The Regents Requests

From the memorial of the Board of Regente to the Letrislature, we take the following items which are of great interest to every intelligent Michigan reader. Not one of all these requests will seem to be unreasonable to any one who gives the matter careful consideration. No other great University is carried on at go small an expense in proportion to its number of studente and to the work it aceomplishes. Cornell University, with about half as many studente, expenda annnally bout $246,000. Yale College, with 500 less studente, expends about $225,000; and Harvard, with bout a hundred more, gpends $500,000 ; while Michigan Univergity, with an attendance ranging from 1,400 to 1,550, expends about $172,000. Needed renewals of certain appropriations are as folio ws : 1887. 1888. Dental College, current expense Í8,000 8,000 university Hospital,currentexpen-es... 5,000 5,000 Homoepathic College and Hospital 6.2J0 6,200 (The Homoepathic Medical College also receives $6,000 a year in accordance with the act of 1875.) The sums above Bamed were appropriüted ia 1885. The sum of $5,000 is needed for repairs of building. There are twelve large buildings, most of them v.ry large, to care for. Their appraised value is $428,500. The timely appropriation of $22,000 made by the last legislature, has enabled the board to do very much to rescue them from the dilapidated condition into which in the straitened condition of the treasury they had been sufifered to fall. Five thousand dollars a year are needed to keep them in good repairs. The appropriation oí $5,000 a year made by the last legislature for contingent expenses, afforded most welcome help, and it is asked that the appropriation be renewed. The board says : "We are absolutely dependent on your appropriations for aiiy regular increase to our libraries. We have no library fund whatever. we nave no means of buying a volume for the general library, the law library, the medical li brary, the themical library, or the astronomical library, unless you grant U3 aid. We believe statistic show that no other library in the country is so much used as our general library. We tbink that it is a moderate request which we make for the growth of our libraries, vhen we ask for an appropriation of $7,500 a year. The number of departments of thought to be supplied is so great that with thn sum any one of them, as for example, natural history or geology or history can have hardly more than a hundred dollars set apart to it The library must always be the source of intellectual light in the University. Nw the whole state is interested in building up one large library within lts borders, where special investigators can find the wortcs they need to consult. Two years ago Randolph Rogers, the eminent sculptor írom Michigan, announced his intention of aending to the University the original casts of his works. About half of them, numbering fifty-three statues and groups, have been receiyed and placed in our sculpture gallery. With these additions, our gallery has a larger and finer collection of sculpture than that of any other university, and ene-halt of the Rogers collection is still to come. When the last legitlature was in sessior, we were unable to make any accurate calculation of what the cost of packing and transportaron ef the Rogers casts would be. The sum of $2,500 was appropriated for meeting the expense. It proves that the cost of packing so trail rucies as piaster casts, and of transporting them, and of repairing the damage unavoidable on the long journey by sea and land, exceeded our expectation. The University has paid, in addition to the $2,500 appropriated, the sum of $1,973 01, as appears by proper vouchers. The estimated value in Rome of the entire Rogers collection was about $200,000. Soon after the gift of the Rogers collection wa announced, the Chinese government generously presented the University with the Chinese exhibit, wbich they had sent to New Orleans exposition. The exhibit. which attracted much attention at New Orleans, was prepared especially to show Chinese methods of manufacturing cottoo, but con'ains in addition to manufac'ured products of cotton, fabrics of silk, embroideries, porcelains, and a great variety of articles of clothing, and is of unique value, as illustrating Chinese industries and life. We have deemed it proper and necessarv to set apart a special room for it in our museum, and to prepare suitable cases for it. It filis the wbole of a very large room. The cobt of transporting the collection from New Orleans and of making the cases has been $1,792.92, which has been paid out of the general fund. We trast that you wiil be willing to make good to us these drafts on our treafury, whi.h the generosity of our benetactors h s made nectssary, namely, to meet the expense of transporting and placing the Chinese exhibit, $1,792 i A small subterranean vault for the storage of dangerously combustible and explosive chemicals should be attached to ihe chemical laboratory. One can be constructed for $400. We de-ire to ask for an appropriation ol (2,000 a year tbr the purchase of apparatus to illujtrate the teaching in physics or natural philosopl.y. The dental college has outgrown its accommodations, and some enlargement of its building is absolutely necessary, unies? the faculty are to refuse admission to students. They have aimed to keep down the number by raising the standard of admission and by lengthening the course. But the reputation of the school has become eo high - its diplomas with those of only one other American dental school being recogniied in Bagland - that the number of students is now nearly 100, and will soon be more than 100. We need not say how great is the advantage to the public of having thoroughly trained dentigt8 to serve them. We estímate that the sum of $5,000 is needed for the enlargement of the dental college and the equipment. The last legislature gave us the means for erecting an engineering laboratory, containing workshops for mechanical processess, but provided an inadequate sum for its proper equipment The building was immediately on its completion filled with students, chiefly those training themselves to become mechanical engineers. We now need a email addition for a forge shop and a foundry, a new steam engine to drive the machinery and a considerable addition to our equipment, especially tor iron-work and for testing boilers, engines, and machines of various kinds. Our students who, as mechanical, civil, or mining engineers, are to take charge of mechanica, find this training in the shops of great service to them. To furnish the needed accommodations for them we think we ought to ask for a small building for forge and foundry rooms, $3,500; for equipment of the same $750, and for machinery (including a steam engine) $6,750, making a total sum of $11,000. We need certain