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<h2>PUTTING PEDAGOGY ACROSS</h2> There is much well-meaning propaganda in progress for the preservation of professors. Alumni are appealed to, bankers are buttonholed, and in every college club the diagram showing the Big Game play by play has been replaced by a dial showing how many millions have been garnered to date for the fund; all this in order that the saying "Live and learn" may be reversible as "Be learned and yet live". Wouldn't it be more humane (instead of giving the professors money, to which they are not accustomed) to teach them how to "sell" themselves? Today every one is paid according to how completely the public or the plutocrats are "sold" on him. Only salesmanship can save the scholars. The time is ripe for some gilt-edged grad such as Morton K. Mung, President of the Newark Noodle Corporation, to announce, when stalked by the subscription squad: "No, gentlemen of the Adopt a Professor Committee,[Pg 91] your suggestion that by donating seven cents a day I keep an instructor in paleontology from starvation, or be godfather to an authority on Sanscrit at eight cents, strikes me as impractical. With the cost of living rising again, next year they will want nine and ten cents—and you see the position that would put us in. "No, gentlemen, I'll do better. I'll solve this situation once for all by loaning my general sales manager, Mr. Blat, to dear old Weehawken for two months, and he will give the members of the Faculty the same tutoring course he gives the men we send out on the road. Within a year after they leave his hands these same profs you've mentioned will be writing 'Success Through Sanscrit' and 'How I made My Pile with Paleontology' for the American Magazine." At the conclusion of this loyal speech the committee would give a long cheer and depart checkless but with a new vision. And, sure enough, the pale pedagogues would emerge from Mr. Blat's snappy seminar simply exuding system. They would possess[Pg 92] the Power to Meet Men, the Personality that Wins. Laboratory recluses would burst forth primed to impress with Bigger Biology—Contains More Bunk. The Sanscrit savant, formerly threadbare, but now a nifty dresser, would immediately hop a train for New York and breeze into the office of Hugh G. Wads, senior member of Wads & Wads and Chairman of the Trustees of Weehawken University. "Good morning, Mr. Wads," he would say aggressively. "I've come here this morning to talk Vedas." "Vedas? I don't get you. Never heard of such a stock. It isn't listed on the big board, and if it's traded in on the Curb, the dealings must be pretty small. Besides, I thought you were a professor at Weehawken." "Right. I am a professor, if you choose to put it that way. Technically, though, I'm a promoter, and my proposition is VEDAS (Trade mark copyrighted 2000 B. C.)." "Vedas? I still don't get you." "Ah, that is precisely why I am here. I was sure you would want to know—Cigar?—Well,[Pg 93] Vedas are the wisdom songs of India. Mellowed by forty centuries in the parchment. One hundred per cent Hindu. Classy yet conservative; noble yet nobby. You know what caste is among the Brahmins?—well, that's how exclusive these are!" "Indeed." "Yes, and I'm offering them for immediate delivery to students." "But how does this concern me?" "I was just getting to that. This is a proposition which requires considerable capital for its development. At the present time only seven students have asked for Vedas, yet I have estimated that the supply of Vedas now mellowing out in India is enough for at least 180,000 students. Which means that if we created the demand—why, think of the business we could do! When you come right down to it, a Veda, when presented in the right way, can be as catchy as a Kewpie." "Hm. How much money would you need to start with?" "Fifty thousand dollars. Besides my salary, which would be $15,000 outright, plus a bonus[Pg 94] of one and one-half cents per Veda per student, there would be the cost of advertising in the college catalogue, the conducting of a circularizing campaign to a selected list of student prospects and the publication of a promotion organ to be entitled 'India Ink.' Then, too, of course, I would have to have a commission on gross tuition receipts and text book sales and an ample expense account for entertaining in the class-room and in my home. Now will you kindly put your name here on the dotted line?" "Before I guarantee you all this money, tell me one thing. What is the real value of these Vedas?" "They are the quaint quintessence of conservatism, and will occupy youthful minds menaced by modernism." "I'll sign." Succored by the science of salesmanship, any professor would be able to achieve affluence. Fortunes would rise from footnotes; and there would be big money made in bibliography. <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 95] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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