an enemy to the race, and a "hireling to the foreigner," as the Polish press puts it. The Poles in the service of this idea have voluntarily shut themselves out of every career and calling which would force them to make habitual use of German as their vernacular. This includes, of course, every kind of government service.

But not content with preserving Polish as the only language for themselves and their children, the Poles have also successfully carried on a campaign of Polonization within all those districts of the four Prussian provinces before mentioned where they form the majority. This process has been aided a good deal by the fact that the Polish rate of natural increase, since hygienic rules are strictly enforced, owing to Prussian authority, is decidedly larger than that of the Germans. Not only in the rural districts has this higher birth-rate told greatly in favor of the Poles, but still more so in the cities and towns. In nearly all of them there has been a relative or positive increase of Poles, as against Germans. A number of cities, like Posen, Gnesen, Schroda, Schrimm, Bromberg, Schneidemühl, Thorn, etc., where the German element dominated not many years ago, have been already brought, or are gradually being brought, under Polish influences. Of course, the Polish migration from the rural districts to these towns has likewise had something to do with this.

The most alarming feature, however, from the German point of view, is the successful, though slow, process of Polonization to which the German element resident in the Polish districts is being subjected. This is accomplished partly by fair means and partly by foul. Intermarriage between Poles and Germans is one of the most effective in the firstnamed category; for that nearly always means the loss of nationality for the German part. Social and business influences are also astutely employed, as are religious and family ones. For obdurate Germans coercion is used. This most frequently takes the shape of social and business ostracism.

The Prussian Government, as pointed out before, has no equally potent means at its disposal. The one great panacea, the German Colonization Fund, started by Bismarck for the purpose of counteracting these Polonizing influences, may be pronounced a flat failure. The fund has been increased at various times, and now amounts to a round hundred million marks, that is, twenty-five million dollars. Its main object is to further the settlement in Polish districts of German colonists or compact colonies, with a view to thus honeycombing the whole country. This scheme has miscarried more and more. It is now found

next to impossible, despite the strong inducements held out by the Prussian Government, to persuade any desirable German colonists to settle in districts where, from the German viewpoint, it would be most advantageous. The reason for this is obvious when the above facts are kept in mind. The other purpose of the fund, namely, the purchasing by reputable and patriotic Germans of Polish farms or estates which their Polish owners are forced to sell, at public auction or private sale, is also rendered nugatory or ineffective by the Poles. Such estates are either sold to competing Poles as the highest bidders, or else, if they are purchased by Germans, their new owners are soon made sorry for their bargains; the system of boycotting them, pursued relentlessly by all their Polish neighbors, and of inflicting all sorts of annoyances and injuries, proving too much for the unfortunate purchasers.

The Government in Prussia is, therefore, as the above unbiassed statement shows, actually in an attitude of self-defence, instead of proceeding on aggressive lines against its Polish subjects, as has been widely believed abroad. To permit the Poles to proceed unchecked in their Polonization scheme would mean the abandonment for good and all of the object which Prussia has had since the day she acquired her Polish provinces, namely, to Germanize them by bringing about the gradual adoption of the German language, civilization, ideals, and aims by the Poles, and by strengthening the German minority in all those districts by the settling of new colonies of Germans. Yet, so far as the facts point at present, that is precisely what is happening now. Prussia is at her wits' end in the matter. The Poles have only adopted enough of German civilization to become thereby more powerful adversaries. The very wealth of these provinces, fourfold what it was a little more. than a generation ago, has made the task of Germanizing them all the harder nay, seemingly impossible. The Poles with an intellectual training, the men who have been educated in German universities, are the leaders in the movement to perpetuate the Polish race, language, and mode of thought, and to put the masses in Poland in a state of readiness for the great Polish uprising which they all firmly believe is bound to come some day. The problem, in a word, is of its kind—or, perhaps, even without that qualification the most serious which the Prussian monarchy has to face. WOLF VON SCHIERBRAND.

THE DEGRADATION OF THE PROFESSORIAL OFFICE.1

THE success or the failure of educational institutions, at all times and of whatever sort, is chiefly an affair of the men who conduct them. This universal truth grows out of the essential nature of education itself; for education, as conducted in institutional ways, consists mainly in the systematic training or mental and moral culture of one mind under the guidance and inspiration of another mind which is already possessed of a superior culture. The development of the relatively unformed and inferior character of the pupil is conditioned largely by the real superiority of the teacher's character. The higher and the highest education cannot be administered, no matter how much the material resources and physical apparatus of the institution are improved and multiplied, unless the men who form the most important part of the institution are themselves of the noblest and most highly cultivated character. From this standpoint I affirmed my belief, in a previous article,' that the main thing needing reconstruction at the present time in our greater universities is the body of men- the presidents, trustees, and faculties — to whose charge the forming and employment of the curriculum and the exercise of the teaching function are more immediately committed.

