Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871 [PAGE 76]

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63 evidence of the useful character and brilliant prospects of this branch of industrial education. There has been a steady increase in the number of students in the Mechanical and Engineering courses, arid the liveliest interest has been shown in their studies and shop practice. You will see in our apparatus cases a goodly amount of apparatus made in the shops by students. The cases themselves are also their work. The steam heating, introduced into the University building since your last meeting, is the work of their hands. The heating apparatus of the green house was cast from patterns made in the shop, and then put in by student labor. Some valuable pieces of apparatus have been manufactured for other institutions, or for private parties, and if the shop is credited with the value of the apparatus manufactured, and the work performed for other departments, it will be found self-sustaining. An appropriation of $25^000 has been asked from the Legislature to provide larger and better furnished shops, and for a drill hall, and plans will be laid before you for your approval, for such building. The erection of such a building will greatly facilitate the work of the department and increase its power. I cannot too strongly commend the earnestness and zeal of Prof. Robinson in his work.

OTHER DEPARTMENTS.

It is not necessary to go into detail in reference to the other departments, but it would be unjust to pass them in silence. The department of the English Language and Literature, unsurpassed by any other in its practical every-day value, has been so admirably managed by Prof. Baker as to demand for him your highest consideration. I have never known, any where, more life and energy thrown into this study of our mother tongue ; and the students who have received the benefit of his indefatigable instruction will long have reason to remember the thorough drill given them in the correct use and critical knowledge of their vernacular, and of the rich fields of its splendid literature. The classes in this department have been larger than in any other, the class beginning with this year numbering over 70 members. The department of Chemistry has also exhibited remarkable vitality. The fundamental character of this science, and its wide scope of relations both to the other sciences and to agriculture and the useful arts, give it great importance in an institution consecrated to industrial education. It is, therefore, a matter of profound gratulation that so large a proportion of our students voluntarily seek this course. It is no small proof of the efficiency of its enthusiastic and able Professor, H .