scientific laboratorios. More and more science is taught by laboratory methods, in which the student himse t experiments and manipúlales, iostead of merely istening to lectures. These methods, which have long been employed in teaching chemistry, are just as helpful in other sciences." They also state that they need larger rooms for microscopical and histological laboratory ; suitable rooma for the physiological laboratory, and a laboratory for teaching pbysics or natural philosophy. The regente say further : "Prominent citizens of the state and the state board of health have requested us to establish a hygienic laboratory, in which investigations can be made, . hich will conduce to the preservation of public health. European cities and states have fouud it wise economy to sustain euoh laboratorio, in which adulterations of anieles of food, impurities of water and soil, etc., can be ascertained at small cost. The suieutiflc study of the best sanitary condiüons can be tbere pursiied and the resulta can be made public. The state boar ! of health in a memorial set .forth the advantatjes which would accrue to the state frorn the organization and maintenance of such a laboratory. Should you decide to charge us with the conduct of a hygienic luboratory, we would faithfully use the means you might provide s as to secure the largest benefits to the public. We think that these four laboratories might be placed under one roof, and that the plan of providing for them in one building would insure economy in construction and in administration. We believe that a suitable "Science Hall" for the four with necegsary equipmeat f r the present can be secured tor about $7 5,000. We therefore venture to suggest that sum, to be appropriated as folljws, $40,000 in 1887 aud $35,000 in 1888. Should this joint laboratory be erected, a new boiler house with a stock of say four boilers will be neceasary to furnish power and heat, to that and the other contiguous buildings." We estimace the cost of a boiler house, chimney, boilers and steam heating connections at $15.000. Owing to the increase in our number of studente and to the probability, amountirg to a certainty, of & still larger attendance nezt year, an increase in our teaching force will be imperatively necessary. If these enlarged laboratories are established, especially the hygiemc laboratory, some considerable additional assistance will be required. It is now urgently required in our engineering laboratory, in teaching modern languages, in mathematica and in elocution. We should be gratified and should feel that we were in a condition to do better justice to our crowded classes, if jrou could grant us $5,000 a year for additional teaching torce and salaries. Since the announcement of the gift of the Rogers collection of statuary and of the bequest of the Lewis collection of pictures (more than 700 in number) thore have been frequent recognitions in the public press of the obvious necessity of a building tor an art museum. Doubiless oné" will be reqired for the proper placing, display and preservation ..f our growing art collections. The pi ns for such a structure should be carefully considered. We have deemed it judicious to ask you to appropriate the sum of $2,000 to enable us to procure plana, estímales and speciñcations for an art museum to be erected at same future time." To provide for the class ot permanent needg of the University, needs which successive legislatures have recognized as practically permanent by supplying them through biennial appropria'ions, the regen ts suggests increasing tbe one-twentieth of a mili taz to a tax of one-tenth of a mili rather than by specific biennial appropriation. They say, "the state of Wisconsin levies for the support of its university, a tax of ooe-eigth mili, a rate twice and a half as great as ours. If there is any fear that the University, thus aided, will become independent ot thé legislature which has helped it, we reply, first, that the statiite is sutjtrct to repeal at auy time; secondly, with tae present prospectivo growih of the Uuiversity it seems certain that it will have always to ask for some assistence at the hands ot the legisla ure ; and, thirdly, as every dollar of our expeaditures is accoanted for to the Auditor General, our ünancial management is always under the close inspection of the state, by whatever metbod tbe state raises our tunds. The increase of the tax from tieth to one-tenth of a mili would yield us an additional inoome of $47,200. The amoont now regularly app-opriated to the homos apathie college and hospital (by the act uf 1875 and by special appropriatione) to the dental college, and to the University hospital, added to what we are now asking tor repairs, contingent expenses, books and additional teaching force and salaries, ie $47,700. Oor suggestion is that you give us the proceeds of the onetenth mll tax, increasing our mcome from that scource by $47,200, and drop these items altogether from the specific appropriations for 1888 and thereafter, and repeal the homoeapathic act of 1875. It would be necessary to provide for the above by specific appropriations for 1887, as the increase of the tax would not be available until 1888." . If the one twentieth mili taz is increased to one-tenth mili the regenta request would be as folio ws : 1. Araendment to the act of 1875 b substituting one-tenth mili for one-twentieth. 2. Repal of the act of 1875, which grants $6,000 a year to the homceopathic medical college. 3. Appropriations as follows : Fob 1887. Rt pairs t 5,009.00 Contingent Expenses 5,000.00 Books for Libraries 7,500.00 Homceopathic College 10,200.00 Homeopathie Hospital 2,000.00 Univerefty Hospital 5,000.00 Dental College „ 8,000.00 Transportation and placing Rogere C01lectfon _ 1,973.01 Transportation and placing Chinese Exhibit 1,792 98 Vault f r Chemicals 400.00 Apparatus- Natural Philosophy 2,000.00 Enlariiement of Dental College and Equipment 5,000.00 Forge and Foundry rooms and Equipment 4,250.00 Machinery for Engineering Laboratory „. 6,750.00 Scientific Laboratories and Equipment 40,000.00 Boiler House and Steam Heating connections 15,000.00 Additional Salaries and teaching force 5,000.00 Plans for Art Museum 2,000.00 $126,865.94 For 1888. For Apparatus in Natural Philoeophy f 2,000.00 For Scientific Laboratories and Eqnipment 35,000.00 f 37,000.00 Total for two yeare $163,865.94 If the tax is not increased and the hmoeipathic act above named remains in force, the sums asked are : Appropriations for 1887 $120,865.94; for 1888, $78,700. Total $199,565.94. Add the permanent homoe apathie appropriation $6,000 a year, $12,000, and it leaves the gum total $211,565.94. In the first case, on receiving $47,200 trom the increased tax, they drop off requests for $47,700 of specific appropriations and eurrender the general homos ipathic appropriation of $6,000 a year.