Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1892 [PAGE 232]

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PROCEEDINGS OF BOARD OF

TRUSTEES.

235

I t has been found necessary to pay $50 for each lecture, inclusive of all "traveling and hotel expenses, and this seems to be the sum usually paid for such lectures by similar institutions. A large amount of very valuable material has been acquired in the form of diagrams, blue prints, la item slides, etc. The lantern slides were paid for, and have consequently been retained by the University. The lectures have been very interesting and useful, because they have treated professional topics of the gre itest present interest to engineers and architects, or have given the results of long continued studies and practical experiments. They have, further, brought the students into contact with leaders in professional work, and given an acquaintance with novel modes of thought and procedure. I t is certain t h a t the money could not have been expended in any other manner with equal benefit. I t is therefore requested t h a t an appropriation of $500 be now made by your Board for non-resident lecturers before the College of Engineering during the University year 1892-3. 2. Engineering Instruments. I t is further recommended t h a t an appropriation of $150 be made for the purchase of one Amsler's Integrator, and one Amsler's Suspended Planimeter, both having the latest improvements and to be imported duty free, and lor use in the College of Engineering. The most important use of the integrator is to obtain the numerical value of the moment of inertia of the cross section of a beam, girder, or •column. The section is first drawn full size, a tracing point of the instrument is then passed around its outline, and the required value is read off the instrument directly, without any of the very tedious approximations and computations necessary in using any other method. The value of the moment of inertia must always be found before the strength of the beam, girder, or column can be determined. The great practical value of the instrument to engineers and architects in working out the details of constructions in iron and steel is therefore sufficiently evident. The suspended planimeter is used for obtaining the exact areas of plane figures of any form, and is indispensable to mechanical engineers in measuring the areas of indicator diagrams, which show the quantity of work done by the steam engine, and indicate the proper setting of valves, economical use of steam, etc. This form of planimeter is used with but one-sixth the error incurred in the use of the ordinary form of planimeter. 3. Instructor in the elements of draughting, and in descriptive geometry. I t is with very great pleasure t h a t I can report the work done by Mr. Powell during the year as having been unusually satisfactory. I sincerely hope t h a t your Board will succeed in retaining his services for the coming year, though I understand he has been offered an excellent business position, much preferable financially. This position ought to be made at least an assistant professorship as soon as possible, so t h a t an instructor could be retained permanently, and the Board relieved of the necessity of trusting to good fortune in securing a different and satisfactory instructor each year. I t is very difficult to obtain the services of a competent graduate after he has been away from the University for a few years, and there is great risk in taking an untried man. This instructor is of especial importance in this College, for he is the principal technical instructor who meets the freshman class (100 during the current year), has very great influence on their habits and methods of work, and can properly eliminate the inefficient men before they have gone too far to enter upon some other line of study for which they may be better fitted. 4. T h a t an appropriation of $500 be made for additional apparatus and improvements in the testing laboratory of the College of Engineering. Very respectfully submitted,

"N. CLIFFORD R I C K E R .

Bean of College of Engineering.