54 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



greater than usual from the increased number of admissions during the year; 

 one reguhir Wednesday lecture and another by proxy; one sermon at Sunday 

 afternoon exercises ; a weekly Bible class for the College Christian Union ; and 

 various items of special reference in tlie College routine. In the whole year I 

 have been detained from College duties two days by a temporary illness. 



During the winter vacation, beside taking the parts assigned me in the Insti- 

 tutes at Marshall and Saginaw City, as published in the Report of the State 

 Board of Agriculture for 1877, I gave four evening lectures at different places 

 in the State. I have also preached twice away from the College. All invita- 

 tions to similar work during term time it has been absolutely necessary to 

 decline. 



In reviewing the year, I find myself unsatisfied with the work accomplished, 

 because of too many and coniiicting duties. Opportunity for much needed 

 study in my own department I have been almost utterly without. During two 

 of the terms my actual occupation in the class-room has averaged more than 

 four hours a day, and at least another hour each day has been given to direc- 

 tion of students outside of classes. To this confinement has been added the 

 ceaseless round of essays and orations for correction and the necessary corres- 

 pondence of a librarian. If at any time duties in class-room have been less 

 burdensome, as during the first six weeks of the spring term, an accumulation 

 of work in the library has demanded attention quite as constant. The chief 

 cause of my dissatisfaction with such an overburden of many kinds of work is 

 its necessary imperfections. I ask the earnest attention of yourself and the 

 Board of Agriculture to these disadvantages under which the department of 

 English Literature is left to suffer. The absolutely necessary preparation for 

 class-room lectures is hurried and often interrupted ; the work for my own 

 rhetorical classes is not planned or executed to my satisfaction, while several 

 rhetorical classes arc crowded upon others to whom neither taste nor inclina- 

 tion nor usual studv makes them aafreeable. 



I ask that provision be made as soon as possible for the oversight of the 

 library and the teaching of French, leaving to my charge the Rhetoric and 

 English Literature of the course with all the rhetorical exercises of all the 

 classes, and, for the present, the Moral Philosophy and Political Economy. 

 With the present nun)ber of students, this would be not too burdensome, and 

 it certainly would be far less distracting and unsatisfactory. It would give an 

 average of about three hours a day in classes with abundance of desk-work; 

 but the confusion would be less and the more natural concentration of thought 

 would aid essentially in accomplishment. 



Hoping that another year may give to the College such addition of men and 

 means as to make this change possible, I respectfully submit this i'e|)ort. 



GEO. T. FAIRCIIILD. 



REPORT OP THE LIBRARIAN. 



To the I'restdent of (he College : 



The following rejjort of condition, care, and oversight of the College Library 

 covers the period of eleven months from Octol)er 1st, 1877, to August ."Jlst, 

 1878. This slightly affects the figures in accounts of donations, l)ooks drawn. 



