870 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 1015 



of technology. Mr. Carnegie's gifts to these 

 institutions now amount to $24,000,000. 



By the will of former Judge John Forrest 

 Dillon, Iowa State University receives $10,000 

 and Iowa College and Cornell College, $1,000 

 each. 



An additional gift of $25,000 has heen re- 

 ceived by Oberlin College for carrying out the 

 general building plans and the improvement 

 of grounds. 



The alumni of the University of Illinois are 

 planning to erect a $150,000 building as a 

 memorial to John Milton Gregory, first presi- 

 dent of the university. It is to house an art 

 collection gathered by Dr. Gregory and a new 

 collection of figures and panels which the 

 alumni association intends to buy. 



The Arnold Biological Laboratory, ground 

 for which has been broken at Brown Univer- 

 sity, is expected to be finished a year from 

 this summer. The building itself wiU. cost 

 $80,000, while $30,000 more will be spent upon 

 the equipment. 



The Drapers' Company has made a grant 

 of £200 a year for three years for anthropology 

 at the University of Cambridge. 



Last year Sir William James Thomas, of 

 Tnyshir, undertook to build and present to 

 the University College of South Wales and 

 Monmouthshire on a site contiguous to the 

 old buildings in Newport Road a complete 

 physiological department, so constructed as to 

 form a part of a scheme for a complete medical 

 school on the same site. Now, as we learn 

 from Nature, a donor, who wishes at present 

 to remain anonymous, has offered to build 

 the whole of the buildings necessary not only 

 for a medical school, but also a school of pre- 

 ventive medicine, at an estimated cost of 

 £60,000. One of the conditions attached to the 

 latter gift, however, is that the funds supplied 

 by the treasury should be sufficient for the 

 upkeep of the complete school. 



Central Turkey College at Aintab has re- 

 ceived from the Turkish government official 

 recognition as ecole superieure. It is the first 

 of the American colleges in Turkey to secure 



such authorization for any part of its regular 

 curriculum. 



Mr. Albert L. Barrows has been appointed 

 instructor in zoology in the University of 

 California. 



Dr. Thomas H. MacBride, professor of 

 botany, has been appointed president of the 

 Iowa State University by the State Board of 

 Education. 



DISCVSSION AND COBSESPONDENCE 



THE ORGANIZATION OF A UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT 



To THE Editor of Science : I have read with 

 interest the letter of Professor F. L. Washburn 

 on " Heads of Departments," in Science of 

 May 1 ; and it has occurred to me that your 

 readers might be interested in an account of 

 the present organization of one of the largest 

 departments in one of the largest universities 

 in America. 



At Columbia University a department of 

 English was first established in 1899 by as- 

 signing to it the professor of English litera- 

 ture, the professor of dramatic literature and 

 the professor of rhetoric and English com- 

 position; and these three thereupon organized 

 by inviting the professor of English in 

 Teachers College to join them and by electing 

 the professor of English literature as chairman 

 and the professor of rhetoric as secretary. On 

 the death of the professor of English litera- 

 ture, the late Thomas R. Price, the position 

 of chairman was abolished, the senior professor 

 of the department being expected to preside 

 at its meetings and all the administrative 

 duties being confided to the secretary, who was 

 relieved of a part of his teaching that he might 

 be enabled to carry this extra burden. 



With the expansion of Columbia University 

 and of its several colleges and schools, 

 Columbia College, Barnard, Teachers and the 

 School of Journalism, the department of Eng- 

 lish has grown in numbers; and several years 

 ago the department of comparative literature 

 was merged with it, so that it now consists of 

 more than twenty professors, assistant pro- 

 fessors and associate professors. And during 

 the past fifteen years it has administered its 



