To the Board of Overseers:

The President of the University has the honor to submit the following report for the year 1912-13:--

We have been fortunate in not losing by death a single member of the instructing staff in any department of the University during the academic year; but we have lost at the Observatory Oliver Clinton Wendell, who had taken part in the observations there since 1880, and been Assistant Professor of Astronomy since 1898. At the Library we have lost William Hopkins Tillinghast, whose services covered a period of nearly thirty years, twenty-six of them as Assistant Librarian. At the very close of the year, Reginald Heber Fitz, Hersey Professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic, Emeritus, died, leaving a reputation that will long endure in the medical profession.

There have been several resignations by reason of age. After a service of thirty-seven years, Professor John Chipman Gray the last of the great teachers who gave to the Law School its modern development and renown, felt the need of retiring during the course of the year. The Law School has lost also Mr. John Himes Arnold, its Librarian for forty years, by whose care and skill in purchasing books the library has grown to be the great collection of legal literature that it is today. From the Medical School have retired Dr. Clarence John Blake, instructor since 1875 and Professor of Otology since 1888; Dr. Franz Pfaff, who has served the School as instructor since 1894, becoming later Assistant Professor and Professor of Pharmacology; and Dr. John Hildreth McColom, whose service, first as instructor and then as Assistant Professor and Professor of Contagious Diseases, dates from 1896. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences has lost two notable figures for the same reason: Professor George Herbert Palmer, who has been a member of the instructing staff for forty-three years, and who crowned his services to the University by winning among the Western Exchange Colleges the affection long felt for him in Cambridge; and Francis Greenwood Peabody, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, and for five years Dean of the Divinity School, whose name is deeply associated with the movement that has placed that School and the University Chapel on a non-sectarian basis. The only other resignation from a full professor's chair was that of Ira Nelson Hollis, for twenty years Professor of Engineering, who resigned to become President of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Changes in Faculty.

The appointments to professors' chairs have been numerous. The following men, already serving as assistant professors, have been promoted to full professorships: Winthrop John Vanleuven Osterhout was made Professor of Botany; Ralph Barton Perry and James Haughton Woods, Professors of Philosophy; Lincoln Frederick Schaub, Professor of Commercial Law; and Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague, Edmund Cogswell Converse, Professor of Banking, -- these last two in the School of Business Administration. Charles Henry Conrad Wright, an Associate Professor, was made full professor of the French Language and Literature; and Joseph Warren, hitherto an instructor, became Professor of Law. Four assistant professors were made associate professors: William Morse Cole, of Accounting; Irvah Lester Winter, of Public Speaking; Edward Hall Nichols and Charles Allen Porter, of Surgery. Five appointments were made of men not in the service of the University; those of Wallace Walter Atwood, Professor of Physiography; Alexander George McAdie, Abbott Lawrence Rotch, Professor of Meteorology; Ernest Carroll Moore, Professor of Education; Richard Pearson Strong, Professor of Tropical Medicine; and Reid Hunt, Professor of Pharmacology.

We sent abroad as exchange professors: to Berlin, Charles Sedgwick Minot, James Stillman Professor of Comparative Anatomy; to Paris, George Grafton Wilson, Professor of International Law; and to the four Western Colleges, George Herbert Palmer, Alford Professor of Moral Philosophy. We were fortunate in receiving from Germany, Rudolf Eucken, Professor of Philosophy at Jena; from France, Emile Legouis, Professor of English at The Sorbonne; and from the Western Colleges, Paul Frederick Peck, Professor of History at Grinnell; Dwight Everett Watkins, Professor of Public Speaking and English at Knox; and Guy Harry Albright, Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Colorado.

New Admission Plan Successful.

The new plan of admission to Harvard College, although not yet perfected, has now been in operation long enough to give a definite measure of its usefulness. The proportion of applicants making use of it has been steadily increasing, while with the disappearance of the idea that it involved a lowering of the requirements, and the consequent lessening of poorly qualified candidates, the percentage of rejections has diminished. The plan is not indeed, designed to open the door to less well-educated boys, but to those with well-stocked minds who have not been specially trained for admission to Harvard College. The result of the examinations seems to show that the best scholars from any good high school can pass them, while those who are at the most only fair scholars from distant schools cannot. This is by no means contrary to the object sought,--the admission of the most promising youth from schools in all parts of the nation.

