any discriminations in their favor because they are women. But the results of our experience has been confirmed at colleges and universities on both sides of the Atlantic-and strikingly so in the great English universities recently -where women by their brilliant success have shown their ability without risk to their health to meet the severest tests of scholarship to which the male students are subjected. And what is perhaps of equal importance, the advantages derived from the university courses have proved as helpful to the women in their lives subsequent to graduation as to the men.

There is little in the history of the Homœopathic College, the School of Pharmacy, and the Dental College during the past year, which calls for special comment. They have each enjoyed a good degree of prosperity. I can only repeat what I have said in previous reports concerning the need of larger accommodations for the Dental College, if it is to receive all the students who desire to matriculate. Its rooms are now uncomfortably crowded.

In the Law Department the experiment of grading the course has been successful in a gratifying degree. Both teachers and students heartily approve of it. More thorough, systematic, and efficient work is secured by it. The instruction is to be encriched during the coming year by brief courses of lectures on various subjects by distinguished specialists. We may well believe, therefore, that the reputation of the Law School, which had so prosperous a life from its foundation, will be deservedly enhanced during the coming year.

The Department of Medicine and Surgery has had a fairly prosperous year. It has been somewhat agitated by the discussion in the public press and otherwise of the proposition to provide in Detroit for the chief part of the clinical instruction. Since a special committee of the Board is charged with the consideration of the subject, I refrain from a discussion of the proposition. but feel it my duty to say in my judgment the good of the school requires that some decision should be reached by the Board as early as possible. While the matter is under discussion, the uncertainty concerning our future plans has an injurious effect on the school.

The reports of the Curators of our Museums show a steady, but not very rapid increase of some of our collections during the past year. A very large accession of plants from the Lake Superior region, the gift of Mr. Frank E. Wood, a former student of the University, has been received. The Museum of Applied Chemistry has been increased by the addition of 417 specimens, chiefly articles which illustrate the more important chemical industries. There is a need of cases for the Materia Medica collections of the Department of Medicine and Surgery, which are now stored in closets in the Chemical Laboratory. The Curator of the mineralogical collection repeats a suggestion before made that a small sum be annually placed at his disposal for the purchase of specimens. It is much to be regretted that we have so far been unable to purchase the very valuable Rominger collection of paleontological specimens. The Curator of the Art Museum reports the following additions. to the art collection: a portrait bust of the Hon. James McMillan, presented by himself at the request of the President of the University; a full length oil portrait of Dr. George P. Williams, painted by A. O. Revenaugh and presented by him; an oil portrait of Professor Olney, presented by the last graduating class of the Department of Literature, Science, and the Arts; an oil portrait of Professor C. L. Ford, presented by the students of the Medical

and Dental Departments; an oil portrait of Dr. H. S. Frieze, presented by Wm. E. Quimby, Esq., of Detroit; a model in plaster of the Acropolis of Athens, made by Eichler, of Berlin, purchased by Prof. D'Ooge with an appropriation made by the Regents. We have received information that another installment of the Rogers collection of statuary may be expected during the coming year.

A few facts from the Librarian's report which will be submitted to you may properly be given here. The total number of works in all our libraries is now 62,398 volumes, 12,411 unbound pamphlets, and 264 charts. Nearly twice as many volumes were presented last year as were purchased. The most important gifts were the German-American Goethe Library, containing now 760 volumes, and the collection bequeathed by the late W. W. Murphy, Esq., formerly Consul-General of the United States at Frankfort-on-the-Main, which is especially rich in cartography. The total number of books drawn last year was 89,445 volumes. Few, if any, libraries are so much used. The revised card catalogue of authors is nearly completed, and that of subjects is now to be undertaken.

The Williams Fund, raised by alumni and friends of the University, primarily for assistance to the late Professor George P. Williams, and then to establish some memorial for him, has by the action of the Alumni Association of the Literary Department become a virtual addition to the endowment funds of the University. At the request of that Association, the Regents voted in March to establish an emeritus Williams Professorship on the plan set forth in the following statement of the Association.