I am now going to attempt a very unwelcome and disagreeable task. This task is that of affirming, and, in a measure, at least, of showing, that the professorial office itself— the really most vital and important factor in the successful performance of all the true functions of every higher educational institution is undergoing a process of degradation. By this I mean that, instead of being constantly held up to its proper high level of appreciation and reward, the office of teacher in our colleges and universities is being subjected to influences which are bringing it down to a relatively low level of appreciation and reward. These

In the discussions of this article I shall aim throughout to maintain an impersonal point of view. It may not be improper to add that there are probably very few college professors who are in so good a position to express themselves, in behalf of their own class, with an amount of freedom which may seem to some to savor of excessive independence. N'importe.

2 See THE FORUM for April, 1902.

influences are partly internal; that is to say, they are partly due to the character and conduct of the presidents, trustees, and faculties of these institutions. But they are yet more largely due to the opinions and active influence of the patrons and alumni of these institutions, and, especially, to the whole temper and trend of the national mind and the national life. Presidents, trustees, and faculties are to blame for the relative degradation of that office on which repose the truest glory and the richest beneficence of the higher education. But patrons, alumni, and public are even much more to blame.

I hasten to speak apologetically in behalf of the class to which I have myself belonged for nearly twenty-five years. On the whole, there is probably no body of men more competent for their appointed work, more disinterested in the discharge of duty, or more honorable in their views as to the relation of their efforts toward their constituency and toward all mankind than are the professors in our higher institutions of education. I do not even except the clergy from this comparative estimate; and I have been a clergyman and know thoroughly well what the motives and the offices of that professional class are, both in theory and in fact. At the same time, it seems to me perfectly apparent that the motives, character, and culture of the average college professor are undergoing a species of decline. The average man of this professional class is not so much of a man, not so much of a gentleman, not so influential a member of society or of the commonwealth, and not so much respected and looked up to by the general public, as he was one generation or two generations ago.

It has already been said that the relative depreciation and decline in practical recognition of the professorial office are chiefly due to the attitude of the general public toward the functions of that office. To be sure, in this country we have continued to pride ourselves upon our supreme interest in education. Stories of the self-denial and exacting methods of the early founders of our colleges are still listened to with eagerness and greeted with applause. The superb endowments superb in comparison with those of less favored new countries, however inadequate to our own estimate of their modern needs of both the State and the private institutions of learning in this country are the admiration of the world. The Fourth-of-July orator, especially if he be a member of the school-board of the town, continues to descant in glowing terms upon the necessity of education for our republican institutions; albeit his own diction may violate all the rules of grammar, and his precise views as to And the vast exwhat education is may contradict all common sense.

penditure of wealthy individuals, in order to equip more completely our greater universities, far surpasses all the precedents of former times. spite of all this evidence which seems to point the other way, I think that education, as a matter of thorough mental and moral training, is less highly regarded, in relation to other national interests, than it was in the earlier days of the Republic. Certainly, the opinion that education really consists in such training, and that the teacher is the most important, honorable, and deserving factor in such training, is not now at all prominent and influential in the public mind.

Even in Germany, which has been for more than a century the "headquarters" of the world's forces in the higher education, the interests to which the university professor ministers are being estimated from a relatively lower point of view. On the contrary, the merchant and the military classes are being raised, in their own esteem and in the public estimate of their indispensable value, to a higher point of standing. Education itself is coming more to have its worth tested by its ability to train men for successful commercial competition with other nations. The army and the navy are highly cultivated not for defence, but to "back up" the commercial classes in their struggle for supremacy. This is emphatically the estimate which, outside of the narrow circle of a few, who are pursuing their own leisurely studies as "gentlemanly" scholars, with a disposition to let the "wide world wag as it will," England has for some time put upon the national system of education. This is the estimate which is practically dominant with a large proportion of the public in this country at the present time. What is "the good" of learning Greek and Latin? What is the "use" of studying ethics and philosophy? Why should a man go to college at all-unless it enables him better to succeed in his business or profession? And "success" means pretty much one thing only, with this large portion of the public. No wonder, then, that this same public, and the boy whom this public sends to college and judges when he comes from college, have so little appreciation of the truest and highest values of the professorial office. It is the prevalent mercantile estimate of the teacher's function which is the primary source of the prevalent process of degradation.

Now I do not by any means think that the professors in our colleges and universities should be released from the obligation to produce the fruits proper to their office, not even that these required fruits should not be "practical" - if you please in this connection to make use of that much abused word—and contributory to the substantial welfare of mankind. The point at issue is simply this: the application of a too