REPORT OF PRESIDENT CLUTE. 27 



AGRICULTURAL LABORATORY. 



The many excellent buildings which from year to year have been built 

 for the farm, and the large amount of material provided for farm work and 

 illustration, have always shown the interest which the people of Michigan, 

 the Board, and the Faculty have taken in this department. 



The new Agricultural Laboratory is another and significant illustration 

 of this. The building committee is watching the progress of the building 

 with much interest. It is hoped that it 'will be ready for Prof. Davenport's 

 class and laboratory work by the opening of the spring term. In the pres- 

 ent agricultural class-room in College Hall the Agricultural Department 

 has had one of the most convenient and accessible rooms belonging to the 

 College. But the new quarters will be near the other farm buildings, and 

 having been planned for this work, will have a completeness nowhere sur- 

 passed. It is most fortunate for the College that this new building adds so 

 opportunely to the class-room accommodations. The fine room which has 

 been used as an agricultural class-room can at once be made of much service 

 by classes in another department, that have been getting along uncomplain- 

 ingly with inferior accommodations. 



SUMMER SCHOOL. 



The valuable apparatus, laboratories, and library of the College, its able 

 professors, and its healthy and beautiful location make it a desirable place 

 for a "summer school" for the benefit of students who desire to give them- 

 selves better training in special studies. A number of graduates of other 

 colleges, and teachers in the grammar schools and high schools of the State, 

 summered with us this year. Their faithful devotion to their specialties 

 kept them employed not less than ten hours a day at laboratory work. 

 The progress they made by aid of our excellent apparatus in every depart- 

 ment, and of the constant suggestions of enthusiastic professors, was to 

 them and to us very satisfactory. They are most cordial in their expres- 

 sions as to the pleasure and profit derived from their stay among us. We 

 shall attempt to make the advantages we can offer for this summer work 

 more widely known among the public school teachers of the State and shall 

 probably welcome a larger number of them in the summer of '90. There is 

 difficulty in providing rooms for these summer students. Next summer we 

 shall probably advise them to bring with them such bedding as will enable 

 them to " camp out " in the Drill Hall, which is a light, well ventilated, 

 airy building, very pleasantly located. It will give good accommodations to 

 a large number of gentlemen. 



WINTER LABORATORY WORK. 



There is a growing tendency for some laboratories to be kept open for 

 the accommodation of special students during the long winter vacation. 

 There could be no better time for work, if a student is in earnest and knows 

 what he wants to do. The quiet of each returning day is uninterrupted. 

 There is no delay in obtaining the use of apparatus and material, nor from 

 recitations or other routine of College life. Investigations that require 



