TO THE BOARD OF OVERSEERS:

The President of the University has the honor to submit the following report for the year 1915-16:

Although this report is supposed to cover only the academic year that has passed, all friends of the University will desire to know the effect of the increase in the tuition fee upon the attendance of students. The change applies to new students, entering the Departments affected, in the autumn of 1916. It does not apply to the Medical School, where the fee was already $200; or to the Divinity School, which had made agreements about fees with other Schools of Theology; or to the Law School. The students in question are, therefore, those entering the College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Schools of Architecture, the Bussey Institution, and the School of Business Administration. For these Departments the fee was increased from $150 to $200, certain small additional charges, for the Stillman Infirmary, for the laboratories, and for graduation, being abolished. The number of new students paying the full tuition fee at the increased rate in each of these Departments, compared with the number of new students at the corresponding time last year, is as follows: Harvard College:  1915  1916 Freshmen,  647  645 Unclassified and Advanced Standing,  137  115 Graduate School of Arts and Sciences,  240  210 School of Architecture,  28  24 Bussey Institution,  5  7 School of Business Administration,  117  142   -  -   1174  1143

It will be observed that in the College there is a falling off of twenty-two in the number of unclassified students, that is those coming with advanced standing from other colleges, and this is probably due in the main to raising the tuition fee. Among the Freshmen there is practically no falling off; but the Chairman of the Committee on Admission is of opinion that had it not been for the change in the fee, there would have been a considerable increase in the number this year. In the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences there has been a decrease of thirty in the new men; but in this case, as in that of the College, it has been less than one might reasonably have expected at the outset. In the Schools of Architecture there has been a reduction in about the same proportion. This is probably due mainly to other causes, as it is entirely in architecture, landscape architecture showing a slight increase. In the Bussey Institution the increase of fees has obviously had no effect, while in the School of Business Administration there has been a very marked gain in the number of students. Taken all together, it seems clear that the increase in the tuition fee-which was the result of dire necessity-has not deprived us of a very large number of students. It is well to remember that it does not affect the best scholars among the men of small means, because the scholarships and fellowships have been raised by an amount equal to the increase in the fee.

The report of the Chairman of the Committee on Admission contains interesting facts bearing upon the number of men admitted to Harvard College. It seems that owing to the discouragement of applications from men inadequately trained, more applicants were deterred from taking the examinations than the year before, and those who took them were a better selected group. This has naturally resulted in reducing slightly the percentage of rejections from 25.6 to 22.8; or if we take into account the candidates in June who did not appear in September to complete their examinations the percentage of candidates admitted rose from 68.9 in 1915 to 71.2 in 1916. If this change is due to a more careful selection of applicants, it is not out of accord with the recent tendency to diminish the proportion of candidates admitted, for a reference to the figures given in my last report shows that, in spite of the more careful selection, the percentage admitted this year exceeds that of only two years out of the last ten. No doubt the effect is a better average of students, more capable of doing creditable college work, by the elimination of the weaker scholars and especially of those who in addition to an inferior equipment are burdened by entrance conditions. This result is promoted by the growing proportion of candidates applying under the new plan and therefore entering college clear if admitted at all. This autumn almost exactly three-quarters of the Freshmen have no conditions to remove-a decided help in maintaing the general standard of work in the first college year.

For the first time Harvard has ceased to give separate entrance examinations, and has adopted the College Entrance Examination Board papers for both the old and new plans, the latter being practically conducted by the joint action of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. This has the advantage that examinations for Harvard can be held in all the places in which examinations are held by the Board, nearly four times as many as we could alone provide. The books under the old plan, requiring an examination upon every subject offered for admission, have for the first time been read and graded wholly by the examiners of the Board; and this has led to a comparison of the severity of marking by the Board and by our own former methods. In most subjects a mark of sixty per cent, by the Board has come very close to our passing grade, as judged by the proportion of failures. But-although there has been a difference of opinion about the fairness of an examination in Algebra-it would appear that in English, in History, and especially in Mathematics, our standards have hitherto been more lenient than we had supposed, and in order not to increase the percentage of failures suddenly we have this year accepted a grading lower in these than in other subjects.

Resignation of Dean Hurlbut.

At the close of the college year Dean Hurlbut resigned. He had filled the office of Dean for fourteen years, a period longer than any of his predecessors, and one of peculiar difficulty. The Committee on Improving Instruction, appointed by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1902, with Dean Briggs as Chairman, reported after careful examination that the average amount of study by undergraduates was discreditably small. This was true in a greater or less degree of all colleges, and books and articles of the time were filled with criticisms of the American College on that score. Dean Hurlbut, who had just entered upon his duties was confronted with the ungrateful task of raising the standard of scholarship for the less diligent portion of the students. That the minimum work required and done for a degree is greater now than it was when he took office, and that the ordinary undergraduate takes his studies more seriously, no one familiar with the College will deny. That this is largely due to Dean Hurlbut, every one who knows the inner working of the College office is aware.