One of the aims of any system of college entrance examinations is a relatively constant standard of requirements. Fluctuations from year to year in the severity of the tests, as a whole or in particular subjects, are discouraging to school teachers and unfair to the candidates. But constancy of standard is by no means so easy to obtain as an out-sider may suppose. The examiners of necessity change, and the standard can be maintained evenly only by a survey of the whole list of marks after it has been completed. Yet the pressure for a rapid decision of cases causes the marks to be sent to the Committee as soon as they are awarded, and gives no sufficient opportunity for review by the examiners. Serious increases in the proportion of failures in the summer of fall of 1913 brought this matter to the attention of the Faculty, which agreed on October 21, 1913, that the Committee on Admissions shall have power to call upon the various departments to modify their marking if the standard appears to be irregular, or to deal with the marks received in such way as appears to the Committee to be just. The change is a marked improvement in the method of admission, and should secure a more even standard than has been possible heretofore.

A survey of the figures in the report of the Chairman of the Committee on Admission shows that the new plan admits a larger proportion of candidates for the degree of Bachelor of Science than the old plan; that is, of boys who have not studied Latin, or who have not studied it thoroughly enough to offer it for examination. Since the plan springs from an effort to reach the high schools of the country, such a result is not a surprise.

The relative numbers of Bachelors of Arts and of Science, or of candidates for these degrees, in the last seven classes have been as follows:-- Class of  *1911  *1912  *1913  *1914 A.B.,  414  419  406  331 S.B.,  44  52  56  38 Class of  1915  1916  1917 A.B.,  508  536  523 S.B.,  75  83  96

*These are the numbers of degrees conferred during the year, no distinction being made for those conferred in one year as of another.

*These do not include the three-year men who took their degree in 1913.

Standing of Classics Changed.

The increase in the proportion of Bachelors of Science has an important bearing upon the position of the classics as a part of general education, but upon nothing else; for the degree in Science means only that the candidate entered college without Latin. It involves no special study of scientific subjects, and the courses taken in College by the candidates for the degrees in Arts and Sciences may be, and often are, identical. In short, as Dean Briggs has expressed it, the degree of Bachelor of Science signifies not knowledge of Science, but ignorance of Latin. The position is certainly anomalous and illogical, and ought not to continue indefinitely. It has been proposed that candidates for the degree of Bachelor of Science should be required to concentrate in some scientific field. This would probably have the unfortunate effect of marking pure science as not an appropriate subject of a liberal education, and it would have the more immediate effect of forcing the issue whether Latin should be absolutely required, or not, for any college course devoted in the main to other than scientific branches; whether, for example, a student should or should not be allowed without it to concentrate in Economics or Music. This question must be faced at some time, but the College does not seem prepared to decide it now. The ultimate decision will depend upon the position the classics are able to maintain in the higher education of the country, for the undergraduate who drops Latin and Greek as soon as he enters college is not likely hereafter to see the need of his son's studying hem at school. The future of the classics would seem to depend upon he possibility of making it, as it is in large measure in The Greats course at Oxford, a living part of the liberal education of the day; to attach to it such matters as modern history, economics, and philosophy. Those of us who believe in the value of he classics in education must desire earnestly such a development, and strive to counteract a tendency to the isolation of classical studies.

Improvement In English Sought For.

A not less vital question of isolation was brought forward during the year by members of this Board,--the habit among candidates for admission to college, and even undergraduates, of regarding the writing of good English as something by itself, instead of an integral part of the command of any subject. Mr. William R. Castle, Jr., formerly of the English Department and Assistant Dean, is now making a careful investigation of the style used in theses and examination books in all branches of study. His report on the subject will be of great interest, and may well lead to decided improvements.

