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Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 142, 11 March 1919, Page 5

I The "expert" or professor is handled ! with brutal candour by Stephen Leacoek. Thus, in his "Apology of a Professor," he writes:—"One other point remains worthy of remark in the summation of tho heavy disadvantages under which tho professor lives and labours. He does not know how to make rconeyi Ho does'not comniercialiso his profession, or does not know how'to do so. Had he the business instinct of the leaders of labour and the master manufacturers, he would long since have set to work at the problem. He would have urged his Government to put so heavy a tax on the- imporfof foreign professors as to keep the home mar.kot for himself. He would have organised himself into amalgamated Brotherhood of Instructors of Latin, United Greek Workers of America, and so forth'; organised strikes, picketed the houses of the college trustees, and made, himself j a respected place-as a member of industrial society. This his inherited inaptitude forbids him to do. Nor can the professor make money out».of what ho knjws. Somehow a plague is on the man. A teacher of English cannot writo a halfdime novel, nor a professor of dynamics invent a safety razor. The truth' is that a modern professor for commercial purnoses doesn't know anything. He only knows part of things." Yet, though all this is common knowledge, our amazingly benighted Federal Government actually proposes to make the Australian professors the guides to councillors of all industries. We are to create a bureau of science and industry, which the professors will run on n system of liberal fees and salaries. Anyone in need of advice, or in a difficulty about his position, need only apply to the bureau, and he will immediately be helped. Indeed, it has been known that when such assistance has been asked for, the inquirers have been promptly referred to an "Encyclopaedia Britannica" for help!