Henry Aaron Yeomans, the new Dean, has been four years Assistant Professor of Government and Assistant Dean in special charge of the Freshmen. With his appointment a reorganization of the office has been made. The plan of having one Assistant Dean, who has the oversight of students in their Freshman year and then gives up his close connection with them almost as soon as he has come to know them well, has obvious disadvantages. Moreover, with the increasing personal contact between college officers and undergraduates, the amount of work thrown upon the Dean was such as to make it unfortunately difficult for him to do any teaching or keep up his scholarly activity. Two Assistant Deans have, therefore, been appointed: Clarence Cook Little, Research Fellow in Genetics of the Cancer Commission, and Lawrence Shaw Mayo, Assistant in History; both of them graduates of Harvard College in the Class of 1910. Each of these men is to have immediate charge of two classes, one taking the Freshmen and Juniors, the other the Sophomores and Seniors, the latter taking the Freshmen and Juniors in the following year. Each Assistant Dean thus takes immediate charge of a class at entrance and remains in contact with it throughout its college course. This has the advantage of enabling him to know and deal with the same body of students continuously; while the Dean is left more free to treat the graver cases, direct the general policy and consider the larger problems of college life and education.

The tendency of the College is, and should be, to have as few regulations as is consistent with good order and sound education, but to give to the students as much guidance and counsel as possible by contact with mature men. This has been done not only by the Dean and his two Assistants, but also by the Faculty advisers; by Professor Charles P. Parker, the Secretary of the Committee on the Choice of Electives; by Edward D. Brandegee, the Regent; and Dr. Roger I. Lee, the Professor of Hygiene. Since these words were written Professor Parker has died after a brief illness. As the Secretary of the Committee on the Choice of Electives he inspected the choice of courses by all students, seeing that they conformed to the regulations of the Faculty, advised great numbers of men, conferring with those who desired exceptional treatment, and recommending to the Committee, or granting, exceptions from the rules where justified by the circumstances. This involved a great deal of labor, but it was labor well spent, the value of which can hardly be overestimated. It will be very difficult to find anyone who can fill the place so well. The Regent selects and supervises the proctors, and has oversight of all clubs,-functions which bring him into personal contact with a large number of students, not as a disciplinary officer, but as one who makes strongly felt his influence for good order within the College and for its creditable standing in the world. The Professor of Hygiene enjoys, if possible, an even more confidential relation with the undergraduates; conducts a physical examination of each of them at entrance and is constantly consulted by them on matters that run beyond material health. The Secretary of the Committee on the Choice of Electives, the Regent and the Professor of Hygiene are not disciplinary officers; and although discipline can never wholly be avoided on the part of the Deans, an effort is made in their case to render it as little prominent as possible, and to lay the emphasis on their friendly relations with the students and on the guidance and assistance they can give. For this purpose the Student Council and other undergraduate bodies have been of great value. In order to cultivate a relationship with the students where personal contact and influence are substituted for authority a close community life is highly important, and it would be of the very greatest benefit to Harvard College if it possessed sufficient funds to house all its undergraduates, by the purchase of private dormitories or by building new ones. During the course of the year College House, old, dingy, and hardly fit for students' rooms, was exchanged for Randolph Hall, the best of the private dormitories. If we could look on this as the beginning of a larger movement we should have the deepest reasons for being grateful.

Military Training Received Notice.

In the last annual report the subject of military training was discussed, with the contributions that universities could make thereto. Since that time the matter has received more public attention. On June 3d, 1916, Congress passed an act for making further and more effectual provision for the national defense, and provided in Section 42 for the establishment of units of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps in colleges that agreed to maintain a two years' elective or compulsory course in military training, "which course when entered upon by any student shall ... as regards such student be a prerequisite for graduation." The Secretary of War was authorized to prescribe the course of training for these men and on September 20th General Order 49 was issued for that purpose. This was based upon the course of training hitherto pursued in the State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. It provides for the first two college years three hours of work a week, whereof two-thirds is to be practical, largely drill, and one-third theoretical, but of a very elementary character. The work of these first two years is by no means sufficient to qualify a man for an officer's commission, but, it is further provided that those students who wish to obtain a reserve officer's commission may proceed during the last two years of college to take five hours of work a week, of which three are to be practical and two theoretical.

This plan, it will be observed, comprises a very large proportion of drill, which must be done in term-time and cannot be taken instead at Plattsburg or other military training camps. It requires work, not great indeed at any one time, but pursued continuously for all four years of college, in order that a man may be qualified for a reserve officer's commission. Such a system, with its wearisome amount of drill and its small amount of theoretical instruction in the duties of an officer, is not perhaps, ill fitted to the Land Grant Colleges, where military training, being compulsory, is an addition to the curriculum and replaces no other study. But it is difficult to apply under the conditions of an endowed university, where drill cannot at present be made compulsory or counted as an elective equivalent to some acaedmic subject. Clearly it would be more in accordance with our conditions, and result better, to have the drill done mainly at summer military camps, with a far larger proportion of Army officers to the number of men in the ranks, and to devote the work in term-time to the principles of military science and art. so taught as to make them appropriate subjects for academic credit.

