lieve gave somebody a margin of seventy-two cents. But that man will never know whether he acted wisely. He may to-day be tortured by a horrid suspicion that he might have sold ten times as many baits at a profit of fifteen cents, and made twice as much money.

But did he not make a pile of easy money as it was? I understand so; more or less of a pile. But then likely enough he lost it all trying to sell some other baits that the fish did not like. We have to look at these things in a broad way. In spite of the fact that I once saw one up a tree, I will hazard the unqualified assertion that woodchucks live on the ground. It is true there have always been instances of easy gains, as there have been reckless gamblers of all sorts who have sometimes won.

But the facts are these.

We buy at a price we do not control, except in so far as our bidding has tended to increase it. We sell at a price about which we have nothing to say, except that our entrance into the market has had more or less influence to lower it. Between the two we must insert our expense, and then, if there is room, our profit. Compression of the expense which is management is what makes room for profit.

Now go one step farther with me, and please do not lose this. It is to the interest of us all that there shall be profit. Remember that legitimate competitive profit, made without fraud, does not and can not, as a broad proposition, mean anything but good management. It is no indication of the grinding of labor or of whip-sawed consumers. And the more money there is made, in any branch of commerce, the more adventuring capital will be attracted into it, the more the selling price of the product must be forced down, and the greater must be the portion of it that is transmitted to labor.

ON BEING A PROFESSOR

Some Remarks on Education by one whose Early Training was not of the Best

SOCRATES. About what does the Sophist make a man eloquent? The player on the lyre may be supposed to make a man eloquent about that which he understands, that is about playing the lyre. Is not that so?

HIPPOCRATES. Yes.

SOCRATES. Then about what does the Sophist
make him eloquent? Must not he make him
eloquent in that which he understands?

HIPPOCRATES. Yes, that may be assumed.
SOCRATES. And what is that which the Sophist
knows and makes his disciple know?
HIPPOCRATES. Indeed, that I cannot tell.

I

MINOR use of newspapers and magazines is that

AM

the man himself would never acquire by observation and experience alone. It was in this way, through the invaluable pages of the Atlantic Monthly and other periodicals, that I first learned of the forlorn state of that ancient, and once honorable, company of College Professors. Notwithstanding the unselfish devotion with which they pursue a noble calling, so at least I was led to infer, Professors are frequently without influence in their own communities, only by close and even humiliating economies have occasionally a little free pocket money, and generally speaking are unable, for financial reasons mainly, to cultivate the tranquil mind or properly to nourish what the Germans call the inner life. Having myself been a professor for some years, plodding along contentedly enough for the

most part, I was extremely sorry to hear as I say from the periodicals of my present lamentable situation.

How I came to join this unfortunate class may perhaps be of some sociological interest, particularly so since my earliest impression of the professor should have prejudiced me for life against the calling. It was as a lad that I came to know a lean little old man, in ancient shiny frock coat, who came every Spring to prepare our fire wood. He sawed wood for a living; but by profession was a weather prophet. When he went down the street people were expected to observe him. If he went free handed you were to know that the day would be fine; but he reserved a plentiful supply of biting sarcasm for those who ventured forth unprotected, even on a cloudless day, after having seen him pass with an umbrella. He was an excellent wood-sawyer; but it was the common belief in the community that as a weather prophet he was visionary, an incurable idealist, inefficient certainly to the last degree, and of no practical use whatever. In fact, the man was thought to be mildly demented; and so, by some sure popular instinct, everyone called him "Professor."

It was with no idea of fashioning myself upon this eccentric model of a man that I went to college. Nor yet was it with any particular profession in view; for I recall that nothing used to annoy me more than to have some respectable friend of the family inquire: "And what does the young man expect to do when he gets through college?" I rather hoped not to have to do anything; and if my parents did not share this hope, they were at least convinced, apart from any question of vocation, of the great advantage of possessing a "good education." I went to college, therefore, somewhat as a matter of course; not, certainly, to become a professor, but to obtain a good education. Whether this object was attained or not, the four years in college was to me a wonderful adventure in the wide world of the human spirit, an adventure which at the time seemed well worth while, quite apart from any

question of its practical application. In this idea, I was greatly encouraged by certain professors who seemed greatly interested in my adventure, encouraging it for all they were worth. And these men had an insidious fascination for me because, contrary to all I had supposed, they were not mere road guides, uninterested in the country because they knew it by heart, mechanically directing travellers as part of the day's work, and collecting a fee for services rendered; but, like the several Knights in the Faerie Queene, were themselves impelled by some inner daemon to venture beyond the beaten paths, scarcely knowing whither they were going or what they might find, but pursuing still, seemingly interested rather in the search itself than in the end of it. And so they welcomed me, content that I should seek for something even if I found it not. What I should seek, or where I might find it, they never told me; but by subtle suggestion, and still subtler example, contrived to give to my quest a certain direction.

It is impertinent to this sad tale to describe the many interesting countries into which my adventure took me: as, for example, the country of Philosophy, into which so many well defined but long since abandoned roads led, all taking different directions but coming out at the same place, the place called Nowhere, in which many people serenely sat doing nothing in particular; or that other and quite different country of History, where there were only innumerable, intricately threaded faint paths, leading to the place called Everywhere, in which were all sorts of people busily engaged in doing nothing in general. Suffice it to say that the four years were up before I had more than begun to get the lay of the land. Less than ever did I desire to return to the known world and tread in monotonous routine the dusty streets of Now and Here. How fine, I thought, to remain always in this unknown country! How fine not to have "to do" anything! And one day it dawned upon me that this was precisely the case of

my admired professors. Here they were, confined for life in this delightful country of the mind, with nothing "to do," privileged to go on as best they could with the great adventure. From that moment I was a lost man. I was bound to become a professor.

II

By great good luck and much plodding industry this honorable distinction was attained in due course. In the process of attaining it, doubtless much of the glamor that in youthful student days had hung mistily about the position was inevitably dispelled. And yet I was greatly content with my bargain. Fortune had happily placed me in an agreeable corner of the world; and I reflected, with Bishop Butler, that in a universe such as this is, inhabited by a creature such as man is, not all things are ordered as one might wish; so that in the course of some years I made those adjustments to the resistant facts of reality which most aspiring youths have to make. But all this is nothing to the point, except to say that it was during these years, and as a part of this adjustment, that I became aware of two profound truths; truths which were obvious enough indeed, but to which I had hitherto given but slight attention.

It need not be said that professors are an extremely impractical people; absent minded, as even the comic papers have found out, continually occupied with profound excogitations, and inclined, therefore, to take the world, and their place in it, very much for granted. Thus it happened that in our university one of the profound truths to which I have referred would probably not have been noticed by any member of the faculty, had it not been so often explained by the president, and with earnestness and eloquence elucidated at commencement time, and on other festival occasions, when noted local statesmen, successful business men, and pedagogical experts