Life — April 1, 1915 — page 25: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“GBB = On Professors By G. K. Chesterton THe old joke about a professor being one who does not practice is not without a certain working truth. In every country there is a human type which has about it something at once pedantic and irresponsible, and which pursues the wild- est views in the narrowest way. One must not, of course, go by mere words in these matters. A “ pro- fessor" may mean many things; including a conjurer or a dentist. Originally, I believe, a “ professor ” meant a man who professed to be a converted man or a Christian; and could be called upon to have an unpleasant time for ¢ entertainment of his neighbours. It marks the coming f the Puritan theory of religion with its little band o : elect: it marks the fall from the much nobler mediaeval idea of Christianity; by which all men professed it equally fervently, and practiced it almost equally badly. This, however, is not the point: I repeat that we must not be confined to the mere title. In England, for instance, a pre fessor is more commonly called a don: and this (I hasten to add) does not mean that he is a Spanish hidalgo. NEVERTHELESS, the spirit of the don or professor the same everywhere; with national and local varia- tions. Thus, the French professor tends rather to be a prig; the English professor to be a snob. What the American professor tends to be I shall not venture to speculate. But if we wish to sce the thing at its wildest and most beauti- ful, we must, of course, go to what Lord Palmerston called “that country of damned professors” and what one of its more patriotic papers has recently described as “the solid worth of an unshakable, iron-willed Germandom” The chief professorial character, as I have said above, is that theories can he promulgated in an atmosphere in h there are few tests of practice. Sometimes the pries are valuable; sometimes merely interesting ; some- times abjectly inane. But they are never asked to drag anything along on their deductions any more than on daisy chains. A Futurist architect and sculptor will deal in an original and dazzling manner with the columns of a temple; but, after all, the columns must stand up. A Futurist cashier (a very valuable servant) will deal in an original and dazzling manner with the columns in a ledger ; but, after all, the columns must be added up. The pillars of marble, being futurist, may not survive to see any- thing of the future. The pillars of arithmetic (also being futurist) may distress the auditor and cause the cashier to fade rather rapidly into the past. Still, they must stand up somehow, if, only for half a day. But the erections of the pure professor are never subjected to any test; not so much as is involved in a child building a tower of wooden bricks. As long as the professor can show that certain things might be connected, there is never any man from the workaday world to put his head in at a window and ask if they are connected. HE manner of performing the process is something like this. I will take at random any one of the things I sce before me or have lately heard around me. One thing 1 see before me is a wasp. Another thing I heard lately was that a friend of mine found that the drug called asperin was growing slightly dearer, because it is mainly manu- factured in Germany. This may not be in the least true: my friends are often like that. Now, with those two words alone, and an understanding of the true professorial method, I could prove the most marvellous things. | could prove that Cleopatra was not bitten by an asp, but awasp. Here, of course, if I were a German professor. I should protest against the neglect of the W, which on to the other the earth-begotten tribes of Teutonism links. This would show that Cleopatra was a German. Then should prove that a wasp is not an insect, but a 1 should prove it by comparison with the English “aspen”: which Professor Guggenheimer s doubtedly a plant. I should say that it should be written “waspen”. I should ask you to remark the old Saxon plural, as in oxen, children, etc. And now, having already solidly, finally and triumphantly proved that Cleopatra was a German, I would suggest that it was most probable that she did not kill herself with an asp, but merely sent self to sleep with asperin: which is a German medicament and shows how far the Germanic peoples, even in those days, were in advance of the world in science and philan- thropy. Then I should turn an eager and concentrated interest upon the word “asperin” itself; and read in it the whole history and ideals of my race. It expresses truth, purity, progress; the onward marching of the world- begotten over-soul. The corrupt form of “asperin” in English is “aspiring”. I see another vista: I should lay it down as a broad generalization that the English Teuta were weak and wasted because they put g’s at the ends of words, saying dog and pig, instead of hound and swine. But the Prussian Teutons are strong and beautiful and heloved, because they put their g’s at the beginning of words, as in God and Goethe—not to mention Guggenheimer Then I should go back and prove that the vegetable called the wasp ought to be pronounced “ vasp and connect it with the Latin “vesper”, and talk about the aspens trembling in the evening Ireeze, and the Lord knows what. And so I should go on with no popular or in- ternational criticism on earth to check me; until the wasp stung me on the nose; and if he hurt me much I should ask for some asperin and not for some wasperin; and my intellectual triumph would be temporarily de- ferred. ANY, I imagine, will suppose that this imaginary case is an extravagant over-statement of the tone of profes- sors anywhere, even in Prussia. On the contrary, there are scientific flights of fancy practically quite as absurd even in England or America. Perhaps the chief difference is P comicbooks.com