"It seems desirable that a Professor who may have reached the period and condition for service at which Dr. Williams had arrived when he received the proceeds and income of this fund, should at the request of the Alumni or Board of Directors, be transferred from his own chair to the Williams Professorship, which should be an emeritus professorship, and should thereupon receive the income of the said fund or so much thereof as the Society of Alumni should annually vote to him, or the Board of Directors should deem advisable, and should there be more than one needing the benefit of this fund at the same time, the Professor first transferred or appointed should hold the professorship and the others in order, first, second, and third assistants."

About fifteen thousand dollars have been paid to the treasurer of the fund, and when other subscriptions thought to be good are paid, the fund will reach the sum of at least twenty thousand dollars. It is possible that the decision of the Alumni and the Board to use it for this worthy purpose may lead ultimately to the enlargement of the fund. We have several Professors who have given more than a quarter of a century to the service of the University. It must henceforth not unfrequently happen that our large staff of teachers, some by reason of disease or accident, or the infirmities of years, will be unable to discharge the full duties of Professors, and will yet find that at least a partial support for themselves and families must be had from some other source than from the increase of the scanty accumulation which meagre salaries have yielded. This fund will be used to render them assistance when aid is needed to cheer their declining years. It must be that so worthy an object will appeal to the generosity of the graduates who are inspired with affection and gratitude for their venerable teachers.

The Legislature at its last session made appropriations as follows, in aid of the University: For repairs, 1887, $5,000; 1888, $5,000; for contingent ex

penses, 1887, $6,250; 1888, $6,250; for books for libraries, 1887, $5,000; 1888, $5,000; for the homoeopathic college and hospitals, 1887, $6,200; 1888, $6,200; for the university hospital, 1887, $5,000; 1888, $5,000; for the dental college, 1887, $8,000; 1888, $8,000; for apparatus for the department of natural philosophy, 1887, $2,000; 1888, $2,000; for defraying the expenses of transportation and placing of the Rogers collection of statuary, 1887, $1,973.01; for reimbursing the University for expenses of transportation and placing of the Chinese exhibit, 1887, $1,792.93; for the construction of a vault for the storage of chemicals, 1887, $400; for construction of rooms for forge and foundry and equipment of the same, 1887, $5,000; 1888, $4,250; for machinery for engineering laboratory, 1887, $6,750; for the construction of a building for scientific laboratories and equipment of the same, 1887, $35,000: for the erection of a boiler house, the purchase of boilers and of steam heating connections, 1887, $15,000; for additional salaries and teaching force, 1887, $5,000; 1888, $5,000. The entire appropriation is 1887, $108,365.94; 1888, $46,700. Total, $155,065.94.

By this generous action of the Legislature we are enabled not only to carry on our varied work as we have done hitherto, but also to make much needed enlargements of our accommodations. The completion of the engineering laboratory, according to the original plan, will enable us to provide for all our students of engineering the instruction in mechanical processes needed by them. The erection of a new boiler house makes it possible to furnish heat economically and safely to the group of buildings east and south of the library. The construction of the buildings, which shall contain the physical laboratory and the hygienic laboratory, will enable us to give in a more efficient manner than before the instruction in physics and hygiene. Our provisions for laboratory instruction in physics have been far inferior to those of many other institutions, and inferior to our provisions for instruction in other branches of science. It will be our duty now to see that our new laboratory is kept furnished with the appliances needed for the best instruction in this fundamental scientific branch. Researches, which have proved of the very highest importance to the public, have already been conducted by our Professor of Hygiene, and we may confidently expect that our new laboratory of hygiene will not only be of great service in instructing our students, but will also be instrumental in promoting the sanitary interests of the State and the country.

