DEPARTMENT REPORTS. 19 



to retain tliis class of students, a class who may not have had the opportunity 

 to go further than the niininuuu laid down by the lavT of the State, as requi- 

 site for admission here. 



The larger part of the students who come to the College have had a course 

 of instruction in Algebra, and it is desirable that they should have had it ; and 

 sometimes the students are divided into sections on their knowledge or igno- 

 rance of algebra, but no student is excluded, or put in any way of exclusion 

 for ignorance of any branch not required on entering. 



Were we near the city, students for whom we cannot find rooms might find 

 them there, and be present at the College exercises regularly. W'e are three 

 and a half miles from the city, and in the spring, and sometime in autumn, 

 and throughout the winter, might as well be thirty — so impassable are the 

 roads. A street railway from the city to the College, which would not cost so 

 much as a new hall, would afford opportunity for indefinite growtli to the 

 College. Students could find rooms in the city. If there were a way for the 

 State to help such an enterprise, and she should do so, tliat niattcr of room for 

 students would hereafter be set at rest. 



Otherwise there seems to remain to us but two courses, — to build a new hall 

 at once, or to let students go home, telling them that we have no room for 

 them. We shall have about forty places that can be filled next spring. Should 

 they be taken, we shall have in September, 1879, only such places for the 

 freshman class coming in at that time, as are made vacant by the occasional 

 leaving of students. 



DORMITORIES. 



There are two dormitories for students. 



Williams Ilall, named after Joseph R. Williams, the first President of the 

 College, was built in 18G9, at a cost of $34,550. It is also the boarding hall 

 of the students, and the steam heating and cooking apparatus, tiie gas pipes 

 and furniture cost $13,075. There are thirty-eight rooms in this building, 

 accommodating (one room being adapted to but one) seventy-five students. 



Wells Hall is named after the Hon. Hezekiah C Wells of Kalamazoo, pres- 

 ident or acting president of the Board of Agriculture from 18G1, when the 

 Board was first established, to the present time. This Hall was built in 1877 

 at a cost for construction, heating apparatus and furnishing, of $25,000. The 

 ihall contains sixty-nine students' rooms, accommodating one hundred and 

 twenty-seven students. The whole number of students that can be accom- 

 modated with rooms is two hundred and two. 



GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE COLLEGE. 



No general account of the College has appeared in our reports for some 

 years. As calls are frequently made for more information than is contained in 

 the catalogue, I propose to give in this place some account of the College and 

 its several departments. My own appointment to a professorship in the faculty 

 was made by the Board of Education, at that time in charge of the College, on 

 February 5th, 1858, only nine months after the opening exercises. I was 

 appointed treasurer of the College at tliat time. In 18G1 the charge of the 

 College was transferred from the State Board of Education to a State Board 

 of Agriculture, created for the purpose by the Legislature. Under the reor- 

 ganization the work that had devolved on the treasurer was mostly transferred 

 to the secretary, and I was made secretary, and performed the duties of that 

 office until I was made president of the College, December 4th, 18G2. I have 



