Education: Pool

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If it is the barber who always needs a haircut and the tailor whose clothes never fit him, then it is the economics professor who makes unwise investments—at least he seldom causes a sensation by making brilliant ones. But the foolish economists of Columbia University will be benefited by a scheme projected there last week, a scheme that is probably unique among college faculties. Shrewd astronomers, canny classics scholars, practical esthetics lecturers— in fact, all Columbia's staff—were invited to pool their investments in a faculty fund to be handled by three trustees. The benefits promised: services of competent counsel, diversification of investments, a greater-than-average income and relief from the onus of handling securities personally. It seemed logical that at last the "poor professor" was to "get in on the ground floor" of financial opportunities that a great university's wealthy patrons and trustees are invariably in touch with.