of geology and physical geography. Already the departments of physiology, anatomy, and histology were ideally accommodated in Stimson Hall. So that only the department of botany is now in pressing need of a new laboratory, its present scanty quarters in Sage College being altogether inadequate and in demand too to increase the capac ity of Sage as a lodging place for women students. If, however, one looks forward a short time, it will be obvious that the rapidly growing department of chemistry cannot for many years longer be contained in Morse Hall, which it is now filling almost to the utmost limits.

The departments of science, speaking generally, are committed to three or perhaps to four kinds of work. They are expected to cultivate research and investigation, to give instruction to students in technical and professional courses in which the sciences are prescribed, to teach elementary science to undergraduates who take the subject as a means of general culture, and to conduct through more. advanced and specialized courses those students who, without planning to go so far as graduate work, yet desire to know more of the subject than is given either in the courses for beginners or the courses prescribed for students in the technical colleges.

How successfully are the departments of science discharging this fourfold function? The question is one of vital importance to Cornell University. And, as no department is to be mentioned by name, the question may be considered with the utmost frankness. If evils are to be eliminated, the first step is to recognize their existence.

The President believes that, with rare exceptions, the departments of science in Cornell University are unusually successful in the discharge of the first and last of the four functions mentioned above. Graduate students who devote themselves to research and undergraduates who

take advanced work almost always find here the stimulus, the guidance, and the instruction they need and desire. And when they complete their studies they go out as living epistles of the University to be known and read of all men. Here is what one department of Cornell University is able to report :

"The students who have taken advanced degrees in physics in the past have in a large majority of cases become teachers of physics in colleges and technical schools. In this state the professorship of physics is held by a Cornell man at Columbia, Hamilton, Colgate, and Rochester. In the state universities of Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Utah, and Florida the head of the physics department is from Cornell, as well as in Purdue University, Tulane, and Winnipeg. Head professorships in electrical engineering are held by men who were graduate students here, with physics as their major study, at Massachusetts Institute, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Ohio State University, Purdue, University of Minnesota, and Stanford. If we were to include the younger men holding assistant professorships and instructorships, and those in secondary school work, this list of former graduate students at Cornell who now hold important teaching positions would be greatly increased."

Other departments could undoubtedly make a similar showing, if not in all cases so striking and impressive. Even the new department of experimental psychology (to take an example outside the domain of physical and natural science) has, besides establishing a reputation for its investigations, furnished professors to a goodly number of state universities in the west and to colleges in the east. But there is no need of laboring the point. In the matter of research and advanced instruction the work of the departments of science at Cornell University is perhaps unexcelled.

There remain, however, for consideration the other two functions with which these departments are charged: the instruction of beginners in science and the more extensive instruction given to students in the technical colleges. The latter involves many hundreds of students. But with the large lecture rooms and laboratories which the University now possesses there is no difficulty in suitably accommodat

ing them. The crux of the problem is in the teaching. And in regard to the teaching, if perfection is still unattained, substantial progress has been made, and professors continue to wrestle with the problem. The general plan is that of lectures by the professors and regular recitations and laboratory work under instructors. But here, as elsewhere in the University, the student does not always get as much personal attention and supervision as the best individual training calls for. Occasionally too a teacher who delights in advanced work and investigation may look upon this drill as a mechanical task, as a drudgery he would gladly be rid of in order that he might devote his attention to investigation or more advanced instruction. Such an attitude, if it exists, is deplorable and really unpardonable. A teacher has no higher duty than to give freely of his best to the students before him, be they beginners or graduates. Another criticism on the instruction given by professors of science to students in the technical colleges is that they sometimes fail to adapt it to the technical point of view and are too apt to accentuate what is of interest to themselves or what is related to their own investigations. This criticism, however, is now heard at Cornell much less frequently than in former years. Through conferences between professors of science and professors of engineering and other technical subjects a general agreement seems likely to be reached as to the scope of the scientific instruction needed. Certainly the largest departments of science can now truthfully say, as one of them reports:

"We shall continue to get nearer to the technical colleges, and to understand and appreciate their needs, and meet them in the best way possible. Our teachers are so experienced that this can be done without impairing the educational value of the work, or lowering our standards."

How fares it then with the remaining function of the departments of science, the instruction of beginners, of

those undergraduates who seek science as a means of general culture and who, as a rule, will not take more than a single course in any one science.

First of all, it should be noted that there is an abundance of such courses offered. They are furnished by the departments of astronomy, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, physiology, geology, and physical geography. Only one serious gap exists. There is no elementary course on general biology. And there is a demand, alike among students and professors, for a course in which not only the theories about evolution can be systematically treated, but in which the organic living body can be adequately defined and discussed as a whole. The living organism is a constantly changing body. Its phenomena are expressed in the cytogenesis of cells, the growth and development of embryos and individuals, and in the evolution of races of which the paleontologist is the student. The zoologist, botanist, and paleontologist are all concerned with these phenomena as well as the microscopic embryologist. The physicist reduces the organic phenomena to modes of action; and the chemist reduces them to changes in chemical composition,-what is needed is a man to give an elementary, but thoroughly scientific course on the evolution of living organic bodies, a course which would treat of their change of form, substance, and behavior, while retaining their identity as living organisms.

But pending the addition of this new course to the curriculum it behooves the University to make the most of the great wealth of elementary courses already offered in the physical and natural sciences. What of them? they adapted to the end in view?

Are

The President believes that, speaking generally, these elementary courses are for arts students the least satisfactory offered by the departments of science in Cornell University.

It would appear, however, that this is not a condition peculiar to Cornell. And the President is relieved to find a description of it in another university written by another hand. The report of the faculty committee on improving instruction in Harvard College contains the following passage:

"It is noticeable that the students regard English and other modern languages, philosophy, history, geology, and some other studies as culture subjects in a higher sense than mathematics, the classics, and most of the sciences. The Committee believes that such a distinction is unfortunate, and that, so far as possible, every Department ought to provide courses for students who are not to be specialists in it, and that such courses should require as much systematic work as other courses in the Department. A course of this kind should familiarize the student with the conceptions of principles on which the subject is based, with the methods of thought of those who pursue it, and with the tests of truth that are used in it. Such courses, which teach how men of letters and men of science, philosophers and historians, regard the world and its problems are of value to specialists and non-specialists alike. At present it would appear that in the Departments where work is done mainly in the laboratory the descriptive courses are apt to be weak. The Committee appreciates the difficulty of the problem. Instructors who want excellent work from their students can get it more readily among those to whom the courses mean a part of a lifelong career; and, on the other hand, the easiest way to induce students to take a subject for culture is to make it not too difficult. Hence one course tends to grow harder and more specialized, and another, because recognized as a culture course, softer and more general. These tendencies are dangerous to the character of an institution such as ours."

In a previous section of this Report mention was made of the need of elementary courses in science for students in arts. Agassiz's description of the character they should assume was quoted. They should be general and comprehensive, not microscopic and intensive, as the specialist is too apt to make them. A model will be found in the elementary textbooks written by Huxley. Students in these courses of science should be required to do regular and systematic work; "soft" and "snap" courses in science are a desecration of the name. And the President believes that no course in science should be given in which the student is not required to do laboratory work for himself. The