Another recent change in the College has been the gradual diminution in the proportion of men taking their degrees in three years. The numbers and percentages of men who graduated in three, three and a half, and four years, since the three-year degree was established, have been as follows:-- NUMBERS.   1901  1902  1903  1904  1905  1906 3 Years,  100  84  86  119  135  153 3 1-2 Years,  0  0  0  10  20  22 4 Years,  359  343  383  329  244  248 Total,  459  427  469  458  399  423   1907  1908  1909  1910  1911  1912 3 Years,  106  129  94  119  112  91 3 1-2 Years,  14  14  62  31  18  21 4 Years,  330  262  301  341  337  355 Total,  450  405  457  491  467  467   1913 3 Years,  91 3 1-2 Years,  20 4 Years  360 Total,  471

PERCENTAGES. 3 Years,  22  20  18  26  34  36 3 1-2 Years,  0  0  0  2  5  5 4 Years,  78  80  82  72  61  59   1907  1908  1909  1910  1911  1912 3 Years,  24  32  21  24  24  20 3 1-2 Years,  3  4  14  6  4  4 4 Years,  73  64  65  70  72  76   1913 3 Years,  19.5 3 1-2 Years,  4. 4 Years,  76.5

The causes for the diminution of three-year men are probably to be sought, in part at least, in the stiffening of easy courses and in a greater appreciation of the value of the fourth year--a value due not chiefly to the fact that it is the last, but rather to the fact that it is the fourth. Graduation in three years is sometimes taken to indicate unusual ability or industry; but, while it cannot be achieved by the really dull or indolent, it does not imply particularly good scholarship. It is less difficult to attain a C in five and a half courses a year than an A, or even a B, in four; and it is also less valuable as a training for after life--a fact not recognized by a few men who stay four years, taking their bachelor's degree in three, and a degree of Master of Arts in the fourth. A slight knowledge of the subjects taught in many courses is useful, but far less important than a better grasp of principles in a smaller number. To know what it means to do a piece of work thoroughly; to create for oneself a high standard of achievement, to put forth the strongest effort of which one is capable, is the most useful thing a man can learn; and the failure to bring home to the students the supreme merit of excellence in their work is the most grievous defect of our colleges. We lay stress on the mere earning of a degree, which can certify no more than mediocrity, and we do not emphasize enough the quality of attainment by which the degree was earned. With this in mind, a committee, consisting of all the deans in the University and two members of the Corporation, recommend to that body the insertion in the next Quinquennial Catalogue of the general and special distinctions attained at graduation. The proposal was adopted by the Corporation.

The failure on the part of the student of respect excellence in college work is not wholly unconnected with the American practice of counting by courses. In spite of every effort to maintain standards, courses will differ very much in difficulty; and the quality of mind required for winning high marks in a series of short detached courses is, not unnaturally, esteemed by undergraduates less highly than that which enables a man to grasp and expound a subject as a whole. In the last report, the importance of general examinations, such as those adopted in the Medical and Divinity Schools, was urged, and it is therefore gratifying that, with the approval of the Faculty, the Division of History, Government, and Economics has decided to require a general examination from students concentrating in those subjects. The text of the regulation is printed in the report of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The Principle is, perhaps, not needed or to be followed in all fields, for in some subjects, particularly Mathematics and Natural Science, each step on the ladder implies the one below, and an examination in an advanced course is virtually an examination on much of that which has gone before. But as an experiment in a range of subjects increasingly elected by undergraduates, the plan is to be welcomed, and supported heartily. It may well be destined to raise the whole level of college education.

One of the principal motives for staying in college only three years is the desire to get to work in the world as soon as possible. This may be due to poverty, and the need of shortening as much as possible the period of education, which is a pressing matter with many of our undergraduates. The number of students of small means at Harvard is little understood by those who do not come into direct contact with them, nor is the scale on which they are helped to find means of livelihood commonly known. The report of the Secretary for Employment, printed herewith, shows that in the aggregate students in the University earned last year not less than $184,643.82, one half of which was obtained by work found for them through his office.

Motives for Three-Year Course.

