PROF. HASKINS' ANNUAL REPORT

Charles H. Haskins, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, has made several observations in his annual report upon the work and events, and the needs of students, in the School within the past year.

"An event of much importance in the history of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences within the past year was the opening of the Wolcott Gibbs Memorial Laboratory for the study of Physical Chemistry, an admirably equipped building devoted entirely to the research of instructors and advanced students in Physical Chemistry under the guidance of Professor Theodore W. Richards. Such investigations as are carried on in this Laboratory are representative of the highest work of the School, and the setting apart of a building for the exclusive purpose of advanced research marks a significant step, not only in the progress of chemistry study at Harvard, but in the whole graduate instruction of the University.

Another event of importance to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is the establishment of the Harvard University Press, and the accompanying concentration of the scattered publications of instructors and advanced students in various fields of learning. The value of such an undertaking for the Graduate School does not need to be set forth, but the Press cannot reach its full usefulness without an increase in its resources. Scholarly investigation would also be advanced by the better endowment of the various series of departmental publications, for which the supply of excellent material is frequently in excess of the funds available for printing. Thus the Department of English has just been enabled to begin an important series of Harvard Studies in English, which needs further endowment to place it upon an assured foundation.

The experience of recent years shows that a small loan fund would be of great advantage to many worthy students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In cases of sudden or temporary hardship, loans in small amounts and for short periods are frequently needed to enable students to get the best advantage of the year of study upon which they have embarked. Men of capacity and ambition are from time to time obliged to break off their studies in the course of the year, or to spend many hours of valuable time in supporting themselves by work which is poorly remunerated and is accompanied by no corresponding intellectual advantage to them. Some cases of urgent necessity are met each year by loans from the Scholarship and Beneficiary Money Returned Fund in Harvard College, but this Fund must in the nature of things be used mainly for students in the College, and is quite inadequate for the needs of men in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. A moderate sum (say $5,000) would be sufficient to serve present needs of this sort, and would accomplish much more as a loan fund than if used for the endowment of a small scholarship."