REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT. To the Honorable Board of Regents of the State University of Iowa: GENTLEMEN-In presenting you the biennial report of the Institution under your fostering care, it is gratifying to present evidences of steady progress. The largest increase has been made in the Collegiate Department, and in this the School of Science has shown the greater relative de mand for instruction. For five years the University Collegiate Department has been or ganized in two separate schools-School of Letters and School of Science. The relative enrollment has been as follows: These figures represent relative numbers, but by no means the relative increase in work demanded. Most literary studies are easily pursued in classes. Most studies in Science must be largely individual, and every additional student involves the necessity for additional appliances. II. ROOM. The generous reponse made by the Legislature at its last session answered but half our needs as presented at that time. The erection of the new Medical building gave needed relief so far as that Department is concerned. The enlargement of the boiler-houso secured for us a large draughting-room. The removal of the library to the chapel gave increased room to the Law Department. Through these various changes a slight increase has been made in the size of the rooms available for the chairs of Physical and Natural Science. For these chairs the rooms used are entirely inadequate, even if they were suited to the work. Had we received the appropriation asked for of the last Legislature it would have met our need only in part. The large increase in students makes it absolutely necessary that we repeat our request for means wherewith to erect a building suitable for the work in natural science, and that we also present the no less pressing claims for a Chemical and Physical Laboratory. III. APPARATUS. In this direction we have made but a very slight advance in five years. Laboratory stands and microscopes are indispensable helps, and yet our supply is less than a third of the demand already existing. If the experience of the past is to serve as a guide, we shall enter upon the work of the next year with a demand four times as great as our supply. It is not possible to do justice to so large a class with our limited appliances. Classes can be duplicated as they have been; but as each exercise demands two hours time, and as four hours each day is all the time that can be employed in connection with the other work, justice to students and to professors demands a large increase in our apparatus for study of Science. We need an enlargement in our corps of professors; especially in the direction of Physical Science, Natural Science and Political Science. Nearly all the larger Universities have a fund from which to provide for their students short series of lectures from eminent specialists. Such a fund would be of incalculable benefit to us. Fruits of the ripest scholarship could then be secured at a very moderate Each year of increasing prosperity of the State diminishes the rate of interest, and of course our income from productive funds is reduced. To meet this reduction and the necessity for increased expenditures, we shall need the enlargement of our permanent endowment. Our experiment of a vital connection with the high schools of the State, resulting from the entire abandonment of preparatory work, has proved highly successful. Each year our field grows wider and the number of high schools and academies which are accredited as doing good preparatory work is increasing. Forty-five such schools are now tributary to us, their pupils being received without examination to our Freshman class. We are happy to be able to commend their work. No backward step can be taken without injury to these preparatory schools. They have a common interest with us in liberal furnishing of the facilities for higher instruction. What we ask for the better endowment of the University is helpful to the entire system of schools of which the University is the appropriate head. We are now feeling the pressure from below, and the State cannot afford to leave the University as a dead weight upon the life and enthusiasm of the excellent public schools which are her just pride. Assuring you, gentlemen, of our desire to bring the University in all its departments to the limits of its highest possibilities, and presenting in proof of this the determination of the Medical Department to require henceforth an examination for admission to its courses of lectures, or, in lieu thereof, evidence of graduation from a good high school or academy. I am, in behalf of the several Faculties, very sincerely yours, J. L. PICKARD, President. |