Some men stay only three years in college and hasten to get actively at work in the world, although they feel no financial pressure; and, considering the present age of entrance, this is not without justification. Children in the United States are sent to school late, make slow progress, especially in the primary stage, and in consequence come to our colleges later than they ought to come. Moreover boys who would be prepared for college at sixteen or seventeen are often deliberately held back at school, or after they have passed their entrance examinations, on the theory that hey are too young to be exposed to the temptations of college life. This is clearly a mistake, for statistics collected by our Department of Education during the year demonstrate that the students who enter young are on the average better scholars and better in conduct than the older ones.** In fact, on the chart, the lowering of average scholarship and the increase of the more severe forms of discipline progress quite steadily as the age at entrance advances. No doubt this is in part due to the fact that the boys who enter young are by nature quicker witted and more industrious; but probably the mere age at entrance counts for something. There is a natural time for the work and the pleasure of college, and the ordinary man who enters later than the normal has less impulse for study of which he can see no direct application, while he often seeks pleasures more highly spiced and less innocent.

Freshman Dormitories Realized.

The opening of the Freshman dormitories will go far to remove the present motives for holding boys back from college for fear of a sudden transition from the protection and discipline of home, or boarding-school, to the wide freedom and the supposed lack of restraining influence of college life. The real difficulty with the college has not been that students tend to evil, or are in need of more stringent regulations, but that they have been imprisoned too much in small groups of friends with ideas and aspirations often narrow, and in some cases mischievous, instead of being encompassed by large and heterogeneous masses of classmates whose aggregate outlook is wider and whose moral sense is on the whole very sound. Everyone familiar with the life of the student is impressed by the serious quality of the men who take part in those activities which affect any considerable portion of the

**Summarized under the title "Youth and the Dean," by Professor H. W. Holmes, in the Harvard Graduates' Magazine for June, 1913, undergraduates. The danger for the Freshman has lain in the accidents of individual environment, not in a lack of general discipline. The object of the dormitories, therefore, is in the main to improve the environment; not to curiall freedom by special rules, but to help men use it wisely. With this in mind, the Committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, appointed to consider the subject, recommend only a single regulation which has been adopted by the Faculty in the following form:

"All members of the Freshman Class will reside and board in the Freshman Dormitories, except those who are permitted by the Assistant Dean of Harvard College to live elsewhere. Exceptions will ordinarily be made in the case of students who wish to live at home.

In short, the only rule is that the Freshmen who do not live at home, or are not excused by the Dean for exceptional reasons, must live and board in the dormitories. In the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, students are required to be present at a certain number of meals each week in the common hall; but that involves the taking of attendance by monitors which would probably be felt vexatious by our students. Not is it necessary, for the fact that they are charged for their board, whether present or not, is certain to secure a sufficiently regular attendance without hampering the freedom of occasional absence. The less the sense of formal restraint, compatible with the result desired, the better. In other respects, the Freshmen will be subject to the discipline provided in college dormitories, although it will, of course, be possible to give closer attention to the conduct and studies of the newcomers, and exert a stronger influence upon them than has been practicable while they were scattered about in many different places.

Aims of New Dormitories.

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.

Admission Requirements Changed.

The change in the Medical School that attracted the largest amount of attention within the University related to the requirements for admission. This involved a departure from the policy, then nearly universal at Harvard, of requiring a bachelor's degree for entering the professional schools, and therefore it merits careful explanation. The requirement of the bachelor's degree for admission to the Medical School went into effect in 1901, but it was provided that students might be admitted without it by special vote of the Administrative Board. The exceptional cases were limited in 1909 to men who had spent two years in college and had pursued courses in physics, chemistry, and zoology. Moreover, they were admitted only as special students, and given a degree only if their marks in the School exceeded by a certain grade those of students regularly admitted. If, in addition to their two years of college work, they had pursued medical studies, they could be admitted to advanced standing only if they should "pass examinations and fulfil all requirements of laboratory and practical work in branches already pursued by the class to which they seek admission"; and then only as special students with the hope of a degree only if they obtained the higher grade. During the last few years the general state of medical education has led the Faculty to reconsider the wisdom of these provisions.

