"The tendency to place the professor upon an equality with the lawyer, the editor or the business man as a candidate for political preferment is a healthy one. America has lagged far behind European nations in giving to men of high intellectual attainments the honor they deserve. The professorial chair will probably become an increasingly important stepping-stone to positions of political power."

Thus the Boston Transcript concludes an exhaustive editorial in which it shows that Champ Clark and Senator Lodge lead the list of prominent members of the Sixty-second Congress who have risen from the academic ranks. Of all the colleges perhaps Harvard has obtained the best record in this way, its professors, especially those of Economics, Government, and Law frequently lending their training and knowledge for the benefit of government investigation. It is true that Harvard professors, unlike Governor Wilson and Governor Baldwin (who was long with the Yale faculty), prefer to act as advisers in various reform movements rather than to enter the field as candidates for election. But even so, the present attitude is in strong contrast to the old feeling that an educator could have no part in politics, when, with the predominance of the classics, the professor felt it far beneath his dignity to maintain an interest in current affairs.