With this in view, a meeting of college presidents was held in Washington early in October and unanimously requested the War Department to authorize a more elastic curriculum, to permit changes therein subject to the approval of the Department, and to allow the drill to be taken in whole or in part at the summer military camps. The Department was unwilling during the experimental stage to change the curriculum prescribed for the Land Grant Colleges, or indeed for any units of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps; but declared that under Section 56 of the Act of June 3, 1916, it would detail officers and provide equipment to any college desiring to train officers, and permit the drill in whole or in part at the summer military camps. This provides an opportunity to give military instruction in a way well suited to our conditions; but under Section 56 the number of Army officers detailed would be smaller, and students not forming part of a Reserve Officers' Training Corps would be at a very serious disadvantage. At present, therefore, an attempt is being made to work out with the approval of the War Department such an application of General Order 49 as will provide an appropriate elective course, giving a larger amount of theoretical military instruction than the Order requires. That the military knowledge prescribed by the Order is as much as a reserve officer under modern conditions ought to possess, no one would be inclined to maintain. That a part of the ordinary instruction in our colleges could, by careful adaptation and in connection with strictly military teaching, be made useful for reserve officers, is not improbable. The problem is a new one, to be worked out with the aid of the officers detailed here from the War Department-Captain Alfred W. Bjornstad and Captain Constant Cordier.

Investigation in Economics Department.

One of the most interesting things done in the College during the last few years has been an invitation given by the Department of Economics to the Department of Education to investigate the undergraduate instruction in economics with a view to its improvement. Such a request to another body was not needed to prove the open mind, the desire to improve, the willingness to change its methods and to deal with its instruction as a systematic whole, which has been conspicuous in the case of the Department of Economics; but it is highly significant and full of promise. The investigation, which occupied a couple of years, has been very elaborate, making a large use of statistics, of questionnaires to instructors, students and graduates, of examination questions designed to test the progress of students in their capacity to deal with problems, and of other methods of inquiry that need not be described here. It has touched many different aspects of instruction, some of them of value far beyond the department immediately concerned. These things will appear when the report is published, but it may not be out of place to mention a couple of them here.

The fundamental questions in all education are the object sought and the result attained. Is economics studied in college for the sake of its general educational value in training the mind and preparing for good citizenship, or with a view to its vocational utility in the student's subsequent career; and how far does it actually fulfil each purpose? An answer to these questions was sought by means of questionnaires addressed to all students taking economic courses and to a thousand graduates, beginning as far back as the Class of 1880 and comprising men engaged in every kind of occupation. Of course all the persons addressed did not reply, and many of the answers were too vague to be of use. Yet among the replies there were a large number definite enough to be of great value. Of the students, about one-third intended to take up a business of some kind; more than one-half as many were looking forward to the law; while the rest were distributed among all the different careers of which an undergraduate can conceive. Of all these men, about two-fifths gave as their chief reason for electing economics its value in training the mind or in understanding public and social problems; while even of those intending to adopt some occupation for which the subject is popularly supposed to offer a preparation, only about one-fifth expected to find what they learned directly helpful, although many more trusted that it would be of indirect assistance.

More interesting still are the replies from the graduates, for they had been enabled to measure what they had acquired by the light of experience in their various pursuits. The men in almost every occupation speak more commonly of the general cultural or civic benefit that they obtained than of vocational profit. This is notably true of the lawyers, and in a less degree also of the business men. The only two classes of graduates who speak with equal frequency of the two kinds of benefit derived are the journalists and the farmers; but they are few in number, and their answers do not appear to have been closely discriminating in this respect.

Results like those brought out by the inquiry of the Department of Education have a direct bearing upon the teaching of Economics, and the position of the subject in the undergraduate course of study. If the chief value of economics, is vocational, it ought to be taught mainly from that point of view, and undergraduates ought not to be generally encouraged to elect it who will not pursue some vocation to which it leads. But if, on the other hand, its principal benefit lies in training men to think clearly, and to analyze and sift evidence in the class of problems that force themselves upon public attention in this generation, then the greater part of the courses ought to be conducted with that object, and it is well for every undergraduate to study the subject to some extent. An attempt to aim at two birds with the same stone, is apt to result in hitting neither. Moreover, a confusion of objectives is misleading for the student. An impression often arises, without any sufficient basis, that some particular subject is an especially good preparation for a certain profession, and the theory is sometimes advocated warmly by the teachers of the subject from a laudable desire to magnify the importance of their field. Students naturally follow the prevailing view without the means of testing its correctness; not infrequently, as they afterwards discover, to the neglect of something they need more. The traditional path to eminence at the English bar has been at Oxford the honor school in literae humaniores, at Cambridge the mathematical tripos, and since the strongest minds in each university habitually took these roads, the results appeared to prove the proposition. It is well, therefore, that we should seek the most accurate and the most comprehensive data possible on the effect of particular studies upon men in various occupations, and upon different classes of minds. Such data are not easy to procure and are still more difficult to interpret, but when obtained they are of great value, and would throw light upon pressing educational questions about which we talk freely and know almost nothing.

