xt7tx921cx67 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7tx921cx67/data/mets.xml Lexington, Kentucky University of Kentucky 1908022 minutes English University of Kentucky Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Minutes of the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees Minutes of the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees, 1908-02-jun2. text Minutes of the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees, 1908-02-jun2. 1908 2011 true xt7tx921cx67 section xt7tx921cx67
MINUTES OF TEE BOARD OF T-RUSTEES,Anr.14,19O Page 212(conttd)
He shall secure and keep on file a list of approved boarding
houses in the City of Lexington in which students may secure
board, or board and lodging, The list shall set forth the loca-
tion, price and other facts that may appear to be necessary to P.213
enable the students to make selections, and he shall render them
all reasonable assistance to secure comfortable and congenial
location. He shall also have the records show the location pf
each student and at prorer intervals visit the boarding house
and see to the welfare of the students.
He shall perform all duties for the University that require
the services of-.an attorney or counsellor at law.
It shall also be his duty to visit from time to time under
the direction of the President class-rooms, lecture rooms and
laboratories, in order to take note of the character and efficiency
of theiwork done, the faithfulness and punctuality of instructors
and students and by his presence stimulate and encourage the best
results.
Upon motion duly seconded and carried the Board adjourned
sine die.
D. C. Frazee
Secretary
The following gentlemen R. N. Mathews, R. C. Stoll, Lewis L.
Walker, Hywell Davies & C. at. Clay, produced their commissions
& duly qualified by taking the oath of office at the opening of
the meeting of Anr.14,19O0. and entered upon the performance of
their duties as such.
Page 214
Annual meeting of Boa.rd the Board of Trustees of the State
University of Kentucky Lexington, Kentucky held on June 2nd
190 in the President's Room in the Gymnasium Building, on the
University Grounds, Lexington, Ky.
The roll-call showed the following members present.
MAINUTES OF THE BOARD OF TR-USTEES,Jun-2,190 Page 214(contid)
Governor Willson, President Patterson, Messrs. Frazee,
Lafferty, Stout, Nicholas, Walter, Mathew, Stoll, Davies,
Carpenter, Clay and Barker.- 13
Absent: Messrs. Terrell, Smith, Brooks, Hopkins and
Crabbe. - 5
There being a quorum present business was proceeded with.
Gov. Willson in the chair.
Upon motion of Judge Barker, seconded by Mr. Clay, and
carried Mr. D. F. Frazee was elected Chairman in the absence
of the Governor, for the ensuing year.
At this point the minutes of the December meeting were
read. and approved.
The minutes of the special meeting in April were read and
approved.
The minutes of the Executive Committee since the last meet-
ing were read.
Upon motion of Mr. Clay, seconded by President Patterson and
carried, it is ordered that page 193 of the minutes of the meet-
ing of the Executive Committee referring to the call for the
spectal meeting of the Board of Trustees in April is struck out,
because the call was not the action of the Executive Committee.
The minutes of the Executive Committee as read by the Secre-
tary, and corrected in the presence of the Board, except as to
page 193, which was struck out, were approved..
Page 215
Upon motion of Mr. Stoll, seconded by Mr. Clay and carried
the reading of the minutes of the faculty, and the minutes of the
special faculties since the last meeting of the Board was dis-
pensed with, and said minutes were referred to the Committee on
Minutes of the Faculty:
MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF T-.USTEES,Jun-2,190 Page 215(cont'd)
At this noint President Patterson read his Report to the
Board, including the budget of income and expenditures for the
ensuing year. Said report is as follows:
Lexington, Ky. May 15, 1908
Honorable Board of Trustees
of the State University.
Gentlemen:-
In -naking my annual report to the members of the Board. of
Trustees of the State College of Kentucky, now the State Univer-
sity, it affors me much pleasure to say that we have just closed
the most prosperous year in the history of the institution.
It is well that the last year of th4 college should be the best.
There have been matriculated 1060 students. At the opening of
the year the indications were fair that we should reach 1000,
with a good prospect that we should surpass that number by
probably 100 or more. But scarcely had the season opened when
the financial depression began. This, as you are well aware,
increased in severity -ntil near mid-winter, when the clouds
began to break. It became evident that the crisis had reached
its height and that the widespread disaster and ruin which many
feared would not be realized. Public confidence, however, was
seriously shaken and has not yet recovered its normal state.
