《谈大学》中已经说了，大学的关键是学者。现代学者多在大学中，虽然他们的教学负担在外人眼中不重。“That teaching load now sounds onerous to a professor but no doubt positively lusurious to a nonacademic; my father-in-lay said I had a license to steal. (p. 39)

Stigler认为学者生活的特点是平静和不变。“Most academicians lead sedentary lives…(p. 9) ”。不变是因为学者一生的职业活动本质上都一样。“Academic life has many fewer levels or types of activity than almost any other field. A senior professor is still doing mostly the same things he did as a young instructor. (p. 31) ”作者不无幽默地引述自己的例子。他34岁时很骄傲地告诉告诉母亲“A full professorship”，但10年过去，母亲再问职位他还是正教授，母亲便说，“No promotion?”也许是这种缺乏层级的行当让追求世俗荣耀的人无用武之地，现在教授也分了级。假如在华夏， 34岁时，Stigler可以告诉母亲是四级教授，十年后是三级教授，得了诺奖，就是一级教授了。

学者最本质的工作是推动学科发展。“In dealing with intelligent people, one must produce what they want and convince them of that fact. So it is with scholars. Their first task is to develop ideas that advance their discipline. (p. 64) ”为有助于这个工作的完成，学者有自己特殊的报酬机制。好的研究，发表于高声望的期刊，在好大学就职，快速得到提升，拿到各种基金，更少的教学，更好的研究条件，学术行会推选杰出的学者和干练的学术政客担任领导。“Scholars are not usually paid by the piece for their research, but they are compensated in equivalent ways. The better the research wrok, the more prestigious the journal in which it will appear. The superiou researcher is hired by the better university, promoted at a rapid rate, favored by the Natiional Science Foundation and the private foundations, given a lighter teaching load, and in the physical sciences supplied with a well-appointed laboratory. The learned societies (as the scholarly trade associations are known) elect the superior scholars—and the more skilful academic politicians—to their offices. (p. 85) ”

学者的职业生涯往往充满竞争，虽然形式上与赛跑这类对抗性的比赛不同。“The crotchets and foibles of scholars should not obscure the strenuous competition that pervades the scholarly disciplines. The competition is seldom so personal and sharply focused as a footrace because two scholars at one school seldom are working on precisely the same problems. An active scholar is trying to changing the work that is being done in his field, by changing the problems or the theories or the methods of dealing with the problems being studied by all the other scholars working in his area. (p. 33)”尽管如此，学者的职业生涯总要有些目标，可能是学科内在的如解决某个问题，也可能是外在的拿到职位或经费等。“The competition may arise in the pursuit of the same goal…(p. 33)”

学者在竞争中胜出的重要手段是出版物。因此，“The volume of the published output of the main competitors in a science is usually awe-inspiring. (p. 34)”出版物未必都是原创性的，也包括说明、应用、批评对手等，因此难免有重复。“The vest output of prolific scholars contains much repetition and crossing of t’s, but it also has a role to play in the important work of these scholars. The repetition, elaboration and application, and criticism of rival views, serve to educate the profession (and the scholar himself) to the ideas. The importance that the ideas acquire in turn leads to many invitations to speak and write about them. In any event, it is necessary to have energy as well as intellectual capacity to become an influential scholar. (p. 34)” 另个竞争手段就是培养学生扩大自己的影响力。“An important way, if not the most important way, in which one influences a field is through one’s students. (p. 35)”用人们熟悉的话说，就是出成果，出人才。