Greatest Value Ascribed to Reading.

Another matter with which the Department of Education dealt in their inquiry, again by the use of the questionnaire, is the relative value attached by students to the various methods of instruction. These were classified as lectures, class-room discussion, assigned reading, reports, essays or theses prepared by the student, and other less prominent agencies. Taken as a whole the students ascribed distinctly the greatest value to the reading, the next to the class-room discussion, placing lectures decidedly third, with reports and other exercises well below the first three. This order was especially marked in the case of the general introductory course known as Economics A. In the more advanced courses the order is somewhat changed. Even here the required reading is given the highest value, but the lectures in these courses are deemed more important than the class-room discussion. Among the better scholars in the advanced courses the value attributed to the lectures is, in fact, nearly as great as that ascribed to the assigned reading. These men also give to the reports, essays and theses a slightly greater importance than do the elementary and the inferior advanced students, although they do not place them on a par with the other three methods of instruction.

Answers of this kind are not infallible. There are always a considerable number of students who express no opinions, or whose opinions are not carefully considered. Nevertheless the replies are highly significant as indicating an impression-the impression of persons who, imperfect as their judgement may be, are after all the best judges, if not indeed the only judges, of what they have obtained from the different methods of instruction. In some ways the answers are unexpected. One would have supposed that class-room discussion would be of more value in an advanced course than in an elementary one. For it would presumably be remunerative in proportion as the members of the class possess information about the subject and a grasp of the principles involved. Probably the real reason for the relatively small importance attached to it by students in advanced courses is to be found in the fact that many of these courses are conducted mainly as lecture courses without much class-room discussion. The most illuminating fact that appears from the replies is the high value attached to the assigned reading as compared with the lectures. Even in the cases of the better scholars in the advanced courses it is not safe to assume an opinion that the lectures are of equal value with books, because they may be referring strictly to the reading formally assigned which is only a part of the reading that they do.

The problem of the relative value of books and lectures in higher education, or, for that matter, of books and direct oral teaching at school, is one that ought to receive very careful attention. The tendency for more than a generation, from the primary school to the university, has been to throw a greater emphasis on oral instruction as compared with study of the printed page. Half a century ago the boy at school and the student in college were habitually assigned a certain task, and the exercise in the class-room was in the main a recitation, the work of the teacher consisting chiefly in ascertaining whether the task had been properly performed, the set number of pages diligently and intelligently read, and in giving help over hard places or removing confusion in the pupil's mind. But since that time the whole trend of education in all its grades has been towards in increase in the amount of direct instruction by the teacher. At school he or she talks to the class more and listens less than formerly, teaches it more directly, imparts more information. In the college or university the recitation has almost entirely disappeared, giving place mainly to lectures and in a smaller degree to class discussion. In fact, the impression among the general public, and in the minds of many academic people, is that the chief function of a professor is to give lectures,-not of course in the literal sense of reading something he has written, but imparting information directly to the class by an oral statement throughout the lecture hour.

Lectures have Certain Disadvantages.

Lectures are an excellent, and in fact an indispensable, part of university work, but it is possible to have too many of them, to treat them as the one vital method of instruction. This has two dangers. It tends to put the student too much in a purely receptive attitude of absorbing information poured out upon him, instead of compelling him to extract it from books for himself; so that his education becomes a passive rather than an active process. Lectures should probably be in the main a means of stimulating thought, rather than of imparting facts which can generally be impressed upon the mind more accurately and effectively by the printed page than by the spoken word.

Then again there is the danger that if lecture courses are regarded as the main object of the professors' chair, the universities, and the departments therein, will value themselves, and be valued, in proportion to the number of lecture courses that they offer. This matter will bear a moment's consideration, for it is connected with certain important general considerations of educational policy. To make the question clear, and point out its bearing upon our own problems, something may be said about the relations that exist between instruction in the College and in other departments of the University.

Many American universities have adopted a combined degree, whereby the earlier portion of the professional instruction in law, medicine, and other technical subjects, is taken as a part of the college course; and at the same time they maintain separate faculties for the college, or undergraduate academic department, and for the graduate school of arts and sciences. At Harvard we have gone on the opposite principle in both cases. We have separated each of the professional schools almost wholly from the college, with a distinct faculty and a distinct student life of its own. We have done this on the ground that a strictly professional atmosphere is an advantage in the study of a profession, and we believe that the earnestness, the almost ferociously keen interest, of the student body in our Law School, for example, has been largely due to this fact. We believe that the best results in both general and professional education are attained by a sharp separation between the two. On the other hand, we have not established a distinct faculty for the graduate school, but have the same faculty and to a great extent the same body of instruction for undergraduates and graduates, each man being expected to take such part of it as fits his own state of progress. We have done this because we have not regarded the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences as exclusively or distinctly a professional school for future teachers. If it were so, it would probably be necessary to give it more of a pedagogical character than it has today. Indeed there has appeared to be no serious disadvantage, such as exists in the case of a purely professional school, in our practise of not separating the graduate school wholly from the college. Although there is a single faculty the two bodies of students are quite distinct, and the graduates take no part in the athletics or social activities of the men in college. They are in no danger of any lack of industry, nor do they suffer from contact with the college students taking courses primarily for graduates. The best Seniors who have reached the point of electing advanced courses are by no means inferior in capacity, education, or earnestness to the average graduate. And, on the other hand, competent undergraduates benefit greatly by following instruction that would not otherwise be open to them.