This conditIon of things, no doubt, prevented a larger matricu- P.216
lation than might otherwise have fallen to the lot of the State
College. Still the matriculation list exceeds that of last
year by more than 150.
The work done has been fully up to the average of proceed-
ing years, the departments have been growing steadily in numbers
and efficiency. We have experienced the pressure of former
years, due to restricted and inadequate accommodations. This
has been particularly true in the Department of Chemistry,
Physics, Mathematics, English and Civil Engineering.
For week before the meeting of the General Assembly, which
convened January 7th 1908, it became quite manifest that a wide-
spread interest existed through the State in the conversion of
the State College into a University. Shortly after the Gm eral
Assembly convened, a measure was introduced, setting forthi in
its preamble the growth of the college and the necessity for the
existences of an institution with the style and title "Univer-
sity", which should do university work for the Commonwealth.
The income frorm the Federal Government, added to that received
from the State under the operation of the act of 1S0, and the
subsequent addition of $15,000.00 per annum under the act of
1904, were thought to be sufficient basis upon which to lay the
foundations of university education. It was felt, however, that
MINUTES OF THE GOARD OF TRUSTEES,Jun-2, 190S Page 216(conttd)
a considerable additional increment would be needed in order to
strengthen the existing departments and courses of Study, as
well as for the addition of new ones which might in the immediate
future be necessary to round off the proportions of a Univer- P. a7
sity worthy of the dignity of the Commonwealth. For this pur-
.pose additional revenue was provided in a. separate bill, in-
trodiced simultaneously with that for changing the name of the
College to the State University.
Thirty or forty years ago, the income thus provided would
have been ample for the operation of any of the older institu-
tions in the country, but within that period departments of
Education have expanded and especially through the discoveries
of the last half century. The endowments which were deemed
ample, fifty year's ago no longer suffice. Inasmuch,. however,
as the citizens of Kentucky had not yet been educated up to
the degree of liberality which makes endowments five and ten-
fold and twenty-fold that of ours possible, we must perforce
for some years to come be content to operate as well as we can
upon the somewhat meagre resources which have fallen to our lot.
These, however, suffice for a beginning.
The largest expenditures for university work nowadays are
in the construction of buildings, the creation of laboratories
and their equipment. In the United States of America there
are universities and universities. Very many of these institu-
tions assume titles and profess results in the inverse ratio
of their possibilities. A large number who assume this designa-
tion are scarcely up to the level of a second class college.
There are on the other hand, a few, including the famous univer-
sities of Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Princeton among the old,
with the State Universities which have grown up founded upon
the land grant of 162, which fully deserve the title because
they do the work which the university connotes. P.218
The average American Oollege and mis-named universities
neither do, nor attempt to dot nor could they do the research
work and the original investigation which the university proper
may and can undertake to do. This indeed is the distinction
betweencollege and university work. The college, through its
various depart-.mnents, aims to comrunicate to its matriculates a
body of knowledge more or less complete. Its object is to fa-
rmiliarize its students with facts which have come down to the
present generation or have been discovered within the lifetime
of the present generation, as a l6SROy of knowledge to be
mastered and assimilated by the puPls. The University upon the
other hand, while making provision for collegiate work in its
undergraduate courses, should-if it be worthy of the name,
attempt to go far beyond this. Upon the foundation of the Known
MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES,Jun-2,1909 Page 21J(contud)
with which the college deals, it endeavors to reach out by the
original investigation and discovery into the unknown. In
Chemistry, for example it is not content to deal with facts al-
ready ascertained and nrinciDles generalizing therefrom, but
endeavors to go by investigation and research beyond the known
limits of the science to the discovery of facts, hitherto un-
known and if these discoveries lead to the belief that the fun-
damental laws hitherto recognized require to be reeast and re-
adjusted, then the effort is made to express these fundamental
laws in terms of well authenticated facts and thIs bring the
body of the science and its principles into harmony with
established conclusions, founded upon experiment and observation.
