FORTY-THIRD ANNUAL CONVENTION 27 



attendance, but when subjected to the wear and tear of thous- 

 ands they go to pieces at a rate which makes their repair cost 

 more than their worth. 



Because the University was rapidly being forced into an 

 impossible situation, the President called a conference to deter- 

 mine the best method of procedure for recommendation to the 

 Board of Trustees. The result of the conference was to show 

 that there are but five things which the University might do in 

 an attempt to meet the problems which confront it. These pos- 

 sible alternatives may be briefly outlined as follows : 



First : It might retire from some of the more expensive 

 courses which it is offering. In this connection it should be 

 remarked that every college and school in the University has 

 been organized, not from a desire on the part of the President 

 and trustees to do everything that could be thought of, but in 

 every case it has been done to meet the demands of a definite 

 group of tax-paying citizens. The College of Agriculture, for 

 example, was organized and an Experiment Station has been 

 supported because the farmers of the state demanded it. They 

 would certainly object to its discontinuance in order to save 

 money. Perhaps the farmers might be satisfied to abolish the 

 School of Ceramics. But this school is established to meet the 

 needs of a clay-working industry of 'the state and to develop 

 these clays and their products to the best advantage. Undoubt- 

 edly it will pay the state to do this and to educate skilled design- 

 ers so that we may use our native clays to the best advantage 

 and sell as well as buy finer works of art. To abolish the School 

 of Ceramics, therefore, would meet the vigorous objection of 

 the clay-working people and it would be a bad move, financially, 

 for the state. 



Perhaps the School of Law might be abolished. It is some- 

 times held that inasmuch as the lawyers are to make their living 

 off the public, they should pay the expenses of their education 

 in the form of tuition. If they do that, however, they would 

 clearly feel the right to demand that the law that is to be taught 

 them should be of that kind which should be most useful to them 

 in practicing their profession. Law has been taught from the 

 standpoint of the practitioner long enough. It is high time that 

 it be taught from the standpoint of public welfare. If, how- 



