II
The second problem that presents itself is the difficulty of securing men
with the requisite qualifications. The demand from the over-crowded
English departments of our colleges for well-prepared teachers is far greater
at present than our graduate schools can supply. The standard of preparation
and of personality demanded of university instructors, as a result,
has been lowered. Men have been engaged, who a few years ago would
not have been thought eligible for vacancies on the teaching staff.
But the instructor question to-day is more than one of lowered standards.
The proportion of instructors to professors in our faculties has
steadily increased for a number of years. At the same time the ratio of
students to all members of the teaching staff has tended to become higher.
In this continued weakening of the teaching force there is serious cause
for concern. We need seek no further for an explanation of much of the
criticism directed against university methods to-day. In view of these
conditions the selection of instructors is vitally important.
There is a general agreement, I believe, in the qualifications desirable
in a university instructor. The candidate selected should be the man who
has taught with the most marked success, who has pursued his graduate
work with the greatest originality, and who has the strongest and most
attractive personality. The one hundred per cent. man in each of these
essential requirements is rare at any time! Especially in a period of readjustment
like to-day it may be necessary to be satisfied with a teacher who
does not measure up to the normal standard. But there is a minimum in
teaching experience, in scholarly work and in personality below which a
candidate may not fall. He should have taught long enough to have convinced
himself and others that he finds in teaching an abundant source of
satisfaction, even joy. He should have followed his graduate studies at
least to that point where he recognizes that a scholar cannot continue
successful teaching unless he has an ever deepening knowledge of his own
particular field. And he should have progressed so far in the development
of his personality as to be able to give freely of himself to his students both
in and out of class. To consider the appointment to a university faculty
of a man who is known to be deficient in any one of these qualifications is a
serious mistake; and invites the necessity of dismissing him when he breaks
down under the rigorous tests of success.
There has been a tendency, now fortunately passing, to weight excessively,
in the selection of a new instructor, evidence that is offered of ability
in research work. The more important qualifications of character and of
ability to teach have sometimes been overshadowed by a brilliant doctorate.
But numerous instances where the gifted Ph.D. has failed to develop even
the ordinary instincts of the teacher, and other cases where he has lacked
the basic elements of personal fitness, have caused a more careful regard
to be given to these requirements. It can be safely predicated that a
starved and meager personality is not the stock from which to develop the
flower of a sympathetic and inspiring teacher, or of an original and forceful
investigator. To every alumnus of the University of Virginia it is a source
of pride that the value of an invigorating personality has been recognized
in its various departments.
It is indisputable that the clearer thinking and the higher purpose
demanded of college students to-day cannot be obtained unless their instructors
point the way by example and by precept. When our faculties
in all ranks are made up of men of strong personal and scholarly qualifications,
there wil be a corresponding higher degree of attainment possessed
by the graduates of our universities.
We have next to consider how the candidate desired may be secured.
What are we to offer him in the way of financial remuneration, of opportunity
for development, and of certainty of advancement that will make it
likely that we can secure his service?
In the first place, we must face squarely the fact that the time when we
could get a competent man for twelve hundred dollars has gone, probably
not to return. A minimum sum of eighteen hundred must be offered, if we
are to think of bidding for him with the hope of competing successfully for
his services. I know of instructors to whom two thousand was paid last
year although they had had no experience in university teaching and had not
yet received their doctor's degree. It seems clear that we must be prepared
to pay according to a much higher scale in starting men than we have been
accustomed to in the past.
Other considerations than money, of course, will enter into the acceptance
of a position. A young man leaving a graduate school will weigh
carefully the opportunities for development presented by a position. He
will consider in particular the reputation of the men in the department that
he is asked to join, the library facilities available, the number of teaching
hours required and the character of the work that he is asked to "give."
If a department is able to offer a sufficient number of attractions to be
sure of adding to its ranks only men of first class attainments, it has open to
it the surest way to the development of a strong corps of teachers. It is the
department that is not watchful of the instructors that it adds to its teaching
staff that finds itself in a few years burdened with men that are blocks to
progress. Of such teachers few die and none resign: and the difficulty of
dismissing them increases with their length of service.
