Education: Absent-Minded Professor

Professor Mario Attilio Levi, a lean, walrus-mustached scholar of 60, is well known in Italy as an authority on Dante; among his colleagues he is also known to be a trifle absentminded. Riding home on a streetcar to his apartment in Rome that hot July day in 1948, he was as usual too engrossed in a book to keep close watch on his packages. But when he got to his stop and missed them, Professor Levi raised a fervent alarm.

One package contained only a new pair of shoes. The other—a big, official envelope with the stamp of the Ministry of Public Instruction and the label “Very Confidential”—contained copies of the final examinations that 90,000 public liceo graduates up & down Italy were to take next day. As chairman of one of Rome’s examination commissions, Professor Levi was charged with their safety overnight.

Professor Levi informed the education ministry that the bundle had “mysteriously disappeared,” and Education Minister Guido Gonella rushed into action. Fearing that the questions had fallen into student hands, Gonella ordered all examinations throughout Italy halted. It took the ministry staff three days to make up a new set of questions; meanwhile, 11,200 examiners sat around marking time.

The crisis over, Professor Levi settled back into his quiet routine. Two peaceful years passed. Then, this summer, the Professor received the blow. Going over some 1948 accounts, the state auditor calculated that it had cost Italy 50 million lire ($80,000) to keep the examiners waiting. The auditor demanded that Professor Levi pay the full amount.

“It is impossible!” cried the professor. On a salary of 900,000 lire a year, said he, “I cannot earn so much in my life.” The ministry was inclined to agree (“After all, it was an accident which could happen to anyone”). Unfortunately, said ministry officials last week, the case was out of their hands. The demand of the auditor v. Professor Levi still stood. It made no difference that the missing envelope had turned up 93 miles from Rome, its seal still unbroken.