FORTY-THIRD ANNUAL CONVENTION 29 



yery much wider freedom of choice in electives than it would 

 offer if it had abundant room and help. 



But the flat proposition of excluding students seems well- 

 nigh unthinkable. The tax-payer whose boy was the first to be 

 refused admission would certainly object to a plan whereby he 

 would contribute to the education of his neighbors' boys and 

 girls while his own were refused for no other reason than \vant 

 of room. Manifestly a state institution would not solve its finan- 

 cial problem by turning away students. 



Fourth : A possible procedure is to use cheaper buildings, 

 to be wrecked after ten or a dozen years. It is possible to erect 

 for about one dollar per square foot, single-story buildings with 

 cement floors laid directly upon the ground and with paper 

 roofing. The University has already resorted to this device in 

 the roofing over the court of the Agricultural building. That 

 space is now used as a means of providing more class rooms; 

 and, so far as the faculty are concerned, it is a perfectly accept- 

 able means of solving financial difficulties. Everybody at the 

 University would rather do his own work than to build buildings, 

 and nobody has the desire to spend his life in the planning and 

 erection of architectural monuments. 



However, to cover the campus with a multitude of cheaply 

 constructed buildings, having a lifetime of only ten to fifteen 

 years is only to defer the building problem, not to solve it. It 

 is undoubtedly the course which the University will pursue if it 

 is obliged to choose between this course and the others already 

 mentioned ; because all the others are practically unthinkable. 

 This course is thinkable, but it is clearly not the best solution, 

 nor in the long run would it be considered good business. 



Fifth : The only other course which might be pursued is to 

 frankly state to the public that it is impossible, as matters now 

 stand, for the University to build a plant as it ought to be built, 

 with fire-proof construction and in the most durable way ; and to 

 point out the necessity of a comprehensive building plan that 

 will cover the needs of the University and spread the expenses 

 over a series of years. In this way perfectly good buildings can 

 be erected that will last indefinitely with minimum expenses for 

 repair, and the work of the institution will not be interrupted. 

 Because there is no way of getting something for nothing, there 



