,000, the income of one—the Professor of Anatomy—being £3,280. Latin, Greek, and Mathematics are to a University course very much what the Three R's are to an elementary one. The in- comes of the Professors of these three subjects in Edinburgh were, in 1882-1883, £1,540, 21,347, and £1,481 respectively; and it may be added that one of these teachers is thirty-two and another thirty-three years of age. The poorest Professorial income in Edinburgh University is £242, the recipient being the Professor of History. Glasgow University has twenty- eight Professors ; ten are in receipt of upwards of £1,000, and three of upwards of £2,000 a year. The incomes of the Professors of Latin, Greek, and Mathematics are even larger than those of their Edinburgh rivals, being respect- ively £2,163, £1,854, and £2,068; no one of these Professors is over 50 years of age. The smallest Professorial income in Glasgow is £403. Passing to Aberdeen University, we find fewer " prizes " in the way of incomes. Of 23 Professors, only one, the Professor of Anatomy, has upwards of £1,000 a year, his income for 1882-1883 being £1,440. Yet the lowest Profes- sorial income is £355, and the teachers of Latin, Greek, and Mathematics earned last year respectively £952, £951, and £872. The poverty of St. Andrew's University has passed into a pro- verb. The highest Professorial income in 1882-1883 was £620; and one Professor received only £135. A St. Andrew's Professor is not on an average paid any better than the chief teacher in an elementary school of the best class, and he is not paid so well as a third-class clerk in a Government office, or a young man who has attained the second grade in what Mr. John Morley pleasantly styles "the hierarchy of trade." But we are in- formed in this Return that "the incomes of the Principal and Professors of the United Colleges have suffered diminution from agricultural losses during the last five years; and while they have begun again to improve, the likely incomes in the future are not adequate or fully represented by the Return." In any case, the poverty of St. Andrew's is such a scandal, that, as is universally allowed, either it or the University itself must be extinguished; and in the meantime, it would be absurdly unfair to judge of the position of Scotch Professors by St. Andrew's incomes. When any one of their number becomes too old or infirm to perform duty, a pension is within his reach. Edinburgh and Glasgow have each an Emeritus Professor of Greek; the pension of the one is £868, of the other, £862. Two retired Professors have pensions of upwards of £1,000 each.
The position of the Scotch Professor of the present-day may have its disadvantages and drawbacks, and it is possible that he may have to part with a portion of his income to pay assistants, though the fact is not brought out in the Parlia- mentary Return from which we have quoted. But it may be doubted if there is a more enviable post than his in the British educational, or perhaps even in the professorial world. As a rule, he is engaged for not more than six months of the year ; he has practically the whole of spring, summer, and autumn to himself. He does not, under ordinary circumstances, teach above two or three hours a day. When he has mastered the routine of his class, or written out a course of lectures on his subject satisfactory to himself, even the work he has to perform becomes to a large extent routine. The English don may have as large an income, but then he has to work much harder for it, and he is burdened with the supervision of Undergraduates, from which a Scotch Professor is absolutely free. The Professor in the modern " college " of the Manchester or Birmingham type may have almost as much leisure and freedom, but he has not nearly so large an income. The earnings of a Scotch Professor are not, of course, to be compared with those of a highly suc- cessful barrister or medical man. But his position secures him power and social consideration at least equal to theirs. He is his own master; his appointment is ad vitam,aut culpam ; when he becomes old or his health fails, a by no means despie.able pension, added to his own savings during his years of activity,
relieves his declining days of what his countrymen style" worldly care." If he does not choose to travel, and so to lay himself open
to the wiles of "type".hunters, he may make substantial additions to his income or his reputation, or both, by engaging in literary or other work. The Medical Professors notoriously consider their college earnings as only "the basis" of their incomes, while the names of lay Professors attached to each of the four Northern Universities who have distinguished them- selves either in general literature or as specialists are happily so numerous at this time, that it would be invidious to mention any of them.
It is, however, the social agreeableness of the Scotch Pro- fessor's life that makes it so enviable. Even in these days of intellectual centralisation in London, a, Northern University town is a very pleasant place to live in ; and its Professors may spend half the year in London, if they choose. It is the Pro- fessors that perpetuate the old literary traditions of Edinburgh. It is the Professors that uphold the supremacy of sweetness and light, amid the hurry and strain of commercial life in Glasgow and Aberdeen. The wealthy and sagacious Scotch burghers appre- ciate their Professors, who are, as a rule, of themselves, if not of "the people" in a still humbler and more democratic sense. No Scotch dinner of the more ambitions sort in a University town is considered complete, unless at least two Professors are present at it. Then what town could a scholar, provided he had fair remuneration for his labour, prefer to St. Andrew's, Dean Stanley's "mine own St. Andrew's "P It has long been the Oxford of Scotland; only some forty miles from Edinburgh, it will soon become the Eastbourne of the North as well. Even a quarter of a century ago, a gazetteer said that "its excellent educational establishments and convenience as a watering-place make it an eligible residence for a highly respectable popula- tion." Now, what with the Bay and the boarding-schools of St. Andrew's, its golf and its gossip, its " links " and its learning, its modern " salubrity " on week-days, and its media3val solemnity, tempered by the polished prettMesses of the Rev. "A. K. H.B." on Sundays, this "highly respectable population" is becoming a highly refined and even fashionable one of the best marine order. The Professors of the University contribute to it just that academic aroma which is required to make the charm of the whole firm and good. The boast that in Scotland there is one University to every million of the population, while in Germany there is one to every two millions, and in England there is one to every six millions, may in the future, as in the past, be war- ranted by reliable statistics. But Scotsmen must expect that the gates of their Professorial paradise will be the more eagerly assailed by outsiders, the more its charms become known.
Previous page
