During the year we have been fortunate in our exchange professors, both in those we have received and those we have sent forth. From France came Dr. Charles Dichl, Professor of Byzantine History at the University of Paris; from Germany Dr. Willy Kuekenthal, Professor of Zoology and Director of the Zoological Institute at the University of Breslau. To Berlin we sent Professor Theobald Smith of the Medical School, and to Paris Professor William Morris Davis of the Geological Department. The alliance whereby we are to send annually a member of our staff to lecture for a month at each of four Western colleges, Knox, Beloit, Grinnell, and Colorado, was inaugurated during the second half of the year by Professor Albert Bushnell Hart. Instructors were sent to Harvard by two only of these colleges. They were Walter Houghton Freeman, Instructor in Greek at Grinnell, who acted as Assistant in Greek here; and Elijah Clarence Hill, Head Professor of Romance Languages and Literature of Colorado, who gave an independent course in Spanish-American poetry.
Widener Memorial Library.
The University as a whole rejoices in the munificent offer of a new library building by Mrs. George D. Widener. Gore Hall has long been lamentably insufficient to contain the books on its catalogue. Many thousands of them, in yearly increasing numbers, have been stored in the basements of other buildings, while Gore Hall itself has been far too crowded for a proper use even of the volumes on its shelves. Among the precious lives lost on the "Titanic" was that of Harry Elkins Widener of the class of 1907, a rare collector of rare books. His collection, comprising many editions of great value and interest, he left to his mother, with a request to give it to Harvard when there was a building suitable for the purpose. But Gore Hall was not fireproof, and Mrs. Widener, in view of the conditions, generously determined to build a complete university library on the general interior plan worked out by our committee of architects a year ago, with additional rooms for her son's books in a part of the open court in the centre of the building. These rooms and the volumes they contain are to be under the charge of a special librarian selected by Mrs. Widener, who gives also a fund of $150,000 to care for, and at her discretion to enlarge, the collection. The other parts of the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library will form the four sides of a quadrangle, whereof the northern side, with the main entrance, will cover very nearly the site of the present Gore Hall, and the south front will be about one hundred feet from Massachusetts avenue. The building will contain one large and several smaller reading rooms on the North, and rooms for seminars on the upper floor; while the greater part of the eastern, western and southern sections will be occupied by the stack, in which, however, there will be provided working rooms for professors and a large number of tables separated by glass screens for other readers. Such an arrangement is designed to make the stack as convenient of access as possible to the scholars who use it, so that they may work with all their tools at hand.
Housing our books where they would be safe and could be used during the construction of the new building was no easy problem. It has been solved partly by turning Upper and Lower Massachusetts into reading-rooms; partly by the hospitality of Andover Theological Seminary, which has kindly allowed us to use any vacant space on its shelves; partly by sending appropriate books to various departmental libraries; but chiefly by transferring the students' dining-tables from Randall Hall to Foxcroft, and building temporary stacks for four hundred thousand volumes in the Hall, one of the few fireproof buildings we possess. Although the transfer of the books was made in term-time, it was carried out by Professor Coolidge, the Director of the Library, with such skill that there has been almost no interruption in their use.
Coolidge Memorial Laboratory.
Another important gift of a building has been that of a chemical laboratory by the Hon. T. Jefferson Coolidge in memory of his son, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, Jr., of the class of 1884. This building will be nearly of the same size as the Wolcott Gibbs Laboratory, and will be used for quantitative analysis. It faces Divinity avenue, and will form part of the proposed, and sorely needed, group of chemical laboratories between that avenue and Oxford street. Work upon it had been carried on as rapidly as possible, with the result that by the end of the year 1912 the outer walls were built and the timbers of the root were laid, ensuring its readiness for use before the opening of the next college year.
Other Gifts.
Of the other gifts received the largest have been: that of Mrs. Sage for the Freshman Dormitory; $100,000 from the class of 1887 on its twenty-fifth anniversary; $125,000 from Mr. Edmund Cogswell Converse to found a professorship of Banking in the School of Business Administration; $100,000 from Mrs. Collis P. Huntington for the construction of the Cancer Hospital; $74,285.71 from the estate of Mrs. William O. Moseley for travelling fellowships in the Medical School; $50,000 from the estate of Miss Harrlet E. Goodnow to keep poor students in Harvard College; $50,000 from Mr. George R. Agassiz for the use of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. These and many other benefactions are described more fully in the report of the Treasurer.
