26. After deducting from the total expenditures of your institution the expenses incurred on account of real estate, rents, and repairs, what has been the average cost of educating a pupil in each of the collegiate years since your endowment by the national land-grant? It is impracticable to get at the cost for the several years past, but for 1881 the cost has been as follows: Whole number of students, as per catalogue of 1880 and 1881, is 164; cost of instruction department, $17,367 44; making an average cost of $105 90. VI.-Debts. 27. Give detailed statement of the amount of each present debt of your institution, the manner of and reasons for incurring the same, the mode of liquidation adopted, and any other particulars of interest. On the 31st day of December, 1881, the total indebtedness of the college was $50,440 35. Part of it was incurred in 1866 and the balance at sundry times since, and mostly in the erection of water-works, heating college building with steam, and in the erection of new house for a professor. The method of liquidation is through a sinking fund appropriation each year. For complete list of indebtedness and receipts see the balance sheet of the college made out December 31, 1881, and appended to this report. VII. Subsequent Occupations of the Students. 28. Report, as accurately as possible, the number of students in your institution who have regularly pursued agricultural or mechanical occupations since leaving your institution. The catalogue of the college for 1881 shows that one sixth of the alumni of the college are farmers; we have no statistics concerning students who did not graduate, but the proportion of farmers among them is very much. larger. VIII.-Character of Instruction. 29. Give statement in the following blank form of the names, titles, duties, salaries, and money value of the allowances of the president and the several professors, tutors, and instructors of your institution, and state the number of hours occupied by each in actual instruction in the collegiate year. 30. Has your institution a preparatory course of study? If so, state the number of years in the course and number of weeks in scholastic year. Yes; two years of forty weeks each. 31. How many years are occupied by your course of instruction in agriculture and the mechanic arts? Give the total number of weeks in said course. Four years of forty weeks each. 32. Give the annual cost of tuition, the number of free scholarships established by the State, and the number of other free scholarships, and the average income from them. No charge for tuition. There are fifty (5) senatorial free scholarships, valued at forty dollars each per annum. 33. Give, for each collegiate year since your organization as a college. of agriculture and the mechanic arts, the number and sex of students in your preparatory and collegiate courses of instruction. There have been altogether since 1859 about fifteen hundred students. Students do not usually choose their course so as to continue in it, until they have been for some time in the college; this is specially true of preparatory and special students, so that it is not practicable to give accurate data in answer to No. 33. 34. Give for each year of your preparatory and collegiate courses the number of hours per week occupied by recitations and lectures, as follows: NUMBER OF HOURS EMPLOYED PER WEEK IN ate year. 4th collegiate year. 1st prepara-2d prepara- 1st collegi- 2d collegi- 3d collegi- tory year. ate year. ate year. An answer to the above cannot be given unless we have a definition of terms; for instance, "branches relating to agriculture" may include all subjects important to the scientific and practical agriculturist, such as mathematics, all the physical sciences, political science, history, drawing, book-keeping, &c., &c. We append a circular of the College giving the course of study, the subject of study, and the hours per week devoted to each study. THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE COLLEGE It Offers instruction in a preparatory course; in two general courses, general science and classic; and in four technical courses, agriculture, natural history, chemistry, and physics, and civil engineering. It also admits special students who do not intend to take all of any college course. still further offers, to farmers and others who cannot become students, a farmers' institute, or course of lectures, lasting two weeks in mid-winter. For particulars concerning the studies, etc., see other parts of this circular. Admission. The college admits both sexes on the following conditions: First. Candidates for the preparatory department must be at least fourteen years of age, and have a fair knowledge of the ordinary common school branches. Second. For admission to the freshman class, general science course, the candidate must be at least fifteen years of age, and pass a further examination in United States history, Olney's higher algebra, (to quadratics,) Olney's geometry, (to section seven,) Steele's Fourteen Weeks in Physics, and Houston's physical geography, or their equivalents. For the classical course, the applicant will be examined in Cæsar, Cicero's orations, and Xenophon's anabasis, instead of physics and physical geography. Candidates for either course should have some practical knowledge of drawing and book-keeping. Students whose advanced knowledge of some subjects will enable them to make up their deficiencies in others, may be admitted conditionally. Location, Buildings, etc. Situated in the midst of a rolling valley, about ten miles in width, the college enjoys a beautiful landscape and a healthful climate. The college lands contiguous to the institution—and so not including the one-hundredacre experimental farms in Chester and Indiana counties are four hundred 4-LEG. Doc. No. 18. acres in extent, and consist of farms, forest, orchards, vineyard, gardens, and ornamental grounds. The main building-a substantial stone structure, two hundred and forty feet in length, eighty feet