Our system, by closing professional education to undergraduates, obliges them to devote their college course entirely to academic studies; and at the same time it opens all academic instruction to undergraduates and graduates alike. By so doing it treats the whole list of academic courses as one body of instruction whereof the quantity can be readily measured and the nature perceived. In this way our system brings into peculiar prominence a question that affects the whole university policy in this country. A university, as its name implies, is an institution where all branches are studied, but this principle easily transforms itself into the doctrine that a university ought to offer systematic instruction in every part of every subject; and in fact almost all departments press for an increase of courses, hoping to maintain so far as possible a distinct course upon every sub-division of their fields. This is in large measure due to the fact that American graduate students, unlike German students, tend to select their university on account of the number and richness of the courses listed in the catalogue on their particular subjects, rather than by reason of the eminence of the professors who teach them. Some years ago it happened that a professor of rare distinction in his field, and an admirable teacher, who had a large number of graduate students in his seminar, accepted a chair in another university. His successors at his former post, however good, were by no means men with his reputation. Under these circumstances, one would have supposed that many of his pupils would have followed him, and that fresh students would have sought him in his new chair. But in fact the seminar at the place he left was substantially undiminished, and he had a comparatively small body of graduate students in the university to which he migrated.

List of Courses Increased.

The real reason for increasing the list of courses, though it is often not consciously recognized, is quite as much a desire to attract students as a belief in the benefit conferred on them after they come. The result has been a great expansion within the last score of years in the number of courses offered by all the larger universities. Counting two half-courses as equivalent to one full course, our Faculty of Arts and Sciences offered last year to undergraduates or graduates 417 1-2 courses running throughout the year. Of these 67 were designated as seminars, where advanced students work together in a special field under the guidance of the professors. More will be said of these later. Some of the remaining 350 1-2 were in reality of the same character, and others involved purely laboratory work; but most of them were systematic courses of instruction, mainly what are called, not always accurately, lecture courses. In addition, there were 119 more courses listed in the catalogue, but marked as being omitted that year. These are in the main courses designed to be given in alternate years, where the number of applicants is not large enough to justify their repetition annually. A student has thus an opportunity to take them at some time during his college career. They entail upon the instructor almost as much labor in preparation as the others, and are an integral part of the courses of instruction provided by the University. The total number of courses, therefore, offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences was 536 1-2, whereby something over 73 were in the nature of seminars.

Some years ago a committee of the Board of Overseers suggested that there were needless courses provided, and the Committee of the Faculty on Instruction examined the whole list, making careful inquiries of the members of the several departments, and reported that with one or two exceptions there were no courses for which good and sufficient reasons could not be given. The result of a similar inquiry would be the same today. There are few, if any, courses that could be seriously considered by anyone as useless or superfluous in themselves. Almost every one of them is intrinsically valuable, and a distinct contribution to the instruction in the subject. Nevertheless, it is a proper subject for consideration whether the policy of offering courses of instruction covering every part of every subject is wise. No European university attempts to do so. No single student can take them all in any large field and his powers would be deadened by a surfeit of instruction if he did. For the undergraduates a comparatively small array of staple courses on the most important portions of the subject, with a limited number of others on more highly specialized aspects thereof, is sufficient. For the graduate students who remain only a year to take the degree of Master of Arts, and who are doing much the same work as the more advanced Seniors, the same list of courses would be enough; and for those graduates who intend to become professors in universities and productive scholars it would probably be better,-beyond these typical specialized courses, which would suffice to show the method of approaching the subject-to give all the advanced instruction by means of seminars where the students work together on related, but not identical paths, with the aid of mutual criticism and under the guidance of the professors. Fewer courses, more thoroughly given, would free instructors for a larger amount of personal supervision of the students, would be better for the pupils; and would make it possible for the University to allow those members of the staff who are capable of original work of a high order more time for productive scholarship. Many a professor at the present day, under the pressure of preparing a new course, cannot find time to work up the discoveries he has made, or to publish a work throwing a new light on existing knowledge.

In making these suggestions there is no intention of urging a reduction of our existing schedule. But it is time to discuss the assumption, now apparently prevalent in all American universities, that an indefinite increase in the number of courses provided is to be aimed at in higher education. The question is whether that policy is not defective in principle, and whether we are not following it to excess, thereby sacrificing to it other objects equally, if not more, important.

Comprehensive Examinations Tried Out.

