The low salary paid to professors and instructors in American universities is a great reproach, and until its removal we are likely to see the successful competition of other professions and vocations for the best brains of the country. The matter cannot be more clearly or forcibly expressed today than it was by Bacon in his "Advancement of Learning," three hundred years ago: "And because founders of colleges do plant, and founders of lectures do water. it followeth well in order to speak of the defect which is in public lectures; namely, in the smallness and meanness of the salary or reward which in most places is assigned unto them; whether they be lectures of arts, or of professions. For it is necessary to the progression of sciences that readers be of the most able and sufficient men; as those which are ordained for generating and propagating of sciences, and not for transitory use. This cannot be, except their condition and endowment be such as may content the ablest man to appropriate his whole labour and continue his whole age in that function and attendance; and therefore must have a proportion answerable to that mediocrity or competency of advancement, which may be expected from a profession or the practice of a profession." STUDENTS The number of different persons who received instruction in the University in the year 1908-1909 was 4,859. The number in 1907-1908 was 4,465 and in 1906-1907, 4,225. The distribution of these students among the different courses is shown by the following table, which gives the corresponding figures for the preceding years since the year 1904-1905: 211684 228 90 316 110 189 199 68 385 1060 619 3841 81 425 1096 642 4122 82 466 1081 755 4225 1904-1905 1905-1906 232705 222 59 335 88 230 248 1906-1907 239 748 21163 285 86 278 244 1907-1908 249 820 206 63 257 82 348 270 100 511 1127 841 4465 1908-1909 310 902 225 33 188 94 415 364 133 569 1162 889 4859 The records of Cornell University always carefully distinguish between students in the regular courses leading to degrees, and attendants in the Summer Session and the Winter School in Agriculture who enter without examination. These latter are excluded from the following table, which takes account only of students regularly enrolled in courses leading to degrees during the academic year from September to June: Year 1904-1905 211 684 228 406 110 189 68 385 1060 3318 1905-1906 232 705 222 394 1906-1907 239 748 211 348 86 278 82 466 1081 3523 82 348 100 511 1127 3734 1907-1908 249 820 206 320 1908-1909 310 902 225 221 94 415 133 569 1162 3985 This table shows that the attendance of regularly enrolled students in 1908-1909 was almost 4,000, or to be exact was 3,985. Of these 3,985 regularly enrolled students 3,584 were men and 401 women. The increase over the attendance of the preceding year was 251. The figures also show that there is a gain in every College except Medicine. The largest increase has been in the College of Arts and Sciences, in which the enrollment is 902 as compared with 820 in 1907-1908, 748 in 1906-1907, and 705 in 1905-1906. This increase in attendance in the College of Arts and Sciences has taken place in spite of a slight decline in the number of women enrolling in that College. In 1907-1908 there were 313 women and 507 men, in 19081909 there were 309 women and 593 men. The attendance of regularly enrolled students in Cornell University was affected in 1908-1909, and will be affected for some years to come, by the requirement of a baccalaureate degree for admission to the Medical College, which went into effect in September, 1908. Before this date students had been admitted to the Medical College fresh from the high schools, and the enrollment in 1907-1908 was 320 as against 221 in 1908-1909. The enforcement of the requirement of a baccalaureate. degree for admission in September, 1908, has affected, of course, only the entering class, but it has reduced the total attendance for the year 1908-1909 to 221. It will be three years more before all the large classes have graduated. By that time the total attendance in the Medical College may not improbably be as small as 50, but this shrinkage was not only foreseen but actually assumed by the authorities of the University when they decided to require the baccalaureate degree for admission to the College. It was felt that there was room in the great City of New York for at least one medical college devoted exclusively to the professional training of college graduates and to the work of scientific investigation. The reduction in the number of students in the Medical College, which for many years will not again be as large as it has been, will enable the members of that Faculty to devote themselves more assiduously than ever to scientific research. Of the total of 3,985 regularly enrolled students a little more than half (2,099) came from the State of New York. From Pennsylvania came 360; New Jersey, 201; Ohio, 168; Illinois, 136; Massachusetts, 109; while 750 came from forty-five other states and territories of the United States (including Porto Rico, Hawaii, the Philippine Islands, and Yukon Territory) and 157 from thirty-two different foreign. countries, (including China, 33; Cuba, 19; Argentine Republic, 12; Canada, 10; Mexico, 10; Japan, 10; India, 6; Brazil, 5; Ecuador, 5; Paraguay, 5; Peru, 5; Australia, 5, etc.) A NEW RESIDENTIAL HALL In the Report for 1906-1907 there is the following paragraph: "The experience of American students seems to show that the fraternity house, accommodating two or three dozen students, presents, in the matter of size and arrangement, an ideal for the residential hall: it is large enough for a community and not too large for intimate acquaintance and friendship; it provides studies, bedrooms, bath rooms, kitchen, dining room, and common rooms (the size and number of which might perhaps be reduced in houses owned by the University). Thirty of these houses would accommodate about 1,000 young men. The cost of building them would undoubtedly be greater than the cost of ten larger halls each accommodating one hundred students, with a separate dining hall, like the dormitories and halls of Harvard and Yale. But in this age of mechanism and bigness, it is especially desirable that the universities should possess the most favorable conditions for the development of manhood-for the moulding of man moral and social as well as of man intellectual. And such communities of 25 or 35 young men would, the President has come to believe, be more fruitful seed-plots of personality than the conventional dormitory with one or two hundred chambers, but no dining hall or common room. Either, however, would be a great improvement on the present condition at Cornell. But for either the University must await gifts from the friends of higher education." An interesting experiment along these lines has just been established at Cornell. It appears that a number of students have been sent to the University by the Telluride Institute, a corporation which owns and operates a number of power plants in Colorado and Utah. The head of that business, Mr. L. L. Nunn, visited the University in June and explained to the President that he desired to erect on or near the campus a building to be used as a home by these young men. Mr. Nunn is greatly interested in scientific research, of which a beginning may be made in connection with the new residential hall. Meanwhile a group of University students, undergraduate or graduate, selected by him will have the advantage of living together in this new and beautiful home. This makes better provision for the life of the young men than could be offered by the University, which on the other hand has no responsibility for the enterprise. It appeals, however, very deeply to the sympathy and interest of the President, Trustees, and the friends of the University. Mr. Nunn's generosity may prove an inspiration to other wealthy men and the house he is building on the campus may possibly serve as a model for the type of smaller student halls at Cornell. It will certainly furnish an opportunity of testing the advantages which have been claimed for the type of small residential halls, particularly when occupied by older students, graduates or upperclassmen. The building, located on West Avenue next to the Delta Upsilon lodge, will accommodate about forty students. It is of fire-clay brick, four stories in height, with a frontage of 106 feet and a depth of 48 feet. It is of fire-proof construction throughout all partitions, on a steel frame. The two upper floors are divided into suites of two rooms and a bath. The rooms are all large, none being less than 12 by 18 feet. The second or main floor contains the library, hall, and |