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THE HESPERIAN
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as applied to the assay of minerals, coals
and wood.
We need also a special laboratory for soil
analysis. For the last six or eight years
this department has carried on a systematic
investigation of the soils of the state. This
investigation includos not only chemical but
also the physical examination of soils. It
goes without 'saying that work of such im
portance cannot be attended to with any
carefulness and exactness desirable when it
must be shifted from place to place in a
general laboratory. The soil analysis labor
atory should be large enough also to supply
storage room for soil samples and for other
materials.
On the instructional side, so to speak, wo
are in need of a large amount of material for
demonstration and illustration. As the
amount of technical instruction increases
this demand for technical collections bo
comes imperative. The department should
have in connection with its lecture rooms
ample rooms for arranging in a systematic
way such collections.
The appointment of the director of the
laboratory as state chemist makes necessary
an office and laboratory where all work
pertaining to the state at large can be done.
The sugar school connected with this de
partment, now opening its fourth session,
has pressing needs in the way of chart col
lections, models of machinery, and of
standard varieties of beets to properly illuu
trate and enforce its instruction.
In addition it almost goes without saying
that instructors enough should be provided
that no one would be obliged to attempt to
handle classes of more than fifty individuals.
If the needs of the department as hero ex
pressed seem unduly great wo can but call
attention to the wide range of work the de
partment is called upon to perform. In the
first place instruction in a great variety of
subjects is given to a largo number of
students. A wide range of investigation is
carried on in connection with the United
Statos experiment station. A large and
constantly increasing amount of work is
done annually in answer to demands made
by citizens from all parts of the state.
A careful consideration of this side of the
question will show that the departmental
needs as thus briefly expressed are not in
commensurate with the demands that the
department seeks to satisfy.
THE DEPARTMENTS OF ENTOMOLOGY, GE
OLOGY AND ZOOLOGY.
The departments of entomology, geology
and zoology have not only reached their
limit of growth in the space allotted to them,
but the work has also b(en seriously affected
by the over-crowding. This condition of
affairs his voiced itself in the generally ap
proved roqucat for a now building, to be de
voted to this work. In the space allotted, it
is difficult to do more than hint at some'of
the disadvantages under which work is car
ried on at present in those departments. In
zoology the limit of the capacity of the labo
ratory has been reached. In one division .,
not only every place in the room is filled,
but students are working in tho private room
of tho professor, and in the small department
library as well, thus materially interfering
with tho use of these rooms for their proper
purposes. In geology the matter is even
worse; a laboratory designed for eight stu
dents now has to accommodate forty, and
double that number endeavor to use it at odd
hours or to find poor accommodation at a
few tables which have been placed in the
lecture room to the detriment of its original
use. Tho lecture room, designed for the
joint use of geology and zoology, has been
called into use for mathematics, Latin and
odd lectures, until it cannot be had by tho
departments for which it was originally 'in
tended, and lectures in two courses are now
held in the laboratories. All of these adjust
ments and makeshifts render efficient teach
ing difficult; they not Only limit the present
efficiency of the work but they also check its
future growth and expansion.
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