A striking example of the danger of single departments or schools striving to promote their separate interests rather than that of the University as a whole is furnished by the libraries. Separate collections of books in different places, conveniently near to the laboratories or working rooms, are an absolute necessity in a large institution with many scattered buildings; but it has sometimes happened that in order to enlarge its collections a department or school has purchased at considerable expense books rarely used, which the University already possessed on the shelves of some other library. To avoid duplication of that kind, to make the wisest use of the limited book funds of the University, and to distribute the collections so as to render the largest and most convenient service, requires a supervision conducted with the greatest tact and good judgment. It is gratifying to be able to report that a long step has been taken toward creating in the Medical School a central library in place of a number of departmental ones; and to refer to the work done by the Director of the University Library in persuading the various authorities in Cambridge to avoid duplication and to transfer books to the places where they are most appropriately kept.

To return to the reorganization of the branches of applied science not included in the agreement with the Institute of Technology, there are, beside Architecture and Landscape Architecture, two other subjects that demand consideration. The Bussey Institution deals with research and instruction in applied biology. Its province touches on one side the Zoology, botany and entomology included under the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and on the other some of the subjects within the scope of the Medical School. Its unavoidable situation at a distance from each of these, as well as the character of its work, renders its absorption by either of them unwise. It has, moreover, a natural affinity with the Arboretum, alongside of which it lies. The best solution of its problems would seem to lie, therefore, in the creation of a faculty of its own containing representatives of zoology and botany and of the Medical School.

The other department left unprovided for by the dissolution of the Faculty of Applied Science is that of Forestry. Schools for teaching this subject have multiplied rapidly in America of late years, much faster, indeed, than the demand for their graduates, because the Government forest service is now well filled, and there is little private employment of the kind. Hence it seemed wise to modify the work of the School, and adjust it better to the wants of the community, partly by giving more attention to research, and partly by establishing a course in lumbering, that is, the marketing of timber,--a subject for which there appeared to be no small need. A course in this subject, which involves the use of business methods as well as technical knowledge, is offered in the School of Business Administration; while the research and the other work of the Forestry staff is conducted in connection with the Bussey Institution.

Loan Funds Badly Off.

The condition of the loan funds belonging to the College and the Scientific School has recently attracted attention. These funds are not, like the regular scholarships, intended to be used as gifts, but lent to needy students to be repaid after a certain number of years with a low rate of interest, the sums repaid being lent again to other students. It has been urged that such a method of helping men to get an education has the special advantage that it serves its purpose over and over again. No attempt, of course, is made to collect these notes by legal process. They are virtually debts of honor; but it has been supposed that after a man has thus been enabled to enter upon a successful career he will gladly repay the money lent him and open the same door to some one else. It is disappointing, therefore, to learn how small a proportion of the recipients actually pay these debts. Taking the College loans that have fallen due, 295 men have paid in full, 259 have not paid at all, and 37 have paid in part. Only one half of these obligations, therefore, have been discharged; and of the amounts loaned, exclusive of interest, which have become due, $17,745.78 has been paid and $23,362.81 has not. The condition in the Scientific School is not much better: 232 mer have paid in full, 126 have not paid at all, and 24 have paid in part. This is more than half. On the other hand, the amounts paid are less than half, being $17,217.46 as against $19,932.71 unpaid.

When we consider the nature of these loans, the use to be made of the money when repaid, and the fact that they average about one hundred dollars apiece, we cannot help wondering whether one half of the recipients have really prospered so little that the repayment of sums of that amount is a serious burden to them; and, if so, whether they have profited by a college education. If the borrowers are able to repay, the failure to do so is certainly not creditable.

The year has again been notable for the amount of building done, although this has consisted for the most part of carrying forward work already begun. The Freshman Halls, the T. Jefferson Coolidge Junior Memorial Laboratory, the Music Building, the reconstruction of the Gray Herbarium, the alteration in the Fogg Museum of Art, and the addition to the Peabody Museum have been completed, while the foundations have been laid for the Germanic Museum, to be built by the generous gifts of the late Adolphus Busch and his widow. The Cruft high tension laboratory is nearing completion, and so is the great Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library. We are looking forward eagerly to moving the books into it during the summer.

Apart from the sums given for these buildings, the largest single gifts and bequests received during the past year have been as follows:--

Legacy from the estate of Morris Loeb, subject to life interests, $500,000.00.

Anonymous gift to found a Professorship of Latin-American History and Economics, $125,000.00.

Anonymous gift, to advance the interests of the University, $102,712.00.

From the Class of 1889 for the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Fund, $92,575.00.

Nathaniel H. Stone, in memory of Henry Baldwin Stone, $53,460.00.

Additional for legacy of Sarah A. Matchett $50,000.00.

Legacy of George H. Leatherbee for lectures on commercial business and finance, $44,489.00.