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PRESIDENT'S REPORT.

To the Honorable Board of Regents of the State University of Iowa: GENTLEMEN-It is a pleasure in reviewing the work of the past two years, to note steady progress in all departments of the University. The evidence found in increasing attendance is sufficiently presented in the annual catalogues, which are in the hands of citizens throughout the State, and copies of which have been sent to all the members of the legislature for 1882.

Figures will not tell all the truth. They can give no illustration of the harmony which has prevailed in all branches of administration, of the spirit of honest work in all the courses of instruction, of manly deportment, the earnest study of all students.

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Judging from past years we shall have an enrollment of not less

than six hundred students.

II. ACCOMMODATIONS.

A few instances will suffice to indicate our great need of room. The freshmen of the school of science number thirty-five. We have at the outside limits, accommodations in drawing for less than half the number. An inconvenient division of the class is necessary, and a consequent duplication of instruction. The same condition of things exists in other parts of their laboratory work, and the difficulty can be met only by an alternation of divisions of the class, so that daily instruction is impossible.

The hall for chemical lectures has been seated to its utmost capacity. It will accommodate comfortably less than one hundred students. One hundred and fifty must be crowded into it.

The chemical laboratory is inconvenient, unventilated except into the lecture room, and has stands for less than one-third the number of students required to take this practical work.

Not one of the rooms used by the Professor of Physical Science and his assistant is adequate to present needs. Not one is well adapted to the purpose for which it is used.

The working room of the Professor of Natural Science and his assistant is not at all suited to the work. It was not originally designed for the purpose of its present use.

The cabinet is not susceptible of further enlargement for want of space, and its shelves and cases are more than filled.

Reference has already been made to the insufficiency of room for the drawing classes. Small as is the room, the Professor of Civil Engineering is compelled to share a part of it with his assistant, and no room is found for display of charts, working plans, models, etc., which are essential to the best instruction in civil engineering.

The room set apart for the law class, will accommodate less than one hundred students, but we must find place for nearly one hundred and fifty students. Partitions have been removed, and could the large library have a resting place suited to its use, the lecture hall thus enlarged might be made to serve its purpose for the present.

But if the school be made effective in the highest degree, there must be provision for at least two classes instead of one.

As the class increases in size it will need more room for its club courts, moot courts, and quiz clubs. At present they share rooms with the collegiate class, but to their inconvenience as to hours.

The medical amphiteater is crowded to suffocation, and is neither convenient, nor can it be made, in its present form, healthful.

Better provision must be made for students who are under the instruction and direction of the Demonstrator of Anatomy.

We are much in need of two buildings, each of which shall have a large lecture hall for the accommodation of three hundred students, and recitation rooms for classes of twenty-five to one hundred each, with working laboratories in physical science, biology, drawing, engineering, and architecture.

We cannot much longer continue with our present force of professors and instructors. Provision should be made for a few lectureships, whereby the University can secure, as all other institutions of standing are now doing, the services for a limited time, of specialists in science, literature, and art.

Our Military Department is sustained without expense to the State. To make it effective we need very much a drill hall that can be used in stormy and in winter weather.

Will not your honorable body secure from the next legislature the means for meeting these urgent needs?

For the increase of our appliances of instruction we need a larger endowment. Each year of increased prosperity in the State tends to reduce our income from funds loaned. The State should provide for making good the reduction.

Permanent increase of room may be made once for all by a liberal outlay upon buildings needed.

The vital connection of the University with other educational interests of the State is apparent in the large number of high schools and academies made tributary to us upon their own request, and from which we receive pupils to our freshman class without examination. They number twenty-four high schools and twelve academies and seminaries. Our present freshman class comes from thirty-four different preparatory schools. The character of preparation is steadily improving, and the majority of those sent to us from accepted schools are well fitted, showing that the high schools and academies of the State are efficiently conducted. These schools are rapidly increasing in numbers, and as they in future call upon us to receive their graduates, our neglect or inability to do so will react upon the schools to their injury. Whatever is done for the University to its upbuilding and elevation is felt throughout the entire State in quickened interest and in wider diffusion of sound education.

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Assuring you, gentlemen, of the purpose of the several faculties of the University to advance the standard of higher education, and asking that we may have the means necessary to the furtherance of such a purpose

I am, sincerely yours,

J. L. PICKARD, President.

State University of Iowa, October 28, 1881.

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