Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1886 [PAGE 145]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

137 For reasons precisely the opposite of those just cited, the College of Engineering has made the most decided advancement. Machinists, 'engineers, architects, are in constant demand. . Each season brings to us more calls than we can supply. ' This College has been enlarged within the last two years by the organization of a School of Mining Engineering, to meet the demands of this very important interest in our State. Large additions have been made to the equipments in the machine shop, and the carpenters' shop, and both these are now running to nearly their full capacity. The students in Civil Engineering are now expected to take a course of training in the machine shop, as a very necessary preparation for an important branch of their profession. The School of Architecture of this College deserves particular notice, as it is one of but four in our country which make this subject a specialty. Among these it has distinguished itself by the peculiar attention given in its courses to structural excellence, but without neglecting artistic culture. The first requisite in any structure is security, the second convenience, the third artistic adaptation. Good building demands all of these. Proper teaching inculcates such principles and fosters such practice as will secure all of these. If such instruction is not obtained in our classes it must be from the want of attention or of preparation in those who pursue the studies of this department. It is hoped that greater interest will be shown in the School of Mining Engineering than has yet been apparent. The subject isone of constantly growing importance, both to those who are interested in developing the mineral resources of this great State and tothose who are seeking opportunities for investment in the constantly growing mining operations among the Bocky Mountains and on the Pacific slope. The day rapidly approaches when improved methods of mining, and improved processes of metallurgy, will turn the scale in many enterprises which have heretofore been unrenumerative, and will bring prosperity and wealth instead of disaster and loss. The place where these improvements will have their sources is in the scientific instruction given and to be given in schools of mining engineering. When the time comes that managers of mines have had proper training, including both theoretical and applied science, a mine will be something more than a dangerous burrow in the rock, and the dump piles, that now signify only wasted labor, will themselves yield profit for labor. The COLLEGE OF NATURAL SCIENCE has received a new and more efficient impulse within the two years now closing. This has come from the removal to the University of the State Laboratory of Natural History, under its accomplished Director, Dr. Stephen A. Forbes, and with its corps of trained and skillful assistants. The Director of this Laboratory is also the State Entomologist. The union of these two functions in one person was a step wisely taken, since the work of the two offices is so similar in its nature and so identical as to its field. The devastation caused by insect foes is becoming annually a growing cause of loss to the farmer and the fruit grower. The causes which influence and modify these evils are climatic and biologic. The study which shall discover and