The devotion of the surgeons and nurses, their willingness to do any work that fell to their lot, and their skill in treatment, has done us honor. It is gratifying to observe how few deaths, and how few amputations, occurred in either of the hospitals. By using to the fullest extent the resources of antiseptic surgery, almost all lives and limbs were saved. Above all, the work of our dentists -- Dr. Potter at Neuilly, Dr. Kazanjian at the British hospital, and their colleagues -- were a source of admiration. Their ingenuity in restoring jaws and teeth apparently wholly destroyed excited surprise and wonder abroad. Were it not that a prophet is not without honor save in his own country, it would be incomprehensible that the benevolent public here should leave with so little support a Dental School which is doing such excellent work with wholly insufficient means.

Business School Shows Increase

To return to the regular labors of the University. The School of Business Administration has increased in numbers and in usefulness. A second chair, that of Transportation, has been endowed by friends of Mr. James J. Hill and worthily named after him. To increase the value of the School in this field he has himself given one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars since the opening of the current academic year. Thus by three generous gifts the School is beginning to acquire the endowment it needs for permanent maintenance. Its methods of instruction are being followed in other institutions, and its forms of accounting adopted by industrial concerns -- good evidence that it is on the right road for the application of economic science to actual business.

In the last report it was stated that the work in Forestry had been divided, instruction in Lumbering being placed in the School for Business Administration, while research in Forestry is conducted in connection with the Bussey. This last Institution, whose work consists wholly of research and the instruction of a few advanced students in branches of zoology and botany that touch agriculture, has been organized with a separate Faculty. That was essential both on account of its distance from Cambridge, and because the nature of the subject requires one of the two active terms to be held in the summer. With the creation of this Faculty the reorganization of the departments formerly under the Faculty of Applied Science is completed; provided of course, the authority of the University to make the agreement with the Institute of Technology is sustained by the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth. A bill for instructions to this effect has been filed by the Corporation and it is hoped that the case will soon be ready for argument.

Alongside of the regular work of a university, conducted within its walls, there has been fit in all the larger institutions of this country a duty to instruct the public by courses offered to persons who can give only a small part of their time to study, but who desire to improve themselves in general culture or in vocational lines. This is done at Harvard under the direct charge of a Dean and Administrative Board, and the reader who would understand in detail what has been accomplished is referred to the report of the Dean, printed herewith. The work is divided into that of the Summer School, and that of the extension courses given in term time. The experiment of lodging and boarding members of the Summer School in the Freshman Halls was tried during the past summer and proved successful. The Freshmen are obliged in the nature of things to leave at the end of the year, and as the furniture in their rooms is supplied by the College, it is possible to use these halls, with their large dining and common rooms, for other purposes during the summer. To live in these halls is a great convenience to the summer students, and, what is more important, it gives them a feeling of academic community life which they cannot get in any other way and which they value highly.

Extension Courses Benefit Public

Not less interesting is the question of extension courses in term time. For a number of years, these have been conducted by a committee representing all the institutions of higher learning in and about Boston, with Dean Ropes as Chairman. The committee has not only tried to discover what instruction the public may want and furnish it, but has held itself ready to give a course on any subject of college grade that any thirty persons in the metropolitan area, capable of following it, will agree to take. This seems as liberal as use for the public benefit of the resources of our institutions of learning as it is possible to make. No state institution could carry university extension further by direct teaching, and there can be no question that direct teaching in the class-room where it is possible -- as it is in the metropolitan area -- is far superior to any method of instruction by correspondence. In many cities where extension work is carried on, the number of persons registered in the courses is large, while the proportion who obtain a certificate by completing the work in the course and taking the examinations is very small. It is notable in the report of the Dean that the percentage of certificates here is relatively large, and it is chiefly by these that the substantial popular education given by the courses is to be measured.

By means of this committee, representing the various institutions of higher learning in this neighborhood, extension work appears to be satisfactorily done for the metropolitan area. But it ought to be extended so far as possible over the whole State, and for that purpose during the past year the University Council of Massachusetts was formed of representatives from all the colleges of the State, acting in concert with the Board of Education of the Commonwealth. The problem of the rural districts is more difficult than that of the large cities because people are more scattered; nevertheless, the endowed colleges of Massachusetts ought to be able to give her people as much instruction as a state university can in the West -- and more, because Massachusetts has become largely a group of cities. Much has already been done by Williams College at North Adams, by other colleges in other places; and there is good reason to believe that popular education will be as well promoted by the University Council acting in concert with the State Board, as by any state university in the country. The endowed institutions realize fully that their obligations to the public are none the less because they are not managed by the State.

Besides the Widener Library, the Craft High Tension Laboratory has been completed, and the Music Building has been occupied. Music, indeed, forms, as it ought, an increasingly important part of the work of the University. A few more buildings are still needed, such as a fourth Fresh-man dormitory, a better place to house the University Press, and, above all, more chemical laboratories. Chemistry is of increasing importance in this country, and the war has shown us the need of independence of German chemists.

University Needs Endowment

But apart from these things, the greatest need of the University is endowment rather than buildings. In the last report it was pointed out that the only resource for avoiding the deficits that had been chronic in the College, University and Library accounts is an increase in the tuition fee. The Faculty referred this matter to a committee which, with the utmost reluctance, reported that the increase was a necessity. The report was adopted by the Faculty and was acted upon by the Governing Boards, so that hereafter the tuition fee in Harvard College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Graduate School of Business Administration, the Schools of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and the Bussey Institution will be $200. At the same time the special fee for the Stillman Infirmary, and all laboratory and graduation fees will cease to be charged to students paying the full fee. In the Medical School the fee is already $200; in the Engineering School, under the agreement with Technology, it is $250. The Divinity School felt compelled to retain the fee of $150, because by the recent agreements with Andover Theological Seminary and the Episcopal Theological School, their fees had been raised to that point. The Faculty of the Law School was reluctant to raise its fee at present. In order to avoid any question of the possible injustice to students who had already entered, or even committed themselves by their preparation to enter, Harvard, the increased fee is to take effect only for students entering these various departments in the academic year 1916-17; and in order not to make more difficult the path of the students with very limited means, it has been arranged also that the scholarships awarded for excellence in University work should be increased by $50 each.

Largest Money Gifts of Past Year

The largest single gifts of money received during the year have been as follows:--

James J. Hill Professorship of Transportation, $125,000.00.

The Class of 1800 Fund, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Fund, $80,000.00.