Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1878 [PAGE 106]

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106 mining engineering, and if that chair was now to be filled, possibly no better man could be found for the place.

ASSISTANT T E A C H E R S .

As I nominated to you at your last meeting, and you reappointed assistant teachers for the coming year for nearly a i r the departments, I need at present only ask to have lodged in the hands of the regent and of the professors in charge, authority to employ any additional instructors which the emergencies of our work may possibly demand. I t is impossible to foresee in all cases the amount of work, and we have been accustomed from year to year, to supply temporary deficiencies in our teaching force in this way. W e may need an instructor in education, to be paid as heretofore by the fees, and perhaps also in clay modeling and in chemistry. Beyond this I believe that our teaching force will be found adequate, unless the attendance shall largely exceed that of any former year.

SALARIES.

I crave the indulgence of the board in laying before you again the question of salaries. I am not unmindful of the embarrassments which beset the trustees of institutions like this, in the almost universal inadequacy of their funds to the many and diverse wants which press upon them. And I know how willingly the board of trustees would vote ample salaries to capable and faithful instructors. In the case of this University there is an additional reason for economizing in salaries in the increasing demand for additional men to fill chairs not yet provided for: but after all, there is a law of supply and demand which controls college salaries as well as the wages of all labor. If we would have and keep first class men we must pay the market price. T h e reduction of salaries below the average paid by similar institutions for similar services, exposes us constantly to losses such as that which we have just suffered in the removal of Prof. Robinson. Professors may not resign at once when their salaries are reduced; but each will feel himself at liberty to leave on the first offer of a larger salary, and as every really valuable man is steadily increasing in ripeness and value, we may expect to see one after another removed as fast as their ripened worth becomes known. A n d on the other hand a low rate of salaries forbids us to go into the market and seek t h e best men; whenever occasion comes to fill a vacant chair we must necessarily look for cheap men, which means young men without experience or reputation, or older men with but little merit or ability. I feel bound to utter to you my conviction that this University can never be maintained in full standing and power at the present rate of salaries, a rate not only lower than the state universities and other reputable colleges around us, but lower even than is paid at the state Normal schools. I am well aware that a general increase of salaries is impossible without an increase of current income. I feel that I should be wanting in duty if I did not urge on the board early consideration of the several sources from which an increase of funds might be obtained, and the adoption of measures for the restoration of the salaries to the old standard before suffering