DEPARTMENT OF RURAL ART 



TEACHING 



Opportunity for expansion and a more comprehensive handling of our 

 work was made possible during the past year through the addition to our 

 staff of E. Gorton Davis, who was engaged as assistant professor at the 

 beginning of the year. 



It seemed wise to again accept for the year the drafting space in White 

 Hall, which had been so courteously granted to the Department in previous 

 years by Professor Martin of the College of Architecture. Professor 

 Martin arranged for us additional special lecture-room and exhibition 

 space, also, which we used conjointly with the College of Architecture. 

 We set up our own lantern for slides, which was a further convenience. 

 During the year our instruction — other than that in plant materials, 

 which was conducted in the College of Agriculture — was given in 

 White Hall. 



The writer feels that an index to our progress and to the efficiency 

 of the instruction is the character of work that the students are doing. 

 The writer believes that the student work of the past year is, in general, 

 quite the most meritorious that we have been able to command thus far, 

 and that it has attained a satisfactory standard. 



In the middle of the year the moving of our office in the College of 

 Agriculture to a better room made possible the organization, arrange- 

 ment, and indexing of much technical material, such as reference reading, 

 collections of illustrations, lantern slides, and the like. The collection 

 of a set of photographs adequately illustrating plant materials was under- 

 taken and is in progress. 



During the year a restudy of our curriculum, in the light of experience, 

 resulted in a somewhat revised program as published in the present cata- 

 log of the College. This restudy included an effort to better adapt 

 several of our courses to election by the general student : Course 2, 

 Elementary Theory, which is in particular an abstract and analytical 

 study of natural landscape ; Course 3, History of Landscape Design, 

 which seemingly is the most popular elective course ; Course 4, Theory 

 and v^sthetics of Landscape Design, also a course in which we have had 

 many general students in the past; Course 13, Elementary Planting 

 Design, which is adapted especially to the student wishing, as an amateur, 

 a knowledge of the principles underlying the use of plant materials. 

 The work in the last-named course is the foundation for more advanced 

 study in the same subject. 



[cxxxix] 