Courses are merely a means to an end, and that end is the education of the student. One method of placing courses in their true light as a means of education is the provision of comprehensive examinations for graduation, covering the general field of the student's principal work beyond the precise limits of the courses he has taken. This has long been done in the case of the doctorate of philosophy; and in the year covered by this report it was applied for the first time to undergraduates concentrating in the Division of History, Government and Economics. Only 24 students of the Class of 1917, who finished their work in three years and concentrated in this field, came under its operation; but they were numerous enough to give a definite indication of the working of the plan. To that extent the results were satisfactory. The examination papers were well designed for measuring the knowledge and grasp of the subject, with a large enough range of options to include the various portions of the field covered by the different candidates; and the examiners themselves were satisfied with the plan as a fair means of testing the qualification of the students. During the coming year a much larger number of men will come up for this comprehensive examination, which promises to mark a new departure in American college methods.

The Widener Memorial Library has been in use for a year and has abundantly justified the expectations based upon its plan. Students have used the reading rooms, and taken out books to a distinctly greater extent than they did in old Gore Hall, and the professors' rooms in the stacks have proved, not only a great convenience, but a very distinct assistance in productive work.

The principles on which a university library should be arranged have undergone a gradual revolution. Until a comparatively recent period, the essential difference between the functions of a public library and a university library were not well understood. In former times both were conducted in the same manner. The prime object was protection of the collections, and hence everyone was kept away from the stacks, books being given out only at the delivery desk. Public libraries now strive to encourage in every way the use of their volumes, but they cannot usually admit any considerable part of the public to the shelves. Universities, on the other hand, have learned that not only professors but all advanced students ought to be given as much access as possible to all books not rare or irreplaceable. The experiment has been tried of classifying the books according to the departments of the University, and connecting each group with the seminar rooms of the department to which it is related. This is very well for men working within the limits of a definite stereotyped field, but a wise man has remarked that every new thinker seeks to cut a fresh diagonal through human knowledge, and when a man needs to consult a book outside the limits of his own department, he finds his work seriously embarrassed by the division of the library into departmental groups. In short, while the system made easy the use of books classified together, it placed well nigh greater obstacles than before on the use of books classified elsewhere.

By the munificence of the gift of the new library, with its space for rooms and stalls in the stack, we have been enabled to adopt a better plan, that of treating the library as one whole collection. The books on different subjects are shelved of course in different places, but not separated so as to hinder their free use by anyone who has access to the shelves; while rooms and stalls are provided for the professors and all advanced students in the body of the stack. The plan by which this was accomplished was adapted from that of our own Law Library where the same thing had already been done on a smaller scale. The report of the Director of the University Library describes how it has worked after a year of trial.

In the last report the growing affiliation of the Divinity School with other neighboring Schools of Theology was described, and during the past year an agreement has been made with the Newton Theological Institution similar to that with the Theological School of Boston University. The report of Dean Fenn contains a statement of the relations thus created. The affiliation now comprises the Divinity School, Andover Theological Seminary, the Episcopal Theological School, the Theological School of Boston University and the Newton Theological Institution, and although some of the agreements were made for a limited period no one would think of terminating them. The first three institutions named now consult together about appointments to their instructing staffs, so as to avoid needless duplication and furnish the largest opportunities to their students. The chief need of the Divinity School and of the associated institutions at present is a more systematic provision for training in pastoral work, and instruction in the social problems with which ministers are called upon to deal. This must be based upon a knowledge of modern economic conditions and principles, but it requires also a knowledge of their application to the questions a clergyman meets in his professional work. This matter is now under serious consideration.

Professor Pound Appointed Law Dean.

The office of Dean of the Law School left vacant by the death of Ezra Ripley Thayer was filled by the appointment of Professor Roscoe Pound; while the position in the teaching staff was taken for the time by Arthur Dehon Hill, LLB., '94, who was at the close of the year appointed Professor of Law. After a faithful and efficient service of 18 years as Professor and Bussey Professor of Law, and an earlier service to the University as instructor for two years in other subjects, Joseph Doddridge Brannan retired and was made Professor Emeritus. His place has been taken for the present by Albert Martin Kales, A.B., '93, LL.B., '99, Professor of Law in Northwestern University, who has been appointed Professor of Law here for the year 1916-17, Zechariah Chafee, Jr., LLB., '13 has been appointed Assistant Professor of Law. The burden of teaching under which the instructing staff labors, the great increase of late years in the proportion of students to teachers described in the last annual report, does not become less; and, in fact, the autumn of 1916 shows the largest number of students, and the largest entering class, that the School has ever known. The endowments are small in comparison with the work to be done, and have not grown with enlargement of the student body, so that the resources, which were at one time ample, are now quite inadequate. Moreover, the School ought to do much more than prepare young men for practice at the bar. Law and legal procedure have not fully kept pace with the material development of the age, with its rapid movement and changing problems. The world, and especially our own country, needs a greater respect for a better law; and those who recall the fact that the treatises of Joseph Story were written for lectures to the students in the Harvard Law School, will appreciate the service to jurisprudence that can be rendered in the professor's chair. The 100th anniversary of the founding of the School, which falls in the current academic year, would seem an appropriate occasion for increasing the endowment, and providing new professorships.

In the Medical School the George Fabyan Professorship of Comparative Pathology, left vacant by the resignation of Dr. Theobold Smith, has been filled by the appointment of Dr. Ernest Edward Tyzzer, who had been for eight years Assistant Professor of Pathology, and was at that time Director of the Cancer Commission and of the Huntington Memorial Hospital for Cancer. Dr. Charles James White has been appointed Edward Wigglesworth Professor of Dermatology; and Dr. Abner Post has resigned as Professor of Syphilis, after a continuous and highly valued service in the Department since 1882. These are the only changes in Professors' chairs during the year; but an important change has occurred in connection with the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. By reason of the rule fixing a limit of age for service, Dr. Councilman has resigned as Pathologist of that hospital, and in concert with the trustees of the hospital Dr. Wolbach has been selected in his place, being appointed at the same time Chairman of the Department of Pathology in the School.

Like every other part of the University that has a large body of students, the Medical School has two distinct functions, teaching and productive research; and it is important to make sure that neither of these is crowded out by the other, for the qualifications required to fill both objects are not always combined in equal measure in the same person. There is need of the capable and inspiring teacher; there is need of the original investigator; and in a school of this size there is room for both, as well as for the rare man who possesses the two qualities in an eminent degree. Owing to the rapid increase of knowledge, and the consequent growth of specialization, the problems of a medical school are peculiarly complex. It is difficult for a professor to keep up with the advance in his own field, work diligently at his own research, and at the same time know what his collegues are doing. To preserve the essential unity of medicine, therefore, in a period of rapid movement, is no simple task.

The organization of our own School, by means of a committee of full professors, an administrative board and an elective faculty council, had become needlessly cumbrous; while the Faculty itself has grown so large that informal discussion is less frequent than in the past. In order to draw the many departments closer together and obtain greater cohesion, the Administrative Board has been given a more representative character, and a position such that it can maintain an oversight of the whole work in the School. The two departments also of Theory and Practice of Medicine and Clinical Medicine are now consolidated into one large department with several professors, no one of whom has a permanent authority over the rest. This is in accordance with the general policy of the University in its other teaching branches, and is believed to give greater elasticity, with better opportunities for progressive work by the younger men. It represents a tendency in the Medical School, and will probably be followed gradually in other departments, where the subjects are closely allied.

Marked Success of Surgical Units.

The surgical unit which supplied the doctors and nurses for Field Hospital No. 22 with the British Expeditionary Force in France, first under Dr. Edward H. Nichols, then under Dr. William E. Faulkner, and later under Dr. David Cheever, has been continued throughout the year. When Dr. Cheever's term of service expired in March, Dr. Faulkner generously consented to take charge of the unit a second time for three months, and at the end of that time Dr. Hurl Cabot went out in charge, followed in September by Dr. Daniel F. Jones. Dr. Kazanjian has remained continuously carrying on his remarkable work on fractured jaws,- for the last year in quarters specially provided for him at General Hospital No. 20. Some of the surgeons and nurses have remained three months, more have stayed six and a few for still longer periods. The appendix to this report gives the names of the surgeons and physicians on duty since the lists printed in the report of last year. By the end of the summer the Harvard unit was the only American surgical unit left with the British Expeditionary Force. The need for it seemed great; it had done excellent work; but the changing of the chief surgeon every three months was inevitably an obstacle to the continuity of administration highly important in a foreign surgical service. It is much to expect that any surgeon shall leave a large private practice for three months, and far more to abandon it for an indefinite period, but Dr. Hugh Cabot has consented to take charge of the unit for the rest of the war. The offer to maintain it until peace has therefore been made, and has been gladly accepted by the Director General of the British Army Medical Service. The work done by the doctors and nurses, and by the Business Manager, Mr. Herbert H. White, has done great credit to the School and to the country.

The increase of students in the School of Business Administration has already been mentioned. This is significant as showing the appreciation by college men both of the preparation for commercial life which it is designed to give, and of the method in which the instruction is given-the more so since the students come from a great variety of colleges scattered all over the country. The Dean's report presents the figures in detail. The School is also gaining the confidence of an ever-widening circle of business men, who open their doors to inspection and study by the students, send information of their affairs to the professors, and welcome the model systems of accounting in certain trades sent out by the Bureau of Business Research. Several changes have been made in the instructing staff which will be found in the report of the Dean. Two of them relate to professors' chairs-the appointment of William James Cunningham, James J. Hill Professor of Transportation, and the promotion of William Morse Cole from Associate Professor to Professor of Accounting.

