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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 215. 



of reorganization and reconstruction on 

 a higher plane and in a more modern way. 

 Mr. H. Sibley had enlarged and improved 

 the College buildings and greatly added to 

 the outfit of laboratory apparatus and work- 

 shops, and it was considered practicable to 

 undertake the inauguration of schools of 

 undergraduate and post-graduate work in 

 the various branches of mechanical engi- 

 neering and the mechanic arts. Space was 

 available and the apparatus was sufficient 

 to meet the needs, as was thought, of as 

 many as 200 students in its various depart- 

 ments. The institution was placed in the 

 hands of a Faculty composed entirely of 

 professional experts ; the course was recon- 

 structed and made mainly technical ; the 

 entrance requirements were made to ac- 

 cord, as closely as was thought practicable, 

 with those of the most advanced of existing 

 schools of a similar class, and the equip- 

 ment was made modern in character and 

 exceptionally extensive in each of its pro- 

 fessional branches. 



Later, special courses were established, 

 undergraduate and advanced, in electrical 

 engineering, in marine engineering, in rail- 

 way machine construction, etc., and the 

 College was brought into the form now 

 familiar to our professional educators and 

 technical men. 



The immediate result of this reconstruc- 

 tion of the institution was to bring up the 

 attendance from an average, for the earlier 

 years, of about a dozen, with an average of 

 five in the graduating classes, to about a 

 hundred ; while the graduating classes in 

 the course of the next four yeai-s ran up to 

 30, in ten years to 100, and while the stu- 

 dent-list increased to 400 in five years and 

 to 634 in less than ten. In two years the 

 College had reached its originally estimated 

 limit, and the Director was compelled to 

 notify the Trustees that some means must 

 be found to prevent overcrowding. It was 

 attempted to restrict admissions to the 



freshman class ; but this proved inefifective, 

 as students would then enter other depart- 

 ments of the University, and, later, transfer 

 to the upper classes of Sibley College. 

 Meantime the numbers increased ; the fac- 

 ulty was enlarged, new buildings were 

 added and equipment greatly increased, 

 without relief from the continual overcrowd- 

 ing and pressure in all departments and in 

 every phase of work. 



Finally it was concluded to adopt a rad- 

 ical and certain method of checking an 

 influx of students which threatened to de- 

 moralize the institution by flooding all 

 departments and overworking the whole 

 staff, while, hardly less serious, making 

 heavy inroads upon the always hard-pressed 

 income of the University, which was 

 already overloaded by the enormous de- 

 mands of the State of New York for State 

 scholarships — now 600 in number — for 

 which no compensation was made to the 

 University. The immediate outcome was 

 the cutting-down of the entering classes 40 

 per cent., by demanding of them an addi- 

 tional year in mathematics ; permitting the 

 freshmen to take up analytical geometry 

 and the calculus, and the sophomores to 

 give their time for the year, in that branch, 

 to applied mechanics, the backbone of every 

 technical course. This was done in 1893, 

 and classes which would have entered about 

 175 strong were pruned down, by this ex- 

 clusion of the weakest applicants, to some- 

 thing above 100. The ' cream was skimmed ' 

 and a magnificent body of students thus 

 secured ; but the result, on the other hand, 

 was then and later the compelling of hun- 

 dreds of young men to go directly into busi- 

 ness, who, otherwise, would have secured a 

 systematic and scientific preparation for 

 their life's work. The facts of this very in- 

 teresting case are shown in the accompany- 

 ing diagram, originally from the report of 

 the Director of Sibley College to the Board 

 of Trustees of Cornell University, June, 



