University of Arkansas Fayetteville - Razorback Yearbook (Fayetteville, AR)

Page 28 text:

T rfhJXJPJt tin

Page 27 text:

Jktenftfic ©eparfmenfe LTHOUGH science teaching is still in the adoles¬ cent period in the University as in the State and in the south, it has made a long step forward in efficiency and into public favor. The gain in the number of students within the year past is about fifty per cent. The improvement in the char¬ acter of students who take some branch of science as a major study is still greater than the numerical increase. The Science Club organized at the beginning of the year has met regularly twice a month and the interest in these meetings has been well maintained and there is no sign of failure. The youngest de¬ partment in the University lias made notable advancement with¬ in the single year of its autonomy, and under the management of Prof. Purdue, large additions have been made to its reference library. Plaster of Paris casts of the State of Arkansas and the peninsula of San Francisco have been added to the equipment for instruction, and the students are at work on a cast of the Tennessee highlands. The department is now furnished with a well equipped mineralogical laboratory. Prof. Purdue has given a very successful course of lectures on Physical Geography to the teachers of the Fort Smith public schools. The department of Biology has been fully occupied with the usual routine work, which has increased to such an extent that a further division of the work is one of the most urgent of the many pressing needs of the University. The most important result of its activity during the year, aside from the publication of a Revision of the Truxalinae of the United States by Professor McNeill and several scientific papers by his students, has been the work in embryology. Some of the results of this work, as serial section microphotographs and stereopticon slides prepared by the students, are to be presented to the public at a final meeting of the Science Club. It is pro¬ posed by the departments of Biology and Geology to begin a Natural History Survey of the State at the close of the present session. This work is to be undertaken by the instructors and a small number of advanced students and prosecuted vigorously during the summer vacations. It is hoped to present the result of these studies in a serial publication The oldest department for scientific instruction in the Uni¬ versity is that of Chemistry and Physics. Dr. Menke’s old time zeal and popularity have not waned. In equipment and general efficiency this department will not suffer when compared with institutions of the same size and rank in any part of the country. Prof. Bentley in addition to his class work manages to find time for a considerable amount of original investigation. He is at the time of this writing, studying the effect of nitric acid on tribrom acetanilide. The results, which are important and cor¬ rective to much of what has recently been observed, are to be published as soon as finished. Where the scientific spirit, which is love of truth, is most cultivated, progress toward a higher civilization is most evident; and where it is not found, learning is but the thinly disguised scholasticism of the middle ages. Here’s to Science! May her friends be multiplied until there are no other pebbles on the beach. 20

Page 29 text:

J cfW of (Engineering CCORDIXG to the language of the grant which Congress made in establishing our University in 1871, “the leading object shall be without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to Agricul¬ ture, and the Mechanic Arts.” So then the life of the School of Engineering has been iden¬ tical with that of the University and its progress has ever been,—forward—onward. This school is in itself a very broad one, for it includes the Mechanicals, the Civils and the Electricals. The results of its instruction are not thundered forth in the halls of the literary society, nor are they shown in the investigation of plants, insects, rocks or fossils, but are seen in the ever powerful engines and testing machines; in the tripod of the surveyor and the clink of his chain, and in the flash of the “arc” and the milder glow of the “incandescent.” The work in this, as in any engineering school, is intensely practical, for ’tis here that the student learns to be and in a great measure makes of himself what he is in after life. Our shops, which two years ago were a mass of ruins—of gnarled and twisted iron—have been rebuilt in brick, and aw’ait the occupancy of a more complete equipment of expensive and accurate machinery. The school’s equip¬ ment now consists mainly of boilers, Corliss and Westinghouse en¬ gines, testing machines (Riehle for metals or wood, and cement; Edison, Perret, and Thomson-Houston dynamos and motor; Kelvin balance and numerous transits, levels, etc. What do we need? In general terms it can be readily told. W T e need an equipment of both our shops and laboratories that will enable us to compare favorably with any school of engineering in the noith or east, and to back it all a legislature that will give us a liberal appropriation for this purpose. Notwithstanding all difficulties, our engineering alumni have proven their in¬ struction to have been good, for many of them fill responsible and lucrative positions in various large cities. A large per cent of the students have identified themselves with this department and we think we may safely predict a steady improvement and onward progress for the School of Engineering. 21