Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1886 [PAGE 167]

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159 its claim to rank among to older schools by the work it has actually accomplished—I shall be free to state more fully the explicit needs. By thoughtful attention and rigid economy, if there be any fund available, however small, I can use it at any time, however, in such a manner as to aid very materially in the work of instruction, without detriment to any future plans for the enlargement of the scope of the apparatus. I may suggest, also, that there is, to some extent, a l^ck of apparatus in the Physical Department in just the direction in which pressing needs will first appear in*the Department of Mining Engineering. For instance, aneroid barometers, anemometers, etc., will be equally applicable in both departments. As agreed at the time of my appointment to the professorship of Mining Engineering, the work of the Department of Physics has been temporarily placed in my hands. The more I become familiar with the apparatus and with the system of instruction marked out in detail by yourself, the more clearly I realize how ably and effectively this department was managed before I took charge. Had I desired to arrange the work under all the circumstances to the best advantage of all, I could not have begun to accomplish it in my own way in anything like such thorough manner. Every detail of the work I find all gone over and clearly arranged for me, so that the burden of this department, although much increased by certain changes made by the faculty since my arrival, is still nothing like what it must have been under other circumstances. I have had two classes in Physics, one comprising chiefly the students in the engineering courses, the other what are known as general students, so far as this department is concerned, One term of work under this system has amply proven the wisdom of the division. I am satisfied, however, that other radical changes must be made before the instruction in this essential subject can fulfill its proper office in the curriculum. Time enough is not allowed for the special class, and I believe that more laboratory work would be an admirable thing. The subject is so broad and so intimately connected with the engineer's daily work, that we are obliged to crowd too subjects into two terms. This leaves little room for the solving of practical problems. There are other questions connected with laboratory work, which do not properly fall to be here discussed. I wish to most emphatically commend my senior assistants, Messrs. Garrett and Cromwell, to whose untiring zeal, patience and readiness to do mors than their duty has been largely due the success of the laboratory work thus far. I can say but little at this time of the actual work in my department beyond what has been mentioned. In planning the new course every other consideration has given way to the puipose of giving students in this University the most thorough training possible without regard to the amount of labor demanded of instructors. In my own case, while.the time must come, if I remain, when I shall be overburdened, this is not the place to speak of it, for I shall be able to carry all now required of me in addition to the Physics, at least through the present collegiate year. In conclusion, I should overlook one of the chief causes for whatever of success I have attained thus far, were I not to notice the