In the condition of knowledge at the present day training for medicine is of necessity longer than for the practice of any other profession. A thorough mastery of the subject requires four years, or, with the hospital experience which practically always follows in the best schools, it consumes five years; whereas other careers require at the most three years devoted to studies of a strictly professional character. Now, although a full college education preceding medical studies is highly valuable for a physician, and ought to be encouraged when possible, many young men well adapted to reach distinction in the profession are unable to afford the time and expense of eight or nine years of study, after leaving the high school, before beginning to earn a livelihood. Obviously, this is a much more important matter when the training requires eight or nine years than when it requires six or seven. Moreover, the time spent, after leaving the secondary school, in obtaining a medical degree in good schools both in Europe and America, is commonly six years. In Europe that is the case because young men habitually begin their medical or pre-medical studies at once on leaving the secondary school; and in almost all the American universities the same result is reached by allowing the first two years of medicine to count as the last two in college, so that in six years a young man obtains both his bachelor's and his medical degree.

"Combined Degrees" Unsatisfactory.

This American procedure, resulting in what is known as the "combined degree," we are unwilling to adopt at Harvard, because it involves counting the same work twice over for two degrees which together profess to require more time than has been expended, and because the college degree signifies with us a general non-professional education. In consequence, the Medial School was placed in the strange position of admitting men who had done two years of college and two of medical work, and thereby obtained a bachelor's degree, but of refusing them full credit for the medical knowledge. If they entered our School as regular students they must repeat their two years of study. If they sought credit for their medical work, they could enter only as special students and obtain a degree only if they achieved exceptionally good grades in medicine. Naturally they did not enter. Nor was this a theoretical difficulty alone. Many universities and colleges which provide the first two years of laboratory instruction in medicine are situated in small towns, without hospitals large enough for clinical instruction, and, therefore, give the clinical part of the course elsewhere, or in some cases do not give it at all. Young men who have acquired their laboratory instruction in this way must migrate, and some of them would no doubt prefer to go for their last two years to a school with large clinical material like ours.

What New Plan Will Achieve.

The rule of requiring a bachelor's degree for entrance, and not giving full credit for medical studies pursued before obtaining it, cut our School off from a valuable class of students. Moreover, it ran counter to an opinion very common in the medical profession, that a future medical practitioner had better devote his chief attention to biological studies from the moment he leaves the secondary school, and begin at that time a consistent six years' course ending in the medical degree. Whether we share this view or not, it is a mistake for any professional school to set itself against the current opinion of the profession, to the point of excluding what is commonly thought the best preparation for practice. What is, perhaps, not less important, the amount of clinical material in hospitals that can be used for teaching is limited, and therein medical education differs from that given in other professional schools. Our Law School, for example, takes only college graduates, but by doing so it neither implies that men without an academic education are unfit to enter the bar, nor prevents their getting a legal training. The equipment required to teach law is not expensive or difficult to procure, so that another law school in Boston can, and in fact does, prepare for successful practice men who are unable, or do not care, to enter our School. The Law School is, therefore, not wanting in its duty to the profession by receiving only a selected class of students. But hospital clinics being limited, a medical school would seem to be under an obligation either to admit all men who are, in its judgment, qualified to study medicine, or to share the best clinics fairly with another school which receives the qualified men whom it will not admit. Now, in the judgment of the medical profession, from which our School is not prepared to dissent, two years of college, even if not the most desirable, are a necessary and sufficient basis for the study of medicine.

The obvious course for the Medical Faculty in seeking to meet the most pressing difficulties would have been to admit to regular advanced standing of two years men from other universities who had taken the combined degree, and the new general examination in laboratory subjects furnished an excellent means of determining whether the applicant had in fact acquired the knowledge given in the first two years of our own School. But the admission of such men would by itself have left the School in the position of saying that two years in another college and medical school, followed by our first general examination, would entitle a man to be a regular student in our third year, while two years in Harvard College and the Harvard Medical School would not. If a change in this direction were to be made at all, the only rational thing to do was what the Medical Faculty did, -- to admit as regular students men who had spent two years in a college of high grade. This, however, was to be done only in case an amount of time equal to one full year had been spent on physics, chemistry, and biology. It follows that men who have spent two years in college work and two in medicine may be admitted to the first general examination, and if they pass it may be registered as regular students in the third year. When the matter came before your board, fears were expressed that the change might open the door to an inferior class of students who felt little confidence of attaining a college degree; and, as the object was to admit on two years of college work only superior men, it was provided that the student in his two years of college work must have ranked in the upper third of his class. These changes were approved by the two governing boards of the University at the close of the academic year.

