University of Illinois - Illio Yearbook (Urbana Champaign, IL)

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TEN YEARS OF PROGRESS of a prophet by reason of alertness and experience, was astonished at the number that thronged to the lectures and machinery demonstrations. Not only does the practical man come into the University for the expert, as in the case of Dean Goss and Dr. Hopkins, the University also goes out into the work of affairs for the practical man. The director of the Shop Laboratories, B. W. Benedict, is himself an engineer of many years experience in railroad affairs. He has introduced shop methods of efficiency, those methods that make life hard for the laggard and the day dreamer at toil. Naturally this must develop men who will not find the transition from the University workshop to the Big Company shops very difficult. It is certainly a sane move since in the beginning power of brain followed upon power of hand, and in the development of the individual it repeated the story of the race-development. A mere list of men notable in the life of the University, shows what a vigorous and free atmosphere will bring forth. It is the opportunity of a developing Uni- versity that has brought forth and kept men like Talbot, Ricker and Baker; also Greene, Daniels, Rolfe, Barton, Moss, Townsend, Carmen, Parr, Grindley and other wheel horses of the nineties together with a host of younger men who have been encouraged to live themselves out to the limit of their capacity. So much then for the nature of the progress of the last ten years. If space were unlimited it might be traced through many more departments and all would exhibit the same trend. The aim has been at a full and real development. An apple grower does not expect to raise prize apples on last spring's saplings but an educator who has not a masterful comprehension of conditions may try to raise the fruits of wisdom from brains in the saphead stage. Therefore, it is upon a basis that meets conditions as honestly as the really successful business man meets them, that a phenomenal result has come. And the University has gained greatly in prestige, just as any institution dealing in any com- modity from brains to biscuits, will that takes account of real needs and supplies them. The many professorships, some newly established in the last two years, and the men who have been called to fill them, reveal the firm purpose to serve 'I'm iu Armors in Cm rsi ob Constri non

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TEN YEARS OF PROGRESS seventeen southern states that would raise their soils to maximum of efficiency for the sake of citizenship. These are positions of the greatest responsibility, carrying high salaries and it means much that the University has offered to such men the opportunity for development. Nor is it only individual men who are being called upon. The spring of 1913 was a time of dangerous floods. When the Illinois river broke its bounds, Governor Dunne sent for the men of the State Water Survey and placed at their disposal the Steamship Illinois, their work being to go from place to place in order to purify water supplies and generally counteract the unsanitary conditions attendant upon a flood. Just what this work saved in money and suffering cannot be estimated, it being so far impossible to count- corpses that do not occur. The work and the men of the Mine Rescue Station were weighed in the balance and found gloriously adequate at the time of the Cherry Mine disaster. Other means, which do not exhaust the list but merely hint at it, by which the university stretches its long scientific arm over the state, are the State Geological Survey, the State Soil Survey, whereby every county in the state will be, in time, surveyed and its soil type fixed; the Entomologist's office which has saved the state much by devising means to kill such pests as the cinch bug and the corn root aphis; and the Ceramics Department. The last mentioned department established in 1914, has attracted widespread attention. Experimentation has shown that Illinois is fully capable of producting practically all of her own clay products and he who teaches a clay bank to blossom with profit deserves to rank with that oft mentioned human abstraction who coaxes out two grass blades where only one is in habit of growing. In January, 1913, the Department rather tentatively offered a short course to clay manufacturers. So enthusiastic were those who came that it was given again this year with a doubled attendance. The science that fattens the pocket book does not have to beg for attention. Another notable short course given this year by the Engineering College was the School for Highway Engineers. Professor Ira O. Baker, who has been with the University for forty years, was the originator. And even he who is something Baseball at Illinois 15

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TEN YEARS OF PROGRESS intelligently and truly. Not politics, not the church nor the family have been allowed to exert the slightest influence in the choice of men for the faculty, fitness alone has been the test. They have had to prove themselves before being invited. Professor Charles K. Babcock, who came this year as Dean of the combined college of Liberal Arts and Science, was formerly Specialist in Higher Education, Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. Dr. William Trelease, Professor of Botany and head of the department of Botany who fills the place made vacant by the retire- ment from active service of Dr. T. J. Burrill, formerly was director of the Missouri Botanical Garden at St. Louis; Dr. Frank L. Stevens, Professor of Plant Pathology came from the University of Porto Rico where he had served as Dean of the College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts; Loring Harvey Provine, Professor of Arch- itectural Engineering and Acting head of the Department of Architecture, formerly was Superintendent of Construction, Storm and Webster Engineering Company; and Dr. Charles H. Kohnson, Professor of Secondary Education, formerly was Dean of the School of Education in the University of Kansas. This by no means exhausts the list of prominent educators who have come to the LTniversity recently, nor is it given for that purpose. It indicates merely the trend in the selection of men for the faculty that characterizes the policy of the University. Men of wide experience, of thorough training and established reputations, are chosen for the important positions. As is but natural, exact and enthusiastic teaching has resulted. The rumor of it has gone abroad and students come not only from all the states of the union but from Europe and the Orient. Through the School of Education under the directorship of Dr. William Bagley, and through the efforts of the High School Visitor, Professor Horace Hollister, the secondary education of the state is finding the University of a powerful force in its advancement. By sending teachers into the state and into other states who are trained to express themselves in their profession, the University finds one of the surest tests of its efficiency. The University has recognized the important work of the Independent Colleges Ceramics Laboratory 17