Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - New Chemistry Building [PAGE 25]

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institution of learning can afford to multiply skilled attendants, when they are needed only during a rush hour in the afternoon. On the other hand, the use of unskilled help leads to mistakes, involving loss of money by the department and loss of time by the student. The provision of more than one supply room is an expensive remedy, and does not always prevent crowding. Instead of waiting twenty minutes or more for his turn, the student can in one minute write out his demand on the telautograph, and then return to his desk and go on with his work. A receiving clerk stamps the card in a calculagraph clock at the time the order comes in, and again when the boy returns (after delivering the article) and presents the same card signed by the student. The time required for filling the order need never exceed seven minutes: if it does, the cause of the delay is investigated. Of course, a stock of supplies equal to all ordinary demands must be available, and in the larger laboratories this stock represents an investment of at least $6o,ooo to $80,000. In all laboratories, much glass apparatus is returned in dirty condition. Since it will not be accepted in this condition by another student, it cannot be received. It is thrown away and the student's account is charged with its value. Installing dish washing machinery will save the greater part of this expense and reduce materially the number of new articles to be ordered, received, unpacked, checked, and stored. In our own experience the substitution of a charge for washing, in place of a charge for the whole cost of the apparatus thrown away because of being dirty, as it had been made the year before, reduced the breakage bills for an equal number of students by nearly $1200. During the year the apparatus of instructors and the apparatus used in lectures can be washed at one central place more economically than by scattered, unsupervised labor. Then, too, in many courses, cleaning apparatus takes up much of the time of the student. A graduate student, who is paying tuition, room rent, board and other living expenses, and who is sacrificing his earning power to obtain further education, can save time which has a high money value to him by sending his apparatus to the supply room for cleaning. Ring stands and burners are usually painted with asphalt paint. This gives an exceptionally porous covering, especially fitted to permit access of laboratory gases and to hold moisture. One investigator

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