The men admitted by the new method, either to the first year of the School or to advanced standing, will probably not be numerous, at least for some time to come, but there is very reason to expect that they will be of good quality.

School for Health Officers.

Another innovation, and one that does not concern the Medical School alone, is the establishment of the School for Health Officers, which was organized during the year covered by this report and opened in the autumn of 1913. Preventive Medicine is a subject growing rapidly by reason of the increasing knowledge of infection, and the massing of people in cities where disease spreads freely. Nor is it enough that medical students should be taught the means of prevention. The knowledge is important for all persons who are charged, with the care of the public health, and for their purposes it must be considered not only from a strictly medical standpoint, but also from that of sewerage, water supply and so forth. The new School, formed by a combined action of the Department of Public Health in the Medical School, of Sanitary Engineering in the Schools of Applied Science, and of Biology in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was, therefore, organized with Professor Rosenau as Director, and Professor Sedgwick of the Institute as Chairman of the Administrative Board. The combination of the staff of Harvard and Technology for this purpose was highly gratifying and was soon to be followed by co-operation on a larger scale.

Co-operation with Technology.

The last annual reports of the Presidents of the University and the Institute expressed on each side a hope that in some form co-operation in the teaching of college graduates might be found possible. My report stated that no such plan had been devised, and in fact no negotiations were then in progress, but they were begun shortly afterwards. It was soon discovered that no satisfactory arrangement limited to graduates of colleges and technical schools could be made, and the basis of a proposed co-operation was enlarged. The change had for us the merit of giving effect more completely to the wishes of the late Gordon McKay, for he empowered the University to teach "applied science, from the lowest to the highest," and expressed his desire "that the instruction provided be kept accessible to pupils who have had no other opportunities of previous education than those which the free public schools afford." Although the negotiations were not brought to a successful conclusion until after the close of the year covered by this report, the agreement having now been ratified by the governing bodies of the two institutions, and made public, it seems better to speak of it here than to wait a year.

The agreement provides for complete co-operation in the teaching of mechanical, electrical, civil and sanitary engineering, mining and metallurgy, in case the buildings of Technology, now under construction on the Charles River Embankment in Cambridge. Each institution is to contribute such sums as it can, and in particular Harvard is to use for the purpose the income of the funds of the Lawrence Scientific School and three-fifths of the income of the McKay endowment, the remaining two-fifths being required for other branches of science useful to man not included in the agreement. The fees of students, for the present at least, are to be credited to the two institutions in the proportion of their students in the subjects covered by the agreement at the time it was made.

Appropriations for any purpose must be approved by the institution that supplies the funds used; but by far the most important of all appropriations are those for salaries, and they depend on the appointment of the teaching staff for which a special procedure is provided. All professors, associate and assistant professors,--that is, all the instructors of superior grade, all those who sit in the Faculty for the departments to which the co-operation extends,--can be appointed by the institution that pays their salaries only after consultation with the other. All these officers, now existing or hereafter appointed, are to have the titles and privileges of their rank in both institutions; and all their students registered at Technology, unless they signify a contrary intent, are to be entitled to the rights and privileges of students in the professional schools of the University, and deemed candidates for its degrees. The reason for using the phrase "professional schools of the University" is that it is contrary to the general policy of both institutions to permit professional students to play on intercollegiate athletic teams. By the arrangement thus made, the higher instructors in the subjects mentioned are professors both of Harvard and Technology, and the students in those subjects will, normally, be students in both, receive degrees from both, and become graduates of both.

