KANSAS STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 17 



erected until 1900, but the appropriation for it was obtained by 

 this administration, as was also an appropriation for a dairy barn. 



The administration of the local affairs of the College by 

 President Will was marked by a movement toward action by com- 

 mittees rather than by the Faculty as a whole. The Faculty 

 meetings were cut to once in two weeks, and soon drifted to a less 

 frequent occurrence. A committee was appointed to take over the 

 work of assignment of students to classes. This had become too 

 burdensome for the president to attend to personally, and was 

 still further increased by the changes in the course of study. The 

 assignments as made out by the committee members were sent to 

 the president for approval. This was a distinct advance which 

 the growth of the College demanded. 



Previous to this time, at each meeting of the Board of Regents 

 a joint session of the Faculty and the Board had been held, at 

 which each member of the Faculty had presented the needs of his 

 department. Later the Board acted upon their requests, and 

 made appropriations for the quarter for such purposes as it deemed 

 best. Similarly, authorizations for the expenditure of Experiment 

 Station funds were made quarterly upon the recommendations of 

 the Experiment Station Council, which consisted of the department 

 heads engaged in station work. During President Will's adminis- 

 tration these practices were gradually modified and the present 

 system adopted, whereby allotments of funds are made annually 

 to the several departments. This enables plans to be made in a 

 more comprehensive manner, equity among departments to be 

 more carefully considered, and department heads to be held to 

 account in respect to expenditures and results. 



The administration of President Will was conducted under 

 conditions of constant stress and controversy, most of which was 

 among people outside the College, however. The activities of the 

 College were enlarged, and notwithstanding the appropriations for 

 current expense, the College was delinquent in payments to a con- 

 siderable extent at the close of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1899. 

 By the political road the Board of Regents was transformed in the 

 spring of 1899, and June 10 it voted that the services of President 

 Will, Secretary Phipps, and Professors Bemis, Ward, and Parsons 

 <l be dispensed with after June 30, 1899." Prof. Ernest R. 

 Nichols was elected acting president. 



The Nichols Administration 



Professor Nichols, like Professor Will, entered upon his new 

 duties at a time when the State was hot with controversy, the 

 merits of which can scarcely be peacefully discussed even at this 

 day by those most intimately involved. Suffice to say that the futil- 

 ity of newspaper war was seen by the acting president, and that he 