in average width, and five stories in height, exclusive of attic and basement-contains the public rooms, such as chapel, library, cabinets, laboratories, class-rooms, and society halls, and a large number of dormitories. It is heated throughout by steam, and is abundantly supplied with water from an artesian well. The other buildings are professors' houses, barns, engine-houses, etc. Museums, Laboratories, etc. In geology, the college possesses, in addition to many fine specimens of European rocks, the collection made by Professor Rogers, for the first geological survey of the State, and is receiving, from the State geologist, a duplicate collection of the second survey, now in progress. The botanical museum contains an herbarium of more than three thousand species, a collection of the woods of central Pennsylvania, a collection of the woods of the United States, (numbering over four hundred specimens,) specimens of cones, seeds, etc. The zoological museum has a small but good collection of dry and alcoholic specimens, articulated skeletons, collections of insects injurious to vegetation, and of those helpful to the farmer, of birds, etc., etc. In mechanics, a collection of models from the Patent Office; in crystallography, specimen crystals and models, and in metallurgy, samples of ores are available for instruction. The botanical, chemical, and physical laboratories have all the appliances necessary for thorough work in the line of these several departments, and additions are made to the apparatus, year by year, to increase the facilities offered to the students. The mechanical laboratory has been in operation but one session, and has been equipped for wood-work only. Its success has, however, encouraged the board to extend the work, and it is now proposed to add, immediately, needful tools and apparatus for metal-working. A room has been fitted up for mechanical drawing. The College Library, containing about three thousand volumes, mostly scientific and technical, and the current issues of leading scientific, agricultural, horticultural, and literary periodicals, is open for daily use. The student societies, also, have libraries for the use of their members, and society reading-rooms, which include in their lists the prominent daily papers. Practicums. The college has, from the first, sought to combine practical with theoretical instruction, and thus to fix in the student's mind a knowledge of both methods and principles. With this end in view, a portion of the student's time has been set apart for this training, and the number of subjects in which such instruction is given, and the apparatus for it have been added to, until the range of topics is quite extensive, as appears from the several schedules. A portion of this training is largely technical, and so is almost wholly confined to certain courses. Other parts, however, are so general in their character as to be appropriately required of all students. Among these practicums common to all, the following may be mentioned for the sake of illustration: Book-keeping, so important for the right conduct of all business; drawing, free-hand and mechanical, needed by individuals in all employments and professions; military drill, required by the law of Congress, and helpful in securing right habits of body and mind; mechanic arts, in which is learned, among other things, the making of plane surfaces, correct angles and joints, and the care and use of tools; horticulture, where instruction is given in all ordinary operations belonging to fruit culture, such as pruning, grafting, budding, and propagation by cuttings and layers; and surveying, which acquaints the student with the instruments of the art, and trains him to determine points, distances, and areas. Some of these practicums not only give knowledge of almost universal use, but also serve a good purpose by developing, during the early part of the course, tastes and aptitudes which may determine the student's choice of a technical course and of his life-work. In each of the technical courses, certain special lines of practice have a large amount of time given them, proportionate to their importance or subsequent professional use. Each practicum is directed by an instructor who is familiar with both the theory and the practice, and with their mutual relations. Preparatory Courses. As many students come from districts where there are no advanced schools, it has been found needful to maintain a department which shall prepare such persons for admission to college, and shall at the same time, give a good practical training to those who are unable, from any cause, to prolong their studies beyond the ordinary academic course. Applicants should, as stated on page 2, be at least fourteen years of age, and have a good knowledge of the common English branches. Preparatory students, except those who are under the immediate care of their parents and guardians, are required to room in the building, where they are under the supervision of the principal of the department and his assistants during study hours; and every effort is made to incite in them a love of study, and to create and confirm habits favorable to it. As there are two general courses in the college, there are two preliminary courses, designed to prepare for these, respectively. While these have much in common, clearness demands that they be given separately. They are as follows: PREPARATORY COURSE IN GENERAL SCIENCE. First Year. FALL SESSION.-Arithmetic, Algebra, Physiology, English Analysis. WINTER SESSION.-Algebra, English Composition, Physical Geography, Zoology. SPRING SESSION.-Algebra, English History, Botany, English Composition. Second Year. FALL SESSION.-Algebra, English History, Natural Philosophy, German. Practicum-Drawing, one hour daily. WINTER SESSION.-Algebra, United States History, Chemistry, German. Practicum-Drawing and Book-Keeping, one hour daily. SPRING SESSION.-Geometry, United States History, Chemistry, German. Practicum-Drawing and Book-Keeping, one hour daily. |