PROFESSOR
(the Latin noun formed from the verb
profiteri
,
to declare publicly, to acknowledge, profess), a term now
properly confined to a teacher of a special grade at a university.
Its former significance of one who has made “profession” or
open acknowledgment of religious belief, or, in particular, has
made a promise binding the maker to a religious order, is now
obsolete. The educational use is found in post-Augustan Latin,
and
profiteri
is used by Pliny (
Ep.
ii. 18, 3, iv. 11, 14), absolutely,
in the sense of “to be a teacher,” an extension of the classical use
in the sense of to practise, profess a science or art,
e.g.
profiteri
jus, medicinam, philosophiam
, &c. In the universities of the middle
ages the conferring of a degree in any faculty or branch of
learning meant the right or qualification to teach in that faculty,
whence the terms magister, “master,” and doctor for those
on whom the degree had been granted. To these names must
be added that of “professor.” The “three titles of Master,
Doctor, Professor, were in the middle ages absolutely synonymous
” (H. Rashdall,
The Universities of Europe in the Middle
Ages
, 1895, i. 21). At Paris in the faculties of theology,
medicine and arts
professor
is more frequently used than
doctor
but less so than
magister
; at Bologna the teachers of law
are known as
professores
or
doctores
(id.). From this position to
that of the holder of an endowed “chair,” the occupant of
which is the principal public teacher of the particular faculty,
the evolution was gradual. The first endowed professorship
at Oxford was that of divinity, founded by the mother of
Henry VII. in 1497 (?1502) and named after her the “Margaret
Professorship.” The foundation of the regius professorship by
Henry VIII., in 1546 no doubt, as the
New English Dictionary
points out, tended to the general modern use of the word. Subordinate
public teachers in faculties or in subjects to which a
professorial “chair” is attached, are known as “readers”
or “lecturers,” and these titles are also used for the principal
public teachers in subjects which have not reached professorial
rank.