Life, 1914-02-19 · page 15 of 40
Life — February 19, 1914 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon ("The Quickest Way"):** Shows a motorist stopping to ask directions from a man with a scythe near a roadside cross. The joke appears to involve taking a shortcut via death—dark humor about avoiding life's complications. **Article "Professors":** Critiques the academic system. The author argues professorships shouldn't be lifetime positions, claiming universities easily graduate students but systematically block professors' advancement—especially those showing intellectual growth in social sciences. The piece suggests professors showing "signs of growth" risk dismissal rather than promotion. It advocates for academics to leave universities to evolve as human beings, praising the "rare boundless souls" who rebel against academic tradition. **Bottom Cartoon:** Scottish dialect dialogue between a child and adult about an old clothes man ("Auld Clo's Mon"), referencing spare trousers ("breeks"). This appears unrelated to the professor article—likely a separate humor piece. The article reflects early-20th-century anxieties about institutional rigidity stifling intellectual freedom, particularly regarding unconventional or progressive thought in academia.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE QUICKEST WAY Professors T is to wish that more professors would graduate from our universities. A professor- ship in a university shouldn't be a life job. It is too easy. Teaching uncritical young men and women something out of a book is a very good experience, but it is only a step in the evolution of a human being. After that should come teaching mature, middle-aged and elderly men something that is not down.in books. It is no trick for students to graduate from ABW our colleges. It is expected of them, and the way is greased; but all the blocks are set against the graduation of professors. When a professor shows signs of growth, especially among the social sciences, he is not armed with an honorable diploma and sent forth with God- speed, but is more liable to be ignominiously dismissed. Some day our universities will change all this and provide for the honorable moving on of faithful and intelligent members of the faculty, but in the meantime we shall have to reserve all our admiration for those rare boundless souls who upset all traditions and fly forth from the academic nest willy-nilly, E. 0. J. “ WHIST, FEYTHER—YON’S ANITHER AULD CLO’S MON. CAN SPARE THE BREEKS!” comicbooks.com