The same may be said of Physics, Botany, Biology, in all their
manifold relations. The latest discoveries in every department P.219
of science develop points of divergence and antagonism to hither-
to established laws and Principles which thus need constant modi-
fications and adjustment. New discoveries in every department
of science establish conclusions which are found to be at
variance with principles hitherto recognized and which refuse to
be interpreted by them. Accepting beliefs and conclusions held
half a century ago are now no longer adequate to the explanation
of facts now accepted but then unknown which each of these
sciences force upon the acceptance of their votaries. The function
of the University is to discovered and to add to the pre-existing
domain of human knowledge and in this respect stands contra-
distinguished from collegiate work. The crucible and the micro-
scope and the spectrocone and the telescope, the hammer of the
geologist and the pick are of the archaeologist have led to the
discoveries which are upsetting and unsettling scientific theories
which had held the field for centuries.
This, broadly speaking, is the work of the University. Many
of the conclusions reached by eminent scientists at first sight
appear to be of academic importance only, but by and by, one by
one, they find practicable application in the industrial arts and
make possible the creation of new sources of wealth hitherto un-
known. Experiments upon the laws of sound and its transmission
have given us the telephone. Experiments in electricity, be-
ginning with the kite of Franklin, have given to us the telegraph
and the elec'ric light. The correlation of physical forces has
given to us the fact that heat is a mode of motion, the one con-
vertible into and measurable in terms of the other. Hence the P.220
transformation of fuel into steam and steam into motion and motion
into electricity, with all its various and manifold applications.
To persue this argument and illustration further would be
out of place in a report to the Board of Trustees of the State
University. I have dealt upon it so far, in order to make apparent
the distinction between collegiate work and that which properly
MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF TRTUSTEES,Jun-2,190 Page 220(cOnt'd)
falls to the university. The requirements of education in the
present age thus differ very largely from those in the past.
We seek to acquire knowledge0 hat has been done in order to
use this as a leverage for the attainment of ulterior ends.
Under this impulse the boundaries of Sci ence are widening out
on every hand. The boundaries of human knowledge, which is
another name for science, are correspondingly widened and en-
larged. The first duty them of a university is to make pro-
visions for this continually increasing demand for the extension
of human knowledge. The old fields have been worked over and
in some measure exhausted. New fields and opportunities must
be discovered. This is true of every department of human know-
ledge even those which have already been accepted as already
in great measure completed and adequately defined. It is true
in history, political economy, in ethics, in sociology, in meta-
physics, in logic and in the do-main of literature, as well as
in physical science. Even in the domain of theology discoveries
made in science, apparently so remote as ethmology, philology,
anthropology, archaeology, are from year to year profoundly
modifying pre-existing beliefs. I am not sure that even the
science of law which professes to be based upon fundamental P. 221
conceptions which are the outgrowth of human consciousness
and whose validity is affirmed by consciousness, has altogether
escape the upheaval which has taken place in every other de-
partment of human knowledge.
It aDpears to me then that the first duty of the univer-
sity of to-day, the State University of Kentucky, is to fall
into lines with other institutions worthy of the name and to
make the most abundant Drovision which its resources will war-
rant for the endowment of research. This does not by any means
imply a neglect of collegiate undergraduate instruction.
Regular college classes, freshman, sophomore, junior and senior
must be provided for as heretofore. No University can afford
or does afford to dispense with them, and competent professors
and assistants must be provided in order to afford the necessary
instruction in science, literature and art, so far as realized
and accepted by the leaders and the exponents of these various
departments, of human knowledge. But uponEllof this must be
laid the foundations and upon the foundations must be built the
superstructures with adequate endowments for original investi-
gation and research and discovery. These it seems to me, must
be provided for in advance of any provision for professional
schools. These necessities claim the right of way. I am not
aware that these views have been distinctly formulated and ex-
pressed by any institution in the country, but a fair inter-
pretation of the underlying current of thought which prevaded
all learning and all investigation lead to its conclusion.
MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES,Jun-2,1908 Page 222
un
I hold them distinctly and equivocally the conviction that
the higher function of university life and of universities duties
should be provided before we attempt to found so-called pro-
fessional schools. These would naturally follow in- order of
time, college of law, college of pharmacy, college of medicine,
college of dentistry, are not integral parts of university life
or of university work and can well afford in order of development
to wait until collegiate work and university work in all their
phases and in all their relations have been adequately provided
for. The law of nature, so-called, are yet but imperfectly
understood and every year modifies pre-existing conceptions. The
function of university work is to surge existing bodies of know-
ledge of error and precipitate, so to speak, the ertraveous matter
held in solution, to remove the sediment and clarify 1kAewhole.
And to this end hundred of talented and ambitious young men and
women, middle-age men and women are devoting all the energies
with which they have been endowed by the Oreator. In this ad-
vancing tide of human activity Kentucky must not be behind, must
not fall in the rear, but must endeavor to contribute her full
quota to the ever increasing increment of human knowledge.
I have sufficiently indicated in these somewhat desultory
remarks the application which I think should be made of our
annually increasing resources. Our income is not being enlarged
by tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, as are
the great incomes of the great institutions of the north and east.
We may not and will not be able to embrace within the scope of
our activity as large a field of human knowledge and research p. 223
as they, but we may aim to do well whatever we address ourselves
to accomplish, and as the beneficient result of this higher kind
of education becomes apparent, from year to year in the develop-
ment and up-build.ing of our Commaonwealth, more liberal endowments
will come to us.
The aporopriation made by the last Legislature for increase
of income amounts to only $20,000. This may appear a large amount
but when considered in comparison with the large appropriation
made by the States of the East, the North, and the West, is a
very small sum. Still it increases the working endowment with
which we have operated during the last few years fully twenty per
cent and is an augury of good for the future. The visible in-
come from all souroes for the next academic year will be in the
neighborhood of $125,000. The expansion which has been outlined
in the schedule submitted to the Board on the 14th of April and
adopted by the Board involves considerable expenditure. The de-
partment of English, of Mathematics, of Modern Languages, of
Physics, and of Chemistry must be strengthened by additions to
MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES,Jun-2,1908 Page 223(cont d)
the staff of instruction. Some assistant professors cannot be
retained unless they are promoted. The Department of Agricul-
ture requires to additionals professors. The advancement of
assistant professors now connected with the institution If to
higher rank and the addition of new ones will require an ag-
gregate additional expenditure of not less than $10,000. I
think it not unlikely that other departments will require also
to be strengthened by additions to their teaching weems force.P.224
This enlargement id incumbent upon us now. We have ceased to
be a College; we have become a University. Let the change be
one in reality and not in name only. As a University, we shall
be expected to do more work and better work than was done while
we were a College. The increase in income given by the Common-
wealth requires this of us. Public expectation regards expansim
and enlargement and efficiency as essential elements of univer-
sity work. It is incumbent upon us to make all that we have
thorough and of the best. I will not say complete, because com-
pletion implies a cessation of growth. By the law of our being
we must expand, or retrograde. To stand still is impossible.
And this the condition, gentlemen, which now confronts you. We
have now reached the age of maturity, of manhood, and the language
of the Apostle finds an appropriate application to us in the
advanced position which we have sought and the duties and obli-
gations which we have sought and the duties and obligations
which we are expected to fulfill. With the means at our dis-
posal, it is manifest that we cannot accomplish all that we have
desired. I am not sure that this is a disadvantage. Leisurely
growth, provided it If be not too slow, is even better than
hasty immature growth. This is true of the animal world and
of the vegetable world. By analogy it is true of all organisms,
and I beg to remind youbhere and now that a college is an organ-
ism, a university is an organism, a Commonwealth is an organism,
a nation is an organism, a healthy development Aknd growth in
all organisms must be symmetrical. That which is one-sided be- P&25
comes lop-sided and becomes a monstrosity.
I should say then, consolidate what yoti have, make it as
perfect and efficient as it Is possible to be, and then consider
the propriety of adding an advent.tuous annexes as opportunity
may appear. I do not regard a professional school as an essen-
tial and integral parts of a university organism. They are
professional, they are technical, they are adventituous, they
may or may not add strength, indeed they may become elements
of weakness. If they withdraw from the self-contained organism
what is necessary for its sustenance and its life, they become
dead weights and instead of proving elements of strength, be-
come elements of wsaknfss. My advice would then be to upbuild
MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES,Jun-2,1909 Page 225(cont'd)
and strengthen and consolidate all the essential features and
characteristics of a University organism before we attempt to
add any of the Professional schools.
