THE MARGINAL PROFESSOR

Passing to educational problems from a discussion of the disused human brain in a New York Times interview yesterday, Dr. Stewart Paton of Princeton put no undecided finger on a type of modern educator that is heartily regretted everywhere, while at the same time there seem to be no immediate prospects of getting rid of him. "Are we generally interested in art and literature," asked Dr. Paton, "or are we primarily interested in finding an occupation where, unprotected by academic walls, we can live in an imaginary world far from reality?" Thus he voices the general suspicion that more than a few teachers in great colleges, as well as in less advanced departments of education, have turned to this profession not through a fierce and productive desire to plant knowledge where it will flourish but to find a quiet academic breakwater where they can dream comfortably.

The phenomenon is familiar. The University's newest changes in educational lines have been aimed at minimizing the deadening influence of such men. And the cause of the phenomenon is not much farther to seek. Colleges--that is to say, the machinery of education--are being called on to handle a greatly increased load, particularly since the war. Everybody is going to college. And the economist, at least, will not be surprised to realize that, as the demand for education increases, more and more people are attracted to the profession of teaching, not, it must be said, through prospects of a money income, but because of the leisure the academic life is supposed to include. The professor at whom Dr. Paton was aiming would, in economics, be called the marginal professor.

And no one is particularly to blame. This marginal educator has merely taken advantage of an opportunity. The crowds who give him this opportunity by jamming into the colleges should perhaps, only be commended for their seal. People valuing educators who desire primarily to educate will merely have to blind themselves to the shoddy varieties of education that the situation makes necessary until either the crowd ebbs or the number of educative educators miraculously increases.