Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1896 [PAGE 297]

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300

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

completed, and those published or in press, I ask leave to file as a special supplementary report, for general circulation. I should be glad to have your order for a separate print of a thousand copies of this report, with illustrations, to be separately bound in pamphlet form at the expense of the State Laboratory of Natural History. I will only say now, in general, that the conclusions already reached, especially in Dr. Kofoid's department of so-called plankton work, cannot fail to command the close attention and strong interest of scientific men, the world over, engaged in investigations of this class. The summer opening of the Station to investigating and other independent students resulted in the acceptance of our invitation by twenty-two persons, five of whom were finally prevented from attending. Our accommodations were limited to fifteen workers additional to the Station force, but as the seventeen who arrived did not all present themselves at once, we were able to provide satisfactorily for them. These seventeen visitants represented the states of Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and Utah. Eight were members of college or university faculties; five were teachers of biology in high schools or academies; two were city school superintendents; and two were college students in advanced courses. The colleges and universities represented by them were the Wesley an University, at Bloomington, 111.; the Nebraska Wesleyan University; Carthage College, at Carthage, 111..; Knox College, at Galesburg; Lincoln University, at Lincoln; Eureka College r at Eureka; Cornell College, at Mt. Vernon, la.; Drake University, at Des Moines, la.; the University of Utah, Salt Lake City; and the University of Illinois. The high sehools and academies sending instructors to the Station were University School, Cleveland, O.; Detroit High School, Detroit, Mich.; the Public High School at Dwight, 111., and the high schools at Havana, IU. r and Marshalltown, la. They were a competent and energetic group of students; a credit to the Station, and in some respects an aid rather than a hindrance to our work. Two of them, Professor Kelly, of Cornell College, Iowa, and Mr. Beardslee r of University School, Cleveland, Ohio, are preparing papers presenting the scientific results of their Station investigations, which they have kindly placed at my disposal for publication in the State Laboratory Bulletin as a part of the series of papers growing out of the Station work. Our summer visitants were, I think without exception, pronounced in their appreciation of the opportunity offered them, and emphatic in their expressions of surprise at the attractiveness of the situation and the richness of the biological field in wThich the Station is established. Several of them have already filed requests for admission next year. The success of the "Summer Opening,' 7 together with several conversations which I have had with teachers of biology, public school superintendents, and the like, have convinced me that it is incumbent upon us, if in any way practicable, to extend this offering of an opportunity for midsummer work to public school teachers of biology, and I have taken some preliminary