Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1884 [PAGE 12]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

16 BUILDINGS AND GBOUNDS. The domain occupied by the University and its several depart ments embraces about 623 acres, including stock farm, experimental farm, orchards, gardens, nurseries, forest plantations, arboretum, ornamental grounds, and military parade ground. The University buildings, fifteen in number, include a grand main building for public use, one large and two small Dormitory buildings, a spacious Mechanical building and Drill-hall, a large Chemical laboratory, a Veterinary hall, a small Astronomical observatory, three dwelling, two large barns, and an ample green-house. The Mechanical building and Drill-hall is of brick, 126 feet in length and 88 feet in width. It contains a boiler, forge and tankroom; a machine shop, furnished for practical use, with a steam engine, lathes, and other machinery; a pattern and finishing shop; shops for carpentry and cabinet work, furnished with wood-working machinery; paint room and rooms for models, storage, etc. In the second story is the large Drill-hall, 124 by 80 feet, sufficient for the evolutions of a company of infantry, or a section of a battery of field artillery. It is also well supplied with gymnastic apparatus. One of the towers contains an armorer's shop and military model room, an artillery room and a band room. The other contains a printing office and editor's room. The large Dormitory building is 125 feet in length and five stories in height. This was so badly damaged by storms in the spring of 1880 that it is not fit for use. It afforded 80 private rooms for students. Two smaller Dormitory buildings contain eight rooms each. The new Chemical building, erected in 1878 at a cost, including furniture, of $40,000, contains five laboratories, and is one of the best and largest in the United States. ADMISSION AND GKADUATION.

CHOICE OF STUDIES.

It has been a favorite aim of the University from the outset, to allow as much freedom as possible in the selection of studies. A University is designed not for children, but for men and women, who may claim to know something of their wants, powers and tastes. It is not useful to require every student, without regard to his capacity or practical wants, to take entire some lengthened "course of study.'' Each student should weigh carefully his own powers and needs, and counsel freely with his teachers as to the branches he may need to fit him for his chosen career, and then should pursue them with earnestness and perseverance, without faltering or fickleness. It is necessarily required:—that the student should be thoroughly prepared to enter and keep pace with the classes in the chosen studies, and that he shall take these studies in the terms in which they are taught. Candidates for a degree must take the course of study prescribed for that degree.