What about the Jewish professor in American colleges? Several years ago, Ludwig Lewisohn described in Up Stream the spiritual sufferings he underwent as an instructor in a state university because he was a German Jew. Suddenly Jews began to ask: "Are Jewish college professors the victims of social discrimination in academic circles? Are their careers hampered because of their race and religion? Is the Jewish faculty member as unpopular as the Jewish student?"

These questions have been asked repeatedly during the past four years, but few have come forward with a satisfactory answer. Jacob Zeitlin, Associate Professor of English at the University of Illinois, has taken up the cudgels in defense of the American college. Writing in the Menorah Journal, June 1922, Zeitlin took issue with Lewisohn. "Mr. Lewisohn," he said, "exaggerates the rigor with which Jews are excluded from certain university seats. His own experience in the German departments of two state universities must have convinced him that it was possible for a Jew to live on terms of perfect amity with his 2Christian colleagues. In his seven years of college teaching he does not refer to a single instance of ill-will or discrimination because of racial differences. His difficulties, when they arose, sprang from altogether different causes. There can be doubt that in his choice of a career he was handicapped by his doubly alien origin. We cannot help but feel that the root of Mr. Lewisohn's unhappiness lies in his own spiritual makeup. He is a sensitive, dreamy idealist who is disappointed when he fails to find perfect justice and perfect freedom in a world in which the philosophers and the poets never constitute the ruling majority. Were his Jewish name and physiognomy to be obliterated as definitely as his Jewish consciousness, were he transplanted to any civilized spot where there is no discrimination at all, it is doubtful whether his difficulties would be perceptibly lessened."

Zeitlin's remarks were especially to the point because he himself is a refutation of Lewisohn's charges. One has only to take a look at Mr. Zeitlin to see the truth of this point. He wears a black beard and looks like a rabbi. What is even more "unforgivable" is the fact that he is a Russian immigrant. Now if 3this immigrant Jew with the patriarchial beard, Semitic nose, and Jewish name (forename and surname) can hold an associate professorship in a large, American university ("Red" Grange's college at that!), then what remains of the charge that there is real discrimination [against Jews in American colleges]?

I discussed this problem with several Jewish college instructors who never tire of repeating the charge that there is racial discrimination against Jews on college faculties. They admitted that the Zeitlin case is a strong argument against their contention but insisted that Zeitlin's eminence as a scholar and a teacher made it impossible for the college administration to slight him. "A Jewish college instructor has to be twice as good as his Christian colleague to secure a position which the other is given as a matter of course," was the way they put it. What makes this statement more valid is that I have heard it said, in one form or another, from at least a score of Jewish college instructors representing a half a dozen of our best institutions of higher learning during the past two years. In the majority of instances these men took no part in Jewish life, were only mildly interested in any phase of the Jewish problem, and sometime bore names that sounded decidely non-Jewish.

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Whenever I asked them, however, for definite information regarding cases of discrimination that had come to their personal attention they grew vague. They confessed it was not possible to prove the claim in such a way as to convince a jury of outsiders. One has to be an insider, they claimed, to know it and to feel it. College administrators rarely act in such a way as to lay themselves open to public attack on the score of race prejudice. They always work quietly, suavely, and courteously. Certain subjects are never discussed openly; they are only hinted at in the vaguest manner. A word, a glance, a smile--that'll do! Such evidence, if it may be called evidence, would not be sufficient in a court where everything must be in "black and white". Yet the men who work and live in the colleges, and whose academic careers may be made or unmade by faculty politics, are aware of ever so many things about which discreet persons remain silent.

I must warn my readers that assertions of wholesale race discrimination should be scrutinized very carefully. Ever so many college instructors never succeeded in rising in the academic world. The majority, in fact, are doomed to disappointment. It is natural to look for the cause of one's failure not in one's 5self but to ascribe it to accident--or to prejudice. When such a disgruntled college instructor happens to own a Jewish name he will, in most cases, insist that were he a gentile the dean would have acted differently. Hence I believe that the college instructor is the last person in the world who can have a worthwhile opinion on the subject because he is so seldom disinterested and objective. And yet, how else shall we obtain the truth?

Well, why not examine the college catalogues and list the Jewish names on the various faculties? This may be a satisfactory manner but it is not entirely satisfactory. In the first place, are we to believe that Jews are "entitled" to be represented on college faculties proportionately? Because New York city has a Jewish population of twenty-five per cent would any intelligent Jew argue that Columbia, New York University, and the City College of New York should have faculties which are twenty-five per cent Jewish? The absurdity of such a contention is obvious. There is no such thing as a definite and determinable right to be on a college faculty--or to obtain a promotion. While every person irrespective of color, race, or creed has a right to demand admission to a college or a university (subject to the regular academic 6restrictions), it is different when it comes to teaching. Not every man who gets Ph. D. in history is necessarily competent to teach the subject. He may be a fine scholar, yet be a wretched instructor. His mannerisms, personal appearance, or any one of a dozen other factors might enter into the case--just as in any other profession or trade. Two men starting at the same time do not advance in the same way. One man might plod long, weary years without seeming to get ahead; the other might make rapid strides toward the attainment of his goal. That "pull" sometimes plays a part can hardly be denied; but this has nothing to do with the specific question of the status of the Jewish college professor.

After all college teaching is hardly likely to attract ambitious, young men who think of their future. The salaries of college instructors are, in the majority of cases, distressingly inadequate. Only men of heroic calibre or, if you will, "good for nothings," get into the profession and stay in it. If comparatively few Jews care to engage in an academic career, I shall be the last person in the world to blame them. Success in law and medicine, when all is said and done, requires as much intellectual power as an academic career, and is probably more satisfying.

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The college professor is only seldom taken seriously by the community. He is the object of mild derision by our "successful" men. Jews are much too ambitious politically, socially, and financially to embark on careers that offer such dubious returns. And before any gentile waxes eloquent against the mercenary Jews let him pause and ask himself: first, why are the universities continually losing their best men; and second, why do a majority of the gentile college graduates become bond salesmen, realtors, and automobile salesmen--rather than college instructors?

The October issue of Forum contained a frantic plea to the rich men in the country to raise the salaries of professors lest the colleges remain empty. The academic profession generally is likely to draw its "victim" from among the descendents of college instructors. It is common for a college instructor to be the son, grandson, and great-grandson of college professors. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia are full of them. The college tradition is in their blood. They would rather suffer financial deprivation than break the golden chain. All honor to these men! But why expect such a tradition from a foreign 8element which is, in the main, only one generation removed from the Polish ghetto? What has always amazed me is not the paucity of Jewish college professors; but, considering the peculiar conditions, their numerical strength.

Of more than six hundred colleges in the United States, the vast majority are small institutions founded and maintained by various Protestant sects and the Catholic Church. About five hundred of them have faculties which number fewer than one hundred teachers. Not only the student body, but also the faculties of these small sectarian institutions are strongly denominational in complexion. In most instances the president is a clergyman. This applies also to a majority of the instructors. It should, therefore, surprise no one to learn that more than three quarters of all the colleges in the country have no Jews on their teaching staffs. Of the very large non-sectarian universities (excluding state and municipal institutions) there are a mere handful in the entire country: principally at Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, New York University, Leland Stanford, and John Hopkins. Every one of these institutions has one or more Jews on its teaching staff; in some cases they have a considerable number.

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Many of the state universities have Jewish instructors in their professional schools, notably Forham. Jewish instructors are quite numerous in a number of the most famous medical schools.

Who are the Jewish college professors and what is their academic standing? I shall attempt to answer this question in the next article of this series.