1917-18

TO THE BOARD OF OVERSEERS:

The President of the University has the honor to submit the following report for the year 1917-18: —

The annual report for the past year has been delayed by the labor incident to the changes in administration and instruction made at the request of the Government; and, in order to include the work of the University to the end of the war, this report is brought down to the demobilization of the Students' Army Training Corps following the armistice of November.

*

The last academic year has passed wholly under a state of war, and the conditions under which the University has carried on its work have had a constantly increasing military character; while, in spite of the reduction in the student body, the strain upon its ever diminishing staff has been greater and greater as the months rolled by. The records of the Corporation show that leave of absence to enter government service has been voted to one hundred and sixty-eight members of the instructing or administrative staff, and this does not include a large number of the younger men on yearly appointments. As in the preceding year, many more whose number cannot be exactly ascertained devoted more or less time to government work in addition to their academic duties. It would be impossible to recount the manifold services rendered in this war by members of the instructing staff of the University, and it would be invidious to select examples at a time when vast numbers of citizens have devoted themselves to public work. But it is noteworthy that, whereas before this war it was customary for men of affairs to speak of professors as academic or unpractical, it is now generally recognized that university professors have shown themselves highly efficient in the most exacting practical affairs, even in matters far removed from their special fields.

* This includes clinical instructors at the Medical and Dental Schools whose whole time had not been given to the Schools.