Pressing Needs of University.
Recipients of such generosity seem churlish in asking for more, but our needs are ever outrunning out resources, and one of the objects of the annual report is to point them out. There is still a deficit in the University, College and Library account, although for the year 1911-12 it was reduced to $14,750.40. Until it disappears we cannot expect an expansion of those departments that are undermanned, and still less any increase in salaries. That the incomes of professors are inadequate in view of the grade of talent required is generally admitted, and the constant rise in prices has been reducing their purchasing power year by year. One of the most pressing needs is more laboratories for instruction and research in Chemistry, perhaps the most promsing field for scientific investigation and one in which our equipment is still singularly insufficient. Another is an endowment for the Dental School, the imperative need of which was urged in the last report with a reference to the great services rendered to the public by the operating rooms and the sacrifices of the clinical instructors. Still another is the endowment of professorships in the School of Business Administration. One such, in Banking, has been founded as already stated by the generosity of Mr. Converse, but three more are required, and efforts are being made to raise the funds by subscriptions. Every professional school has meant the substitution of thorough instruction in the principles of an art for the slower and less comprehensive process of learning them by apprenticeship; and this School is based on a belief that the principles governing business organization and methods, which have been wrought out in practice by the labor of a generation of expert administrators, can be taught in a way to save the time of the student and make him more efficient. No new professional school, moreover, demonstrates its full value swiftly, and we need not be surprised that most of the students in our School still think a single year of its training sufficient. That the School, however, has already won recognition of its usefulness is proved by the rapid increase in the number of men entering it. During the first few years the progress was naturally slow, but the period of experiment appears to have passed; for the number of first-year students taking full work rose in the autumn of 1912 to 71 as against 45 the year before, and these 71 were graduates of 35 different colleges in all parts of the country.
Friends of the University are trying to raise money for a building for the Department of Music. The sum required to erect the building has been generously offered on condition that $50,000 is subscribed for its maintenance, and this is nearly accomplished. An effort is also being made to enlarge the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in accordance, with the original plan, and the subscriptions for this purpose are well under way. The collections of American ethnology are large and constantly growing, too large already for the building new standing. When the addition is built the University Museum designed by Mr. Agassiz will be complete.
University Press.
The University now possesses several special funds for the publication of books or periodicals on various subjects. These funds in the aggregate are considerably, but there is a growing conviction that a great institution of learning cannot attain its full usefulness without a university press which can publish the writings of its scholars. To that object the special funds now in hand would contribute greatly. Yet it is not enough that certain subjects are provided for. Nor do these funds enable the University to do its own printing. It would be an advantage, and in the long run as economy, if we could collect fonts of type in different languages which a commercial printer can ill afford to buy for the text or notes to an occasional book which may come into his hands. Many of the books issued by a university press would more than pay for themselves. Almost all of them would pay a part of their cost, but some works of great scholarly value yield little and can be published in no other way. If selected by a judicious committee, the publications of such a press would contribute much to the credit of the University, and, what is more important, would stimulate productive scholarship which still lags behind in America. Neither the initial cost of such a press nor the expense of maintenance is very large, but an endowment is absolutely essential if it is to be established. A committee has been appointed to consider the subject and ascertain whether the funds can be procured.
Forms of Useful Gifts.
One word about the form of gifts that will ensure the greatest usefulness. Sometimes benefactors encumber their funds with provisions too inelastic in their application. The object may well be made precise, so that the intent shall be strictly observed; but the best means of attaining that object may vary in the course of time. Permanent funds endure into an indefinite future, and it is not wise to try to be wiser than all posterity. The details of application for the object named may often be left to the sagacity of those who will come hereafter.
In a brief annual report it is impossible even to touch upon all the manifold activities of the University. It is better to confine one's remarks to the matters of most common interest, without intending to imply that other things are of less importance. Nothing has, therefore, been said here of many of our great departments, such as the Observatory, the Arboretum, the Bussey Institution, the Museums, and the laboratories. For these and for more detailed information about the different Faculties and Schools, the Overseers and friends of the University are respectfully referred to the reports of the Deans and Directors which are submitted and printed herewith.