HOMEOPATHIC MEDICAL DEPARTMENT. A. C. COWPERTHWAITE, M. D., PH. D., Professor of Materia Medica in Homeopathic Medical Depart- W. H. DICKINSON, M. D., .$1,330.00 Professor of Theory and Practice of Medicine in Homeo- W. D. STILLMAN, M. D., · Lecturer on Therapeutics of Obstetrical Diseases in Homeo- T. G. ROBERTS, M. D., Assistant to Chair of Materia Medica in Homeopathic Medical CHARLES W. EATON, M. D., Assistant to Chair of Theory and Practice in Homeopathic Lecturer on Therapeutics... Total salaries.... 902.50 $2,232.00 The reduction of $8,173 in the appropriation is due largely to the necessity of meeting a reduced income. The reduction of two per cent in the rate of interest upon loans of University funds has become a necessity. The Board of Regents, at its last session, was under the disagreeable necessity of reducing salaries, after cutting down as low as possible all other expenditures. It is but poor compensation for faithful service of hard-working professors, and we should have the means at hand to meet their reasonable expectations of a prompt restoration of salaries thus diminished. We need, too, the means for a fuller and better equipment of our libraries and laboratories. These are pressing needs that will recur with greater force as the University each year attracts a larger attendance. With our present income we can make no advance. As the prosperity of the State is everywhere apparent we have reason to expect increasing demands upon our resources. We ask at your hands an increase of our annual endowment by the addition thereto of ten thousand dollars. In our last biennial report we stated: "We shall soon need more room, and should we be found in the future asking for a supply of that need, the citizens of Iowa will find abundant ground for such a request in the acceptance of advantages furnished her young men and women through the liberal endowment already made." The need is upon us sooner than we had thought. The University has prospered beyond our most sanguine expectations. We are in absolute need of at least two more buildings, and at the very lowest estimate they will cost fifty thousand dollars. Our needs are so urgent that in support of our request for an appropriation of liberal character we present the following facts: Four years ago the legislature was appealed to for a permanent appropriation. A liberal response was made coupled with the condition that after two years no further preparatory work should be done in the University. The Regents accepted the condition and immediately cut off the lower of the two classes of the subfreshmen. One year thereafter the entire preparatory work was discontinued. These classes had numbered two hundred students. It was thought that so large a reduction in numbers would leave us abundant room in the buildings already erected. What was feared by some as a serious injury to the institution, has really proved of great benefit. The University is now recognized throughout the State as a part of the public school system, no longer interfering with high school or academy work, but encouraging such work in all parts of the State. We have the loyal support of all friends of public education. Taking an advanced stand, and limiting ourselves strictly to collegiate work in the literary and scientific departments, we have also secured the confidence of intelligent parents who have heretofore sent their sons and daughters eastward for college study. The results are manifest in the following enrollment of the Collegiate Department: Increase in strictly collegiate work in four years seventy-one, or very nearly forty per cent. Collegiate work is but a part of the work laid upon us. Other departments have felt the increase of interest in the University, and our total enrollment appears as follows, deducting in each of the first two years the number of subfreshmen: The estimate is based upon the present enrollment (October 21), 554, with the average increase for two years past added. It will appear from this showing that since the legislative act of 1878 there has been a steady increase in the enrollment of students, marking nearly fifty per cent in four years. The increasing popularity of the institution is shown further in the fact that the two academies located in lowa City, and largely preparatory to University courses, have an enrollment of more than 300 students drawn from different parts of the State, and who are preparing for University work. Without expense to the State the work of preparation is carried on, and the number of those in preparation in Iowa City is largely increased, while throughout the State high schools and academies are coming into close connection with the University, in many instances passing their students directly into the freshman class without examination. In sympathy with the popular sentiment, we have endeavored to enlarge our facilities for broader culture in all departments, and for more practical work in the school of science. Our libraries have been enlarged somewhat, and made more available by lengthened hours of opening, and by the furnishing a convenient and commodious reading room. So far as means at our command would warrant, we have in part supplied the great lack of the University in apparatus for illustrating the principles of science. And now, as these increased facilities have become known, and have begun to attract students hither, we find ourselves without room to accommodate those who come. The classes are necessarily divided because the recitation rooms are not sufficient, and much instruction is duplicated that might be given profitably to larger numbers. Our classes in physical science, in natural science, and in drawing, each requiring tables and apparatus for students' use, are already more than double the number that can be accommodated in the rooms that can be used for these purposes. Many of the classes in the school of letters are also too large for the rooms set apart for their use. Students are in many instances crowded into uncomfortable quarters, and we have reached the limit of enlargement, for no spare room can be found. Classes that should have rooms for recitation are compelled to share them with others, at inconvenient hours. In short, it has become necessary to limit our numbers to present enrollment, and to say that we have reached the end for which the institution was established and are now ready to go to decay, or to appeal to the State, whose we are, for the means for further growth. Unless we have more room, the institution will be crippled and come to a stand still, and the State will lose the benefit of the increasing prosperity of the institution. This vigorous young State can certainly ill afford to allow her University to halt at this stage, while the young men and the young women are coming under her leadership and urging a forward movement. We are but servants of the State, and make our appeal for her interest. Whether the University shall continue in her onward march or not concerns us not more than it does every other citizen of the State. Seventy of the ninety-nine counties of the State have representatives in the Collegiate Department. This fact shows that the University has not simply a local patronage, but that it reaches in its influence throughout the entire State. The number of students drawn hither from other States is yearly increasing. As your servants we present the condition of your institution, and ask that you take steps to ascertain for yourselves the urgency of her needs. We refer you, gentlemen of the legislature, for detailed information, to the accompanying reports of the President, Secretary, and Treasurer of the University. A word in regard to the professional departments. The Law Department has been, for several years, sustaining itself from its tuitions. This year will form no exception, but will probably |