When the next General Assem iMy convenes, if we can obtain
$20,000 more, we can add the nucleus of one or more professional
schools. If we attempt to do so now, with inadequate means, the
result will be the addition of one or two second or third class
Professional schools which will add neither strength nor pres-
tige nor dignity to the university.
I desire to call the attention of the Board to-.the relation
between the Experiment Station and Agricultural College of the
State University. Agricultural and Mechanical colleges were
founded in the several states of the union by Act of Oongress
in 1862. These colleges formed the nucleus around which have P.226
grown up state colleges and state universities.throughout the
country. For their original endowm.ent Congress gave 30,000
acres of land for each representative then in Congress. The
allotment which fell to Kentucky was 330,000 acres. The
language of Sec, 4 of the Act referred to provides that the in-
terest which accrues from the invested proceeds of the-'sales
of these lands, "shall be inviolable appropriated by each State
Which may take and claim the benefits of this act to the en-
dowment, support and maintenance of at least one college, where
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 Agriculture and
Mechanic Arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the states
may respectively perscribe, in order to promote the liberal
and practical education of the industrial classes in the
several pursuits and professions of life."
In order to promote still further scientific agriculture
by a special endowment for investigation and research, an Act
was passed by Congress in lS7.known as the Hatch Act, whereby
$15,000 per annum should be given to each agricultural and
mechanical college founded under the act of l162. I quote
from the language of the act as follows:
"That in order to aid in acquiring and diffusing among the
people of the United States useful and Dractical information
on subjects connected with Agriculture and to promote scientifio
investigation and experiment respecting the principles and ap-
plication of Agricultural-nience, shall be established under
MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES,Jun-2,1909 Page 227
direction.of the college or colleges or agricultural department
of colleges in each state or territory established or which
may hereafter be established in accordance with the Provisions
of an act approved July 2nd 1862, entitled "an act donating
public lands to the several states and territories which may
provide colleges for the benefits of agriculture or the mechan-
ical arts; or any of the supplements to said act, a department
to be known and designated as an Agricultural Experiment
Station."
From Section 2:
That it shall be the object and duty of said experiments
stations to conduct original research or vertify experiments
on the physiology of plants and animals, the disease to which
they are severally subject, with the remedies for same, the
chemical composition of useful plants at their different stages
of growth, and comparative advantages of rotation cropping, as
pursued under a varying system of crops, the capacity of new
plants or trees for acclimation, the analysis of soils and
waters, the chemical composition of manures, natural or artifi-
cial, with experiments designed to test their comparative ef-
fects on crons of different kinds, the adaptation and value of
grasses and forage plants the composition and digestibility of
different kinds of food for domestic animals and the scientific
and chemical questions involved in the production of butter
and cheese and such other researches or experiments bearing
directly on the agricultufal industry of the United States as
may in each case be deemed advisable, having due regards to the
varying conditions and needs of the respective states or
territories."
Page 229
From the language of the law voted above, it is apparent
that Experiment Stations form a distinct and integral depart-
ment of the agricultural colleges established in America under
the Land Grant of 1862. It is equally apparent that the in-
tention of the creation of the Experiment Station as a depakt-
ment and its endowment was to render more effective the work
of agricultural colleges, its supplement instruction in the
known facts of science by -observation and experiment, and to
make use of the results thus obtained for the better education
MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEE8,Jun-2,1908 Page 228 (conttd)
and more thorough training of matriculates of agricultural
colleges. These were intended to be the immediate beneficiaries
of the work thus done but not- the sole beneficiaries. Provision
was made in the Act of l1g7 for the Publication of well authen-
icated results in bulletins, whose distribution among the far-
mers of the Comuonwealth would furnish them with a body of in-
formation susceptible of application to agricultural processes.
