Money and the Man

THE following is the result of an investigation undertaken in consequence of a conversation between the writer and the editor of the Atlantic Monthly some five years ago. It was on the perennial question of the relative compensation of college professors and other people. The irreducible element in many such comparisons is the personal equation — the kind of men who take up the different callings. This can be brought to a minimum if you can compare men who have been classified together as of the same intellectual ability, by some severe and extended test.

The writer has had exceptional opportunities to get the facts concerning the ten per cent who stood highest at graduation of a large class at one of our largest universities. The surviving members of this contingent can be grouped, at approximately twenty years after graduation, into three classes, which, after eliminating one or two exceptional cases, are exactly equal in number. The first group have taught continuously since graduation, except for some time spent in post-graduate study. The second group never taught, except temporarily as a pot-boiler in a few cases, but studied and began the practice of some other activity which they have followed ever since.¹ The third group all began teaching, but changed to some other occupation. It also happens that exactly the same number of men in the class (none of whom were in the first tenth in scholarship) studied for the ministry and followed that profession to the time in question. The writer was well enough acquainted with all of these men to ask them in confidence, with the understanding that nothing should be published which could disclose anything concerning any individual, the exact figures regarding their income. The teachers and clergymen were asked (a) the amount of salaries, including estimated rental of residence which formed part of the compensation in some cases; (b) the amount earned by outside teaching, writing, wedding-fees, and the like. The others were asked for the net income, reduced as far as possible to the same basis as that of the salaried men.

All answered cheerfully except three. One of these, a clergyman, died just at the time, but his salary was published in the obituary. The others are in wellknown positions of which the salary is a matter of common report, so that the possibility of error will not affect the averages as they are given below in round hundreds.

All of group 1, consisting of those who have taught all their lives, are, or were at the time, college professors. All held what are considered first-class positions — some full professors at small colleges, some assistant professors at universities, and one even holds one of those $5000 positions which the Philistine mind associates with college professors in general, but of which there are really perhaps fifty in the United States. All are wellknown men in their lines, who have done sound and successful work. All have their names in Who’s Who, except one who happens never to have published a book.

Including our $5000 man (whose ability might be bringing him several times that in some other line), the average salary is $2700. The average for the others is $2300. An interesting fact which appears from the reports is that all but one of these (who was appointed just before a cut in salary at his institution which would have brought him to the same figure) had for some years, just at the time they were “raising” their families, if they had any, exactly the same sum — $2000. This would thus appear to be the normal for a first-class man (without any “lime-light” qualities) through the years of his best work.

The average earned outside of this salary by all but one man — who in a special way, which may be regarded as exceptional, has earned more than all of the others together — is $200; in the majority of cases obtained by marketing at reduced rates more or less of the time of that much-envied summer vacation.

The average for group 2, consisting mainly of doctors and lawyers, is almost exactly $6000. The variations are not excessive in either direction; no one reporting more than $10,000, or less than $3500.

The third group is necessarily somewhat miscellaneous, and there are some cases made abnormal by such things as ill-health and school-board politics, and two of them are teaching again now; but those who made a square “about-face,” and stuck to it, averaged $2100 before the change, and at the time of reporting were not far behind group 2; the average was $5300. The clergymen show the greatest variations (details of which could not be given without revealing the individuals), but the average for salaries (including rent of parsonages) was $3300, and of outside earnings $300. This may help to correct the popular impression that educators are better paid than clergymen. Let any one compare in any community, from New York City to the country village, the annual income of the best-paid clergyman with that of the bestpaid educator, or those of the best-paid two or three, or half-dozen, of each class.

During the long incubation of this matter, the writer has discussed it with a large number of men, from many of whom he has had confidential statements of their income, and he is convinced that the figures shown are fairly representative. He has plenty of theories as to why things are as they are, but these have no place in an article which is necessarily anonymous. The results are given for what they are worth, and the reader can draw his own conclusions.