Professor Challenger

“ A third attempt, later in the day, provoked a terrific crash, and a subsequent message from the Central Exchange that Professor Challenger's receiver had been shattered. After that we abandoned all attempt at communication. ”

“ There remain the special laboratories of the Carnegie Institution that are an inspiration to all the world, but even here the investigator is not so free as is the university professor to follow whithersoever his tastes and his talents may lead, and, besides, even these laboratories have not the opportunity that the university has of fixing the lives of men, of molding public opinion and of determining the destiny of our country. ”

“ They know, also, that such is the state of academic freedom at our university that, even as we go to press, at least one professor in the academic college—a professor, too, whose discreet devotion to facts, and whose cautious refusal to permit the slightest classroom interpretation thereof, make his potentially excellent subject an inexpressible bore—that at least this one professor is trembling with fear and anger because of official intimation that he had entertained opinions for which his institution did not stand. ”

“ By contrast, the spook of The Professor, the great Malachi Chalmers so respectably dead, was quite at home. Cousin Maud liked to behave as though all major directives were announced jointly by The Professor and Victoria.
The room smelled of Victoria, a scent resembling dilute vinegar now and then penetrating the ordinary flavor of sachet and face powder. That night, without asking, Callista knew her mother had been sitting for some time at the antique secretary desk, dealing with correspondence of the Thursday Society of Shanesville. ”

“ If the public at large should have reason to believe that conduct so scandalous as this in a Harvard professor will not be condemned by you, as incompatible with the dignity and the decencies of his office and with the rights of private citizens in general, Harvard University would indeed suffer, and ought to suffer; but it is wholly within your power to prevent the growth of so injurious a belief. ”

“ I found only one professor at Johns Hopkins who was willing to be quoted in my book. This gentleman I met at luncheon in the University Club of Baltimore, and he indulged himself in bitter sneers at the so-called “radical” type of professor. I myself could name about twelve really radical American college professors; but from the talk of this Johns Hopkins professor you would have thought there were thousands. To be a “radical” was the way to get promotion, said this JohnsJohns Hopkins man; to attract notoriety to yourself and make yourself somebody. ”

“ There is much to be said in favour of restricting the highest degrees in each Faculty, to those who have shown evidence of such original power, by prosecuting a research under the eye of the Professor in62 whose province it lies ”

“ The consequences of the dismissal of a professor because of conflict between his teachings and the outside interests of college benefactors are so widespread and dangerous, however, that they cannot be passed over lightly simply because occurrences of this sort are relatively infrequent in the academic world. ”

“ We are humbly of opinion that the reputation of the University and Magistrates, the good of the city, and our improvement will all in an eminent manner, be consulted by engaging Dr Gregory to relinquish the Professorship of the Practice for that of the Theory of Medicine, by appointing Dr Cullen, present Professor of Chemistry, to the practical chair, and by electing Dr Black Professor of Chemistry.’ After a dissertation on the qualifications of Dr Cullen, they proceed. ”

“ Something always sticks to him. We have lately seen an instance of this in a most distinguished professor, the ornament of his university, who, having long indulged himself in attacks upon schoolmasters, has at last got so severe a castigation from one of this tribe, that it is doubtful whether he can ever recover his ground at all, and certain that he cannot recover it entirely. A very wise physician has declared, that he would rather give up physic, and the practice of it altogether, than enter into public controversy. ”

“ It is a misfortune for him and for the institution even to seem to have any such power. Too often has the professor, on bringing forward the name of some member of his classes who had failed in his studies or cheated in an examination, been made by the presiding officer, through the latter's anxiety to save some notable athlete or the scion of some family of wealth or high social standing, himself to appear the delinquent, either in the artifice of detecting cheats or in the art of teaching those that will not to learn if they can possibly help it. ”

“ All his faculties had been concentrated upon economics as a means to an end, the life which lay beyond examinations. Professor Smallman and the Headmaster had made him feel that the life beyond was distressingly like the life before, and now this disaster to Old Mole came as some small assurance that there were adventures though they might be never so foolish. The Professor had mildly alarmed his pupil by pointing out the similarity of their careers. Admire Smallman as he might, it was not that to which René wished to come. It was not that he had any excitement in contemplating the future. ”

“ To give an idea of the magnitude of the Challenger collections, he says that if a single individual, possessing the knowledge of the eighteen or twenty specialists in whose hands they are to be placed, were to work them up, he would require from seventy to seventy-five years of hard work to bring out the results which the careful study of the different departments ought to yield. ”

“ Usually the intimidation of a professor is so veiled and vague that he hardly knows what is wrong. A certain significant remark dropped at the right time, a certain coldness of attitude, failure to be included in certain social affairs, a certain slowness to get well earned increases, granted with gusto to others, many other little hints that his views do not meet with favor in certain quarters will serve to curb many a man with wife and babies to provide for. ”

“ It is creating a great sensation in the literary world, and two of our greatest scholars, Professors Weber and Schwarz, are having a controversy about the book and its author. You will very soon see that he has become a greater man than either of them."
"Schwarz?" said the superintendent, thoughtfully. "That must be our assessor's celebrated uncle at the university of J----. Doctor Fabian may consider himself fortunate if his books attract even the hostile attention of so renowned a man."
"Professor Schwarz knows nothing at all," declared Gretchen, with the infallibility of an academic judge. ”