The conduct of the Instruction covered by the agreement is entrusted to the President of the Institute--in whose selection the President of the University is to have a consultative voice-- and to the Faculty to the Institute, consisting of all the joint professors and all others teaching at Technology subjects not included in the co-operation. This Faculty is to regulate, according to the directions given to it by the respective corporations, the courses of instruction leading to their separate degrees; and conceivably the two institutions might prescribe different requirements, although no such divergence is contemplated.

Finally, to avoid possible legal doubts of the power to make such a contract, a provision is inserted for termination by either party thereto. But it is needless to say that neither side would have entered into the agreement unless convinced that it would prove beneficial and lasting.

Efficiency Gained by Co-operation.

By this co-operation both institutions gain. No discussion took place on the question which gains the most; nor would such a computation be profitable, for the leading motive on both sides was the benefit of the public, by serving better the cause of technical training and research. Waste of resources and of effort by needless rivalry of institutions of higher education, sometimes in cases where both are supported by public funds drawn from the same tax-payers, and are under the control of the same State, has been a lamentable evil in our country. That Harvard and Technology should have found the path to co-operation will not only result in a stronger engineering school than either could maintain alone, but may well encourage men elsewhere who feel that all educational ambitions ought to be subordinated to ends they serve. The growth of such a sentiment, which has marked these negotiations and the public discussion that has followed, has rendered possible the agreement we have made.

The first interest of both institutions, as well as of the community at large, is that the arrangement made should work efficiently and without friction, and the organization devised seems well adapted to the object. While a dual control in some form is an obvious necessity of the case, it is important that the direct administration should be unified as much as possible, and responsible for the whole work carried on. For this purpose a single officer, the President of the Institute, is made the executive head for the combined instruction. He must consult both corporations about the appointment of all important instructors in the common departments, and must report annually to both. In short, he must show his hand to both, is responsible to both, must work in harmony with both, must have the confidence of both, and will lay out the whole plan for both. Moreover, the President of the University taken a consultative part in his selection. This has two merits from the point of view of smooth administration, for it makes doubly sure that a satisfactory selection will be made, and it goes far to bind the President of Harvard to support him. Confidence in the great ability of the present head of the Institute counted for much in the formation of the agreement.

Administration to be Unified.

Then, again, there is a manifest advantage in having a single faculty administering all the instruction at the institute. Much of what is not comprised directly in the subjects of co-operation is, like mathematiacs, physics and chemistry, closely related to them; and to have a separate faculty consisting of the joint professors, distinct from the faculty that regulates certain preliminary studies, would clearly disturb the unity of work, and would also tend to draw a sharp line between the teachers who are Harvard professors and those who are not. So far as possible such a line is avoided. All the professors giving instruction in the common subjects enjoy the rights and privileges of professors in both institutions; they are to be paid through one disbursing agent and except so far as they hold named professorships, they may in time be unaware of the source of their salaries. All their pupils also, unless signifying a contrary intention, are students in both. In short, the direct administration of the whole school is unified, and the interests of the two institutions in the teaching of engineering and mining are made identical.

Something must be said about the Harvard conception of a school of engineering particularly adapted to college graduates, and the danger of its disappearance in the co-operation. No doubt our Graduate Schools of Applied Science were based on the belief that graduates of colleges, who have mastered their mathematics, physics, and chemistry, require a somewhat different course from boys who study engineering immediately after leaving the high school. But it must be observed that the college graduates at the Institute of Technology have increased rapidly of late years, now out-numbering those in our School. The Institute is as anxious as we are to encourage them, and give them the education best suited to their capacity. The number of such graduates after the co-operation will certainly be large enough to be dealt with as a group if that is wise, and it would not require much change in the four-year programme of the Institute to adapt the third and fourth years, or a part of the courses therein, more completely to men who have been through a college. This matter may be safely left in the hands of the Faculty, where our professors will exert an influence in proportion to the weight of their opinions.

The changes that have occurred during the past year have required explanation at such length as to prevent the inclusion in this report of a reference to many departments of the University not less important, even if of less general interest. For these attention must be called to the reports of the Deans, Directors, and Curators respectfully submitted herewith.