These great military universities come to be run more and more on the lines of an army; everything rigid, precise and formal, all emergencies provided for, all policies fixed. The passion of the military mind for uniformity and regimentation is comically exhibited in an article published by President Barrows in the University of California “Chronicle,” April, 1922, entitled “What Are the Prospects of the University Professor?” It was read before the Board of Alumni Visitors, who must have been edified, to note how completely the professor’s life had been laid out for him by his thoughtful superiors. Colonel Barrows has a vision of the American college professor, taking in this country the place of the ruling classes of Britain, who govern “by reason of rank, breeding and traditional influence.” With the idea of attracting that kind of man, President Barrows submits a schedule of his life, showing how much he will receive every year, when he will marry and have a family, when he will travel, what degrees he will get. The president does not specify what he is to eat, but he will assuredly not eat much, with a wife and “one or more children” on a salary starting at a hundred and fifty dollars a month. One detail in this article intrigued me, so I wrote President Barrows a letter, as follows: You state the salary of the young instructor, and say: “It has permitted him to marry and to provide for the birth of one or more children.” The question which this suggests to me, and which you do not answer, is how many more children? Manifestly, the salary suggested would not make possible the raising of more than two, or three at the outside; but the young professor is 29 or 30 years of age, and he might have eight or ten children. What I should like to know is, what would happen to him if he did so? It is a fact that most of your professors don’t, and there seems to be in your article the implicit understanding that they mustn’t; so I am forced to assume that you favor what is known as Birth Control, and tacitly recommend it. I am one of those who believe that the methods of Birth Control ought to be made known, not merely to the cultured classes, but to the working classes, and I should like to know the stand of the president of the University of California on this subject. Will you answer for publication these two specific questions: First, do you recognize that your article implies the prevention of conception by the married instructors of your university? Second, would you advocate legislation to permit working class families to obtain a knowledge of these same methods? President Barrows is usually rather free about taking up controversies, but on this occasion he for some reason thought it best to lie low![I] ----- Footnote I: