Report of the President.

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE CORPORATION:

The Report which I present to-day is the fifth which I have had the honor to bring to your attention. The year of which it contains in some measure a history has been an important and eventful one, bringing with it much of hard work, some changes, and new problems of a far-reaching character. In the solution of these problems, involving as they do questions of an educational bearing, of financial importance, and of administrative methods, all parts of the Institute constituency - Corporation, Faculty and Alumni— must share.

CHANGES IN CORPORATION AND FACULTY.

In the Corporation there has been for the year just closed only one change; the Hon. George H. Martin, Secretary of the Board of Education, has become, ex officio, a member of this body. The changes in the Faculty, however, have been unusually numerous. Professor Jerome Sondericker, Associate Professor of Applied Mechanics, died in mid-summer, while Professors Rambeau, Baird, Dippold, Duncan, Skinner, Whitney, and Norris have resigned. Of these, three were heads of departments, and the changes which have come from these resignations have brought problems of considerable importance in their solution. Professor Duncan is succeeded pro tempore by Professor Clifford, who acts as head of the department until a permanent decision shall have been reached. For the present term, Professor Vogel has taken charge of the Department of Modern Languages in place of Professor

Rambeau, Major John Bigelow having been appointed permanently to this office, his work to begin on February first. Major Fred Wheeler has succeeded Captain Baird in charge of the Department of Military Science.

His

Professor Sondericker was a graduate of the University of Illinois and died at the early age of forty-four and one-half years. He was a man of great kindness and of sterling character, an able teacher, and one who gave himself freely and heartily to his students. His memory will always be cherished by those who have studied under him. Mr. Kilburn S. Sweet, a member of the instructing staff in Civil Engineering, who also died in mid-summer, has left a memory which his colleagues and students are glad to cherish. life is particularly interesting because he came into the work of the Institute under great difficulties. Born in a village in Maine, a boy of delicate frame, he came to Boston in 1889 to attend the Bryant & Stratton Business College. For a time he was employed as an errand boy in the office of the Institute of Technology, at which time he attracted the attention of one of the officers of the Corporation, who encouraged him to try the entrance examinations of the Institute. His expenses here were met by his summer earnings, by scholarships, and by contributions from friends. The outcome of his life with its fine product of usefulness and service may well encourage those who have tried to help struggling boys under similar circumstances.

THE SUBJECTS TREATED IN AN ANNUAL REPORT.

It is not always easy to select from the great mass of interesting material which is crowded into a year's programme of a large institution those topics which are most important or most distinctive. In such a statement, as in all other similar attempts, that which is material and visible to the eye is likeliest to receive attention. Changes in methods of instruction, the bringing into the institution of a fresh

mind, the acquisition of a true teacher or investigator, are all of vastly more importance in the intellectual and spiritual life of the Faculty, the students, and the graduates than the erection of a building, the addition of a laboratory, or the increase in tuition. To preserve a fair perspective of all these things is not simple. Educational and financial problems, entrance requirements, the needs of departments,— all press for representation. In the effort to deal with these varying factors and wants, one will find all sorts of solutions in the administrative reports of our larger institutions. In one the attention is given wholly to matters of detail, in another to the educational organization of the institution, while still another deals almost wholly with the larger questions of education and intellectual life. In the Report which I present to you to-day I have endeavored to bear in mind first of all the intellectual and educational needs of the Institute, but not to lose sight of the details of the Institute's life and work; and above all I invite your attention to the statements of the heads of departments in which are presented in their own words the immediate problems which in their judgment press upon them for solution. It is intended not only that these reports should serve the purpose of historical continuity, but also that they should deal with the larger topics of administration and of education.

THE ADMINISTRATIVE DUTIES ASSIGNED TO AMERICAN PROFESSORS.

No one who is familiar with American and foreign institutions of learning can doubt that the American professor has a far less desirable position than his colleague in the continental countries. Not the least of his burdens is that due to the imposition of administrative duties in addition to those of the teacher. With the growth of our institutions of 'learning, with the stirring competition which exists between them, with the American habit of frequent examinations, an enormous

amount of administrative work has to be done, and this is thrown in a large measure upon the professors. I am not able to give an estimate of this tax as a part of the working hours of the regular day, but there are very few teachers in the Institute of Technology who do not carry a considerable administrative load, and in many cases this load is so great as to furnish a very serious interference with good teaching, to say nothing of scholarly work and investigation. Several of

our professors have returned this year from a year's absence abroad and we expect from these visits the results which ought to come from a fresh view of work as it is done in other institutions. No doubt we shall gain such results, but they will be greatly diminished by reason of the fact that these men have been harnessed at once to the administrative load which the professors in the Institute carry. To one of these was assigned the duty of editing and publishing the Annual Catalogue, a piece of work which has been done in the most admirable manner and with great promptness, but has effectually cut off any opportunity to take up the educational problems which the year's absence might most naturally suggest, problems whose solution would mean more to the cause of education and to the students in the Institute than any amount of administrative detail, however well done. The heads of nearly all of the departments of the Institute are charged with a considerable amount of administrative responsibility. The head of the Department of Mathematics is the Secretary of the Faculty, and his duties as Secretary are constant and onerous. The same thing extends to professors in the other departments, most of whom are charged with duties other than those which naturally come with teaching. All this is a part of our system of education, in which we do for students many things which are not done in foreign countries, and is due particularly to the fact that the work of administration and of teaching have no sharp line of division such as is found in foreign universities and technical schools. It seems to me evident that we must in the near future in American institu