I feel quite certain, however, that the primary and principal
object of the legislation was to supply a body of much needed
facts for the instruction of the matriculates of the agricul-
tural college founded under the land grant of 1862.
In some of the states of the union and early divergence
between the work of the station and the work of the agricul-
tural college proper becomed manifest. The cleavage became wider
during succeeding years and the result has been that in many
institutions, including ours, the Experiment Station has be-
come a self contained entity, having little or no connection P.229
the Agricultural College and only an accidental relationship
thereto. In other institutions a correlation and community
of work has been established between the other departments of
the agricultural college and the department known as the Experi-
ment Station. In many instances members of the eoaeatlenal
instructional staff in the Station give a.part of their time
to one and a part to the other. In that case the results ob-
tained in the exoerimental laboratory, in the dairy and in the
field and in the breeding, management and care of live-stock
becomes the immediate property of the agricultural college
through the instruction given by those engaged in research work
and discovery. This I believe is notably the case in such an
institution as the University of California. In that institu-
tion my information is that every member of the experimental
staff is an instructor in the College, communicating to the
classes thereof the results obtained under his personal super-
vision and direction as an experimental worker in the field of
science.
I have now before me a comiaunication from the Director of
the Ohio Experiment Station, which indicates very clearly that
an unfortunate cleavage exists in many institutions between the
other departments of the agricultural colleges and the depart-
ment known as the Exoeriment Station, the inference from which
undoubtedly is that a closer connection should be re-established
between those who have drifted apart and the connection between
MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES,Jun-2,1908 Page 230
those who have maintained a community of interest should be
perpetuated. TIhe Director of the Ohio Experiment Station says:
"A copy of this letter is being sent to each Station Director
and to each college President, as it is most desirable that the
matter should be considered from every standpoint.
"1, How many memibers of your staff are employed both as station
investigators and as college instructors?
"2, What proportion of the salaries of these officers are
paid from educational funds and what from research funds?
"3, Do you consider this distribution of salaries an equit-
able one and if not, which line of work does more than its abare?
f4, Is the teacher more or less effective as a teacher be-
cause of his research work?
"5, Is the investigation more or less effective as such, be-
cause of his class-room work?
"6, What proportion of his time do you believe that the in-
vestigator may give to class-room teaching without appreciation
of his research work?
"7, What proportion of his time do you believe that the
teacher may give to research without detriment to his instruction-
al work?
0S, Please mention any other advantages or disadvantages not--
indicated above, resulting from requiring station station inves-
tigators to act also as teachers, or from charging teachers with
the conduct of research,
Page 231
Trusting that we may have your co-operation in this endeavor
to promote the efficiency of both station and college work, I am
Yours respectfully
Charles E. Thorne."
I think that you will agree with me the argument implied in
the questions raises a very serious problem. I feel quite certain
that the aloofness of the Station and its experimental staff
from the College has been to us a very serious loss. One of its
MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES,Jun-2,1908 Page 231(cbnttd)
unfortunate results is that little or no homogeneity exists
between the instructional staff of the College and the Ex-
perimental staff of the Station. Indeed, so far as any educa-
tional advantage which the college derives from the existence
of the Station is concerned, the Station might as be located
in Louisville, or Bowling Green or Paducah.
I have brought the matter before the Board of Trustees
on more than one occasion though not so fully as now. It is
readily conceded that in accordance with the rulings of the
Department of Agriculture at Washington no part of the fund
accruing to the Station from the general government can be
used for instructional purposes. I doubt seriously the ex-
pediency as well as the constitutionality of this ruling.
However, let that nass. It has been alleged, in opposition to
the pleas which I have hitherto made, that the income accruing
from the State fertilizer law, out of which a large part of the P232
expenses of the Station are met, cannot be used for purposes
of instruction in the college proper. I quote f-rormi Section 6
of Chapter 639 of the Revised Statutes, as follows:
"The Director of said Kentucky Agricultural Experiment
Station shall pay all such fines received by him into the treas-
ury of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the
authorities of which shall expend the same in meeting the
legitimate expenses of the Station, in making analysis of fer-
tilizers and experimental tests of same, and in such other ex-
oerimental .work and purchases as shall inure to the benefit of
th