One of the aims of the Freshman dormitories is to mix men of diverse origin and from different parts of the country, and thus foster intimacies among men with natural affinities who are not at present thrown together. Harvard has been called a rich man's college, and truly, if it means that there are many rich men in the student body. But it is still more a poor man's college, if we may judge from the report of the Employment Office on the number of students working their way by their own earnings. In fact, Harvard is in a singular degree representative of the different elements in the American people, and, therefore, an excellent place to fit oneself for citizenship in the nation if one seizes the opportunity it affords of friendly companionship with the many types of men within its walls.

Another aim of the new dormitories is to bring students earlier into the full current of college life. Juniors and Seniors get far more out of the life, intellectually and socially, than Freshmen. In his first year, a man finds it hard to adjust himself to his new surroundings. Being unfamiliar with the possibilities about him, he does not know how to take advantage of them, and this is the more true of the broad opportunities of a large college. The Freshmen, of course, can never get as much out of college as the upper-classmen, but they can get far more than they do now in the comparative isolation in which they stand. By being brought at once into the compact body of the class they can be placed in a large stream of college life flowing in a larger channel than any smaller group they meet today.

Apart from some unforeseen catastrophy, the dormitories will be finished several weeks before the opening of the College in the autumn of 1914, and, in fact, the rooms are already being assigned by Professor Yeomans, the Assistant Dean of Harvard College in charge of the Freshmen. What immediate effect the dormitories will have on the size of the entering class, it is impossible to foretell. Nor is it important. Their full results will not be seen until they have been in operation two or three years.

Material Growth of University.

Quite apart from the Freshman dormitories, the year has been remarkable for the number of fiew buildings. By far the greatest among them is the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library. The corner-stone was laid in Commencement Week, and the work proceeded so rapidly during the summer and antumn that at the time of writing this report the girders for the roof are in place. The building is much the largest in the college grounds, and has a monumental and dominating character that expresses the relation of a library to the work of a university. It will be a relief to feel that our great collections, including the rare Widener books, are safe in a fireproof structure, and that the means of working in the stack are the most convenient that have yet been devised.

During the year, the Wolcott Gibbs Chemical Laboratory was completed, and the T. Jefferson Coolidge, Jr., Laboratory for quantitative analysis was finished soon afterwards in the autumn of 1913. Both of these laboratories have proved highly satisfactory. By a gift the central part of the Herbarium has been rebuilt, nearly completing the reconstruction of that important structure in fireproof materials. A full description of this improvement will be found in the report of the Curator. The sums needed to construct and maintain the addition to the Peabody Museum of Ethnology were subscribed by friends of the University, and before cold weather this autumn the walls and roof were finished. The addition completes the design for a University Museum projected by Professor Louis Agassiz forty years ago, a plan that seemed vast in its day and has been carried out mainly by the generosity of his descendants.

The fund needed for the maintenance of a new music building has been subscribed, and has enabled us to obtain the benefit of the gift for construction offered by James Loeb on this condition. The building is proceeding rapidly and will be finished in the course of the present academic year. Money has been given also for alterations in progress in the Fogg Museum of Art, to make the gallery more suitable for the exhibition of pictures, and to improve the working and teaching rooms. Lastly, by the gift of the late Miss Harriet O. Cruft, a laboratory for high tension electric currents is being built near the Jefferson Physical Laboratory.

Although not strictly a gift to the University, the new Stadium Bridge is a great benefit to Harvard. It is built by Larz Anderson, of the class of 1888, in memory of his father, Nicholas Longworth Anderson, of the class of 1858. A large and singularly graceful structure, it replaces the old bridge across the Charles, which was a constant source of anxiety during the football season.

In accordance with the policy of separating academic and professional education, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences approved a proposal whereby the School of Business Administration, like the Schools of Applied Science, should be placed under the charge of a Faculty of its own. This change, projected from the start for the time when the School should have passed the experimental stage, has now been carried into effect. Practically, the School was from the first governed by an administrative board, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences did little more than ratify its decisions; but the existence of a distinct Faculty gives additional solidarity and cohesion, greater responsibility, dignity and professional quality to the organization. The School is rapidly winning recognition among business men for its work and for its students, and some of the methods of cost accounting it has devised have been widely adopted by industrial firms. To place it upon a perfectly secure foundation, further permanent endowment is needed.

University Press Founded.

In the last report, the need of a University Press was strongly urged. Our Publication Office has for some years been publishing a small, though increasing, number of books; but, owing to a lack of capital, its work has been very limited. Some books by our scholars would more than pay for themselves; many others would very nearly repay their cost. This, however, requires time, and considerable sums of money must be expended before a substantial return can be expected. The first need, therefore, was active capital that could be advanced as needed for a few years. Enough has been generously promised by a friend of the University to justify starting the University Press, and it was organized in the course of the year with a Board of Syndics to select the books and superintend their publication. Nevertheless, only a beginning has been made which will not carry the Press far. We have, indeed, a number of publication funds for special subjects; but they are not large and cover only a small part of the field. We need urgently a general endowment for the Press, and later we shall need the means of doing all our own printing, instead of being compelled to place much of it in the hands of other printers. The report of the Publication Office in this volume gives an interesting list of the books already printed or in the course of publication.

My last report stated that the Blue Hill Observatory had been given to the University by Professor A. Lawrence Rotch, its founder and director, with a fund of $50,000 for its maintenance. Nothing can supply the place of the pioneer who conceived the plan of the observatory and guided its work into new fields of research; but his wife has supplemented the income from his fund so liberally that it has been possible to appoint Alexander George McAdie, Abbott Lawrence Rotch Professor of Meteorology and Director of the Observatory, and he entered upon his duties just before the opening of the new academic year.

Notable Year at Medical School.

The year has been notable in the Medical School for the opening of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. We have long looked forward eagerly to the completion of this hospital, which adjoins the School, and is intimately connected with it by the arrangement for joint appointment of the members of its staff and our instructors in medicine and surgery. The Children's Hospital has also been built close to the School, and the Infants' Hospital beside it is almost finished. The Medical School is now the centre of a group of hospitals conducted in full accord with it; and others will, it is hoped, soon be built nearby. The value of such a development will be recognized by all men interested in medical education and in bringing to the hospital patients the benefit of the latest advances in medicine.

Allusion was made in last year's report to the organization of the Graduate School of Medicine, with a view of consolidating and enlarging the instruction hitherto offered during the summer and in term time to physicians and surgeons in active practice. The courses which were opened at the beginning of the year, with an increased attendance, are more fully described in the report of Dean Arnold printed herewith.