“ They will call this book exaggerated and even absurd; but can they deny the statement of Professor Ladd above quoted? Can they deny that this is the situation in ninety-five per cent of American colleges and universities? The professors have no tenure and no security, save the kindness and good faith of those who hold the purse-strings and rule their lives. Says Professor Cattell in his book, “University Control”: “In certain departments of certain universities, instructors and junior professors are placed in a situation to which no decent domestic servant would submit.” ”

“ Salerno was particularly rich in its medical literary products. Very often we have not the names of the writers. Apparently there is good reason to think that a number of the professors consulted together in writing a book, and when it was issued it was considered to be a text-book of the Salernitan school of medicine rather than of any particular professor. This represents a development of co-operation on the part of colleagues in medical teaching that we are likely to think of as reserved for much later times. ”

“ Khane expostulated. "Professor Dandrik is head of the department, and one of the foremost physicists of the Empire, and this young man is only one of the junior assistant-professors. Isn't even a full professor, and he got his degree from some school away off-planet. University of Brannerton on Gimli." ”

“ Professor Hopkins, Ph.D., loves science but hates controversy. Had he crossed swords at that moment with the German he would have found, I imagine, that the sympathies of my guests were with the materialist. When a scientist frankly tells you that he can manufacture protoplasm, and goes on to describe to you his method of procedure, it's well to pause before plunging into an argument with him. But I, who had good reason to know that Herr Plätner was ludicrously at fault in his conception of the universe, could not but regret that so brilliant a champion as Dr. ”

“ Everybody, Charley thought, knew about Professor Lightning and his experiments. If they kept the old man happy, kept him contented and doing shows, why not? After all, the old guy didn't drink or anything really serious; if he wanted to play around with test tubes and even Bunsen burners, people figured, why, let him.
But Professor Lightning thought nobody knew. Well, he had been a real professor once, which is to say a square. Some people never really adjusted to carny life—where everybody knows everything. ”

“ II. He has sought to give credibility and respectability to this false and libellous publication by invoking the authority, not of reason or truth, but of his mere "professional" position as professor in Harvard University, thereby artfully suggesting and insinuating to the uninformed public [Pg 48] that Harvard University sustains him in his attack; whereas, in conferring upon me the degree of doctor of philosophy and in committing to me formerly the conduct of an advanced course of philosophical instruction, Harvard University has given emphatic testimony to the contrary. ”

“ The critic agreed. "The eyes are wonderful ... ruthless in their power ... fires of hell." He laughed a deprecating apology for his overemphatic metaphor and suggested: "It's possible that there was more to the professorial life than met the eye. Had he a wife?"
"No; it was always a joke in the village that he would never look at a woman."
The critic glanced up at the smoldering eyes of the portrait and smiled. "I've heard of that kind of a man before," he said. "Never known to drink, either, I suppose?"
"Cold-water teetotaler," laughed the professor, catching the spirit of the occasion. ”

“ That's a wonderful boy, Will Kennicott. Great work these country practitioners are doing. The other day, in Washington, I was talking to a big scientific shark, a professor in Johns Hopkins medical school, and he was saying that no one has ever sufficiently appreciated the general practitioner and the sympathy and help he gives folks. These crack specialists, the young scientific fellows, they're so cocksure and so wrapped up in their laboratories that they miss the human element. ”

“ It is frightful to concentrate all the lights of the age in Paris, and to leave the departments in ignorance and idleness! I have sent M. de Candolle to Montpellier to stimulate others to activity.” Considering that the members of the Institute of France have always considered themselves the very cream of the cream of science, this was very shocking.
The new professor started with his wife, little boy, his library and herbarium, and with many a regret at leaving such friends as those who enlightened Paris as anatomists and botanists. ”

“ But—well, why do you ask such curious questions as these, Mr—Holford? What, indeed, is the motive of all this inquiry? The Professor is a well-known man, and you could easily approach him yourself,” the keen solicitor remarked.
“Yes, probably so. But my inquiry is in the Professor’s own interest,” I said, because I had to make my story good. “As a matter of fact, I have learnt of an attempt to steal the secret of his process, and I’m acting for his protection. When my inquiries are complete, I shall go to him and place the whole matter before him.”
“Your profession is not that of a detective?” ”

“ But now I come to a case of real and palpable plagiarism; yet that, too, of a nature to be quite unaccountable in a man of Coleridge's attainments. It is not very likely that this particular case will soon be detected; but others will. Yet who knows? Eight hundred or a thousand years hence, some reviewer may arise who having read the "Biographia Literaria" of Coleridge, will afterwards read the "Philosophical——" [44] of [Pg 146] Schelling, the great Bavarian professor—a man in some respects worthy to be Coleridge's assessor; and he will then make a singular discovery. ”

“ Royce's self-assumed right to club every philosopher whose reasoning he can neither refute nor understand. I deny, in general, that any Harvard professor has the right to fulminate a "professional warning" against anybody ”

“ There too he had been treated with revolting injustice. His struggles, his privations, his hard work to raise himself in the social scale, had filled him with such an exalted conviction of his merits that it was extremely difficult for the world to treat him with justice—the standard of that notion depending so much upon the patience of the individual. The Professor had genius, but lacked the great social virtue of resignation. ”

“ In the one branch he most needed,—mathematics,—barring the few first scholars, failure was so nearly universal that no attempt at grading could have had value, and whether he stood fortieth or ninetieth must have been an accident or the personal favor of the professor. ”