MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES, Jun-5, 1906 Page 73 (contid)



                                    Lexington Ky. May 23rd 1906
Board of Trustees
        State College of Kentucky
Gentlemen:
     In making my annual report to you, I congratulate you and the
College upon the large matriculation and the generally successful
operations of the period now closed. The College is growing
steadily in public estimation. A better prepared class of pupils
enter. The ratio of preparatory students to those who matriculate
in the college proper is constantly diminishing, and the average
attendance is better maintained. There have entered since Septem-
ber last 679. These with the pupils who received instruction in
the Summer School last June, July, and August, will bring the
actual enrollment of the Catalogue up to 800 or over. We-have
no adventitious connections with Commercial schools or medical
schools, one hundred miles distant, to swell our list by loose
aggregations which have no organic relationship to us. The fact
is that exclusive of the preparatory and Normal Departments, we
have more students in our College Classes than any three colleges
or universities in Kentucky. Twenty years ago the preparatory
and normal elements formed fully SO per cent of the total atten-
dance. These proportions are now completely reversed.




                                                         Page 74
     I regret to report officially what is known to all unofficially,
that our efforts to secure by legislation appropriations from the
General Assembly to erect and equip buildings for the Agricultural
and Normal Departments utterly failed. We believed at the beginning
of the Legislative term that we had a very fair prospect of success,
but adverse conditions developed. The House Committee was unfor-
tunate in its Chairman. It soon became apparent that he was in-
different, if not hostile.  Delays occured in getting a report,
which when made was unanimous, but it was found to be a hopeless
task to get the Chairman to report the action of the Committee to
the House, until it was too late. When it passed into the hands
of the Committee on Appropriation, was suppressed, and fared no
better with the Committee on Rules.   In marked contrast with this
was the treatment of the bills in the Senate. That for an Agri-
cultural Building passed by a vote of 33 to 3, and that of a
Normal School Building by a vote of 25 to 9.


     The promoters of the measure for establishing two Normal
Schools were thoroughly organized.   It suited their purpose to re-
present the State College as hostile to it, though the allegation
was utterly unfounded. This somehow seemed to promote their
measure and to discredit ours. Representatives had been thoroughly