It having been found advisable to furnish in the medical building ampler accommodation for the physiological and microscopical laboratories, we were forced to erect a new building for our anatomical work, and to make large changes in the medical building. This has entailed an expense for which no provision had been made by special appropriation. But the necessity was so pressing that the wisdom of the step taken cannot be questioned. We gain the great incidental advantage of securing improved sanitary conditions for the medical building by the removal from it all of the work of dissection. Never before was it so well fitted for its purpose as it is now. Discussions in the Legislature and in the public press have called attention afresh to the question whether the fees of non-resident students ought to be The Board has frequently considered this subject and has increased them from time to time. In my annual report for 1885, I set forth in detail the consequences of the increase which had been made in the fees in 1881. I may repeat here the figures then given and add the statistics for the last year.

The fees paid by non-resident students in 1881-2 amounted to $21,100. In 1884-5, the rate having for three years been increased, the sum received from them was only $21,800. The number of non-resident students in 1881-2 has not yet been reached again, although the total attendance has been greater during the past year. That class of students numbered 65 less last year than it did five years before. The following tabular statement of students' fees for the past year is instructive in this connection. It comprises the matriculation and annual fees alone, but omits the laboratory and graduation fees. These two last are divided relatively between resident and nonresident students in substantially the same proportion as the two former kinds of fees.

These statements make it very clear that we may easily increase the fees of non-resident students so rapidly as to incur not only a serious loss in attendance, but an actual pecuniary loss. As a matter of fact, wherever instruction is given by lectures, as it is mainly in the professional schools and to a considerable extent in the Literary Department, the instruction of the non-resident students adds little or nothing to the expense required for the instruction of the Michigan students alone. It is well known that almost without exception for many years the fees from the non-resident students in the Law School have more than met the entire cost of instruction in the school. Take the figures in that school for the last year as an illustration. The fees of the non-resident law students amounted to $11,500, and the total expenditure for salaries of instructors in the Law Department was only $10,100. It will be observed, also, that in the Department of Medicine and Surgery, the fees paid by the non-resident students amount to nearly twice as much as those

of the Michigan students, in the Law Department nearly four times as much, and in the whole University seventy-five per cent. more. It is doubtful whether the total expense of giving as good an education as we now give, would be diminished by ten thousand dollars a year, if all the non-resident students were excluded and the present number of Michigan students were in attendance. Since the fees received from them last year were $34,980 it is clear that on the present scale of fees they are a source of profit rather than loss to the treasury.

Nor in considering this subject can we ever permit ourselves to forget that our original and chief permanent endowment was the gift of the United States, and that therefore there rests on us the obligation to treat generously students from all parts of the Union. Furthermore, the presence of students from other States than our own contributes very greatly to the reputation of the University, and awakens a pride in it among our own citizens, and so attracts to its halls many Michigan students, who would otherwise go elsewhere for their education. This cosmopolitan life which the presence of students from all parts of the world gives to the University, is of inestimable value to the Michigan student, by giving him an acquaintance with men of so many varieties of early training. In this microcosm he acquires a breadth of culture and fulness of experience which are of the greatest service in preparing him for his subsequent career. If unhappily a policy should ever be adopted which should deprive us of the presence of non-resident students, the University would then become a local school with a narrow reputation and a restricted influence.

It may be thought, it has sometimes been said, that we do not now charge the non-residents as much as other institutions, and therefore that we may well raise our fees. On examination of the facts it will be found that we now charge higher fees than the other State Universities. Bearing in mind that our charges to non-residents are as follows: Literary Department, first year, $55, each subsequent year, $30; Professional Schools, first year, $60, each subsequent year, $35, let us notice the charges at some other Western Universities.

It will be readily seen that in most of the above institutions the fees are materially smaller than ours. Any important increase in our charges must tend to prevent students from most of the States in which they are established from coming to us.

But we are told that whatever are the facts in the west, the fees in the eastern colleges are much larger than ours. Let us notice what are the fees in a few representative institutions.