100 YEARS AGO

Readers of prospectuses of educational institutions and polytechnics may have noticed that of late years there has been a tendency to convert the teachers into professors. The nature of the institution in which the instructors can rightly use the latter title is apparently a matter of opinion, and it is becoming worth while to define the duties and position of a professor. Miss Catherine Dodd describes in the National Review how she asked 105 primary school children, between the ages of ten and fourteen, to give this definition, among others. Here are some of the attempts: — “A man who has passed a high examination.” “A very clever man.” “One who can do his work easily.” “A man skilled in sense.” That a professor has a certain social standing is evident from the definitions which describe him as “a man who is well off,” and “a man who lives in a nice house.” Among the vague definitions are the following: — “A person who professes to do something.” “A man who says he can do anything.” But the children's general idea is that a professor teaches music, dancing, or languages, or performs conjuring tricks. Thus, “A professor teaches all kinds of instruments.” “He is a gentlemen that generally plays at balls,” and “a man who knows clever tricks.” To correctly define a professor would probably prove a difficulty to many children of older growth.

From Nature 8 September 1898.

50 YEARS AGO

In the editorial article in Nature of August 14, in criticizing a recent statement of the Atomic Scientists' Association, it is argued that collaboration between scientific men east and west of the ‘Iron Curtain’ may be undesirable, because it is likely “to promote, for the present, a one-way traffic to the disadvantage of the Western democracies” ⃛ It is stated in the editorial that the man of science in totalitarian countries is essentially a servant of the State, and that it is treason for him to divulge any knowledge save as the State allows. But in fact this statement is true only in the opinions of the men who control the Government of the U.S.S.R.; we may be sure that most scientific men in the satellite countries would not take that view of their functions. — N. F. Mott.

From Nature 11 September 1948.