The ProfessorAuthor(s): Eds.Source: The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 58, No. 2 (Feb., 1944), p. 164Published by: American Association for the Advancement of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/18111 .

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164 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

A copy of the foregoing letter was sent to Dr. Carlson by F. R. Moulton, whose letter of trans- mittal included the following:

You will remember that nearly twenty years ago, I wrote an article for The University of Chicago Magazine on " The New Education " and, in the course of it, spoofed the faculty on various things. One of the unorthodox positions I took was that younger scientists should be promoted rapidly so that they could get married and raise families at the normal period of life for doing such things, and that they gradually be demoted and retired as they got past the zenith of their powers. This proposal did not meet a very hearty response among members of the faculty who were past middle age. Now I hope that, from the vantage point of more years, you will see that there was some sense in what I said. If men could begin to be demoted at 55 or 60 or 65, de- pending upon their physiological ages, they could be kept actively at work in the universities for a much longer period, with advantage to research, education and themselves. Financially speaking, my suggestion amounts to distributing the total income of a man in university work somewhat differently than it has been distributed heretofore. Of course, there are those that thought there would be some humiliation in being demoted, at least as far as pay is concerned. If everyone were treated similarly, the demotion de- pending on physiological age, it would be normal, just as ceasing to play tennis at advanced years is normal, the time for this, also, depending to a con- siderable extent upon the physiological age.

If you agree with any of these wanderings of a restless mind, I hope sometime you will write an ar- ticle, modifying them as you desire, and let us print it in The Scientific Monthty. It would be a fine, practical carrying out of the principles you set forth generally and rather briefly in the article which we have just printed. How about taking your facile pen in hand and doing this little trick, or if you disagree with me, take the opposite position, and fasten my hide to the barn door ?-F.R.M.

Ah! Reading the book reviews in the November issue of

The Scientific Monthtly which has just arrived has brought once again to my minid the realization of how good they are. They are informative, critical, well balanced and good tempered. But the quality I like best is the note of frankness and sincerity: if the reviewer thinks the book is bad he says so. In too many of our professional journals, it seems to me, a reviewer says nice things about a book for

which he has contempt for fear of hurting his "col- league 's" feelings.

More power to your reviewers! -Leslie A. White.

Oh! I am in receipt of your letter, together with the re-

turn of my manuscript. I will wager that neither one of you three wise men realize the fact that de- generative processes are developing, which means a decav of our civilization. You pretend to publish a scientific journal, yet you have not the "guts" to publish the truth, and you probably have never seen nor heard of Antoine Wiertz 's paintings.-H. W. Rnorip

The Professor

The following reflections come from Byrne J. Horton, Graduate Faculty, St. John's University. Contemplating the characteristics of the pro- fessions of law, medicine, theology, and advanced teaching, Dr. Horton advances ten criteria or ear- marks of a genuine profession.-Eds.

1. A profession must satisfy an indispensable so- cial need and be based upon well-established and socially accepted scientific principles.

2. It must demand an adequate pre-professional and cultural training. (Today, a two-year col- lege course is generally required.)

3. It must demand the possession of a body of specialized and systematized knowledge.

4. It must give evidence of needed skills which the general public does not possess; that is, skills which are partly native and partly acquired.

5. It must have developed a scientific technique which is the result of tested experience.

6. It must require the exercise of discretion and judgment as to the time and manner of the per- formance of duty. This is in contrast to the kind of work which is subject to immediate direction and supervision.

7. It must be a type of beneficial work, the result of which is not subject to standardization in terms of unit performance or time element.

8. It must have a group consciousness designed to extend scientific knowledge in technical lan- guage.

9. It must have sufficient self-impelling power to retain its members throughout life. It must not be used as a mere stepping-stone to other occupations.

10. It must recognize its obligations to society by insisting that its members live up to an estab- lished and accepted code of ethics.

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