The magnificent new laboratories of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were completed at the close of the year; and we are anxious to obtain a decision on our bill asking for instructions of the court in regard to our authority to make the agreement with the Institute. The hearing has been unavoidably postponed by the illness of the counsel for the trustees under the will of Gordon McKay, but new counsel are now preparing for a hearing as rapidly as possible. Pending a decision it is improper to discuss the matter here, further than to say that a co-operation in instruction and research has been provisionally established in the new buildings of the Institute, that it is working smoothly, and has resulted in an improvement in the instruction previously given in each institution. The foregoing remarks cover only a part of the work of the University, and by no means all the matters of interest to the general public. The reader is, therefore referred to the reports made by the several Deans and Directors whose provinces have not been touched upon here; the Dean of the School of Architecture, of the Dental School, of the Bussey Institution, and of University Extension, the Directors of the Arnold Arboretum, of the Astronomical Observatory, of the Rotch Observatory at Blue Hill, and of the Museums and Laboratories.

Two Retired Professors Died.

Two retired Professors, both eminent in their practice and long connected with the Medical School, died within a few days of each other. One was David Williams Cheever, who had taught Anatomy and Surgery in the School without a break from 1861 to 1893, and who died on December 27, 1915; the other, James Clarke White, who had taught in the Medical School, first Chemistry, and then Dermatology, continuosuly from 1863 to 1902, died on January 5, 1916. During the year strictly covered by this report, the University lost one Professor by death. On the fourteenth of September, Professor Josiah Royce died after a short illness. For several years he had not been well and showed physically the effects of premature age, but his mind and the power of teaching were unimpaired. He came to us as an instructor in Philosophy in 1882 and his increasing reputation grew more and more rapidly as his life went on. The loss to the University and the Department will be hard to repair.

By resignations the University lost from its list of full Professors Edward Cornelius Briggs, Professors Edward Cornelius Briggs Professor of Dental Materia Medica and Therapeutics; Frederic Jessup Stimson, Professor of Comparative Legislation, who resigned because of his appointment as Ambassador to the Argentine Republic; Frederick Law Olmsted, whose engrossing private practice made it impossible to hold longer his position as Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Landscape Architecture. The University has also lost the services of Benjamin Marston Watson, Instructor in Horticulture since 1877. The appointments to full Professorships in the Schools of Law, Medicine, and Business Administration have already been described. In the other departments of the University the promotions to professors' chairs have been those of Charles Howard Mcllwain, Professor of History and Government; James Sturgis Pray, Charles Eliot Professor of Landscape Architecture; George Henry Chase, John E. Hudson Professor of Archaeology; Roland Burrage Dixon, Professor of Anthropology; John Sanford Humphreys, Associate Professor of Architectural Design; and Percy Edward Raymond, Associate Professor of Palaeontology.

The Exchange of Professors with France was maintained during the year. We sent Charles Hall Grandgent, Professor of Romance Languages, and received from Paris, Maurice Caullery, Professor of Zoology. To the Western Colleges we sent Thomas Nixon Carver, David A. Wells Professor of Political Economy; and from these colleges there came to Harvard Professor Atherton Noyes of Colorado Collage; Professor Herbert Couper Wilson of Carleton College; Professor Henry Shoemaker Conrad of Grinnell College; and Professor Royal Brunson Way of Beloit College. Under the foundation of the Professorship of Latin-American History and Economics, Hon. Manoel de Oliveira Lima of Brazil was appointed occupant of the Chair for the year. Of the Professors from Louvain, Leon Dupriez remained as Visiting Lecturer on Philosophy during the second half-year.

Numerous Financial Gifts Received.

The University received as gifts during the financial year for all purposes, beside the annual payment from the Trustees under the will of Gordon McKay, $1,677,621.85, the gifts in excess of $45,000 being as follows:

Estate of Francis Amory: The Amory Astronomical Fund, $51,300.

Anonymous: School of Architucture, $200,000.

Estate of Arthur Beebe: General Purposes of the University, $231,500.

James J. Hill: Instruction in Transportation, $125,000.

Estate of Sarah A. Matchett: "The Matchett Fund" (additional), $50,000.

Estate of James J. Myers: General Uses of Harvard College, $100,000.

Robert Gould Shaw: Theatre Collection in the Colloge Library, $48,800.

Mrs. F. C. Shattuck: The "Dr. Frederick Shattuck Fund," $100,000.

Estate of Edward Wheelwright: General Purposes of the University, $50,000.

Estate of Morrill Wyman: Morrill Wyman Medical Research Fund, $77,648.

The Class of 1891: Twenty-fifth Anniversary Fund, $100,000.

Once more I want to draw attention to the urgent need of the Dental School which receives little and deserves much. It is conducted almost without endowment, the Clinical Professors receiving no salaries, and barely travelling expenses, and it is doing a work highly creditable to the University.

We have felt it our duty to abate the annual deficit, by raising the tuition fee and by avoiding expenditures although they might be of great importance for the improvement of our conditions. More endowment is urgently needed in many departments if Harvard is to maintain its rank among American institutions of learning. The salaries of the Instructing staff have not been raised for many years, although the cost of living has risen greatly; and many members of the staff ought to receive higher salaries than can be paid to them today. For the welfare of our students and especially of the undergraduates, for bringing about the conditions that will give them the full benefit of life and work here, it is highly important that we should be able to house all our undergraduates and as many as possible of the students in the professional schools. But to do all this requires a great deal of money, and by raising our tuition fee we have drawn on our last source of supply.