Scholarly Teachers

In a recent editorial, the Harvard CRIMSON quotes President Conant as saying that "there ought to be no separation of the faculty into those who teach and those who carry on creative work." While most educators recognize the value of research and the value of splendid teaching, there are many who overlook the point which President Conant, since assuming the presidency of Harvard, has so effectively maintained: that teaching and research are inextricably connected. While there are doubtless some few men who make inspiring teachers, and are yet temperamentally unfitted to carry the burden of investigation and creative study, such cases are rare indeed. There are few preceptors whose minds continual research does not enliven, stimulate and constantly refresh; and the most pitiful man on the faculty is the one whose natural talents were once great and whose personality was inspiring, but who has atrophied through failure to take constant nourishment at the spring of creative scholarship.

Yet under the present gruelling organization of the Princeton faculty, the man who attempts to do research is under the necessity of carrying at the same time a full teaching schedule. This condition is not quite so aggravated in the scientific departments, where there is considerable endowment for independent scholarship. But in the other departments an almost impossible demand is made upon the faculty member--a demand which detracts from the quality of both his creative work and his teaching.

The obvious remedy for the ailment is such an enlargement of the faculty as will give its members proper leisure for research and at the same time secure proper teaching under the preceptorial system. "But," says the skeptic, "where is the money coming from?" And to that question we have no answer--save that it has generally proved true that if the administration of a university shows the requisite vision and resourcefulness, the money generally comes from somewhere. Just ask A. Lawrence Lowell. The Daily Princetonian.