LAST WEEK IN SEPTEMBER FINDS UNIVERSITIES OPENING WITH ENLARGED PLANTS AND CURRICULUM

The last week in September finds most of the colleges and universities of the east opening for the year, with the usual number of new buildings and changes in courses.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology opened yesterday for the first time in the new buildings in Cambridge, which were dedicated last June, with an enrolment, which, from the first indications, is way above that of previous years.

Boston College opened yesterday with a record enrolment in the freshman class while Brown, which opens tomorrow, expects a class of normal size.

The announcement of the establishment of a military department with a reserve officers' training corps, was the chief feature of the opening of Pittsburgh University yesterday.

Princeton and Cornell, with their openings postponed until the second week in October because of the epidemic of infantile paralysis, are among the last of the large eastern colleges to open their gates this year.

The opening of the academic year at Yale on Thursday will be marked by a number of changes in the personnel of the faculty, by additions to the administrative system and by the erection of a new music building.

Former President Ernest F. Nickols of Dartmouth becomes a professor of physics in the college and Mr. Mather A. Abcot, formerly a master in Groton School, assumes his dual role of assistant professor of Latin and crew coach, thus carrying further faculty interest and oversight of athletics. Austin N. Harmon is also added as a professor in the Latin and Greek department. In the Sheffield Scientific School, Professor Thomas S. Admas comes from Cornell University to instruct in economics.

Two New Deans at Yale.

The changes in the Graduate Schools are more notable. The Law School has a new dean, Thomas W. Swann, Yale '00. Professor Walter W. Cook, who comes from the University of Chicago, is also added to the Law faculty. The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences has transferred its headquarters to a remodelled building at 125 High street. Professor Wilbur L. Cross, Yale '85, starts his first year as dean of the school this fall.

A most important new administrative body is the university board of health, which is to have general oversight over sanitary conditions about the university and over the personal health and health conditions of all students in the university. Dr. James C. Greenway, Yale '00, has been appointed university health officer. The board of health is composed of the deans of the college, the scientific school and the school of medicine, the professor of public health in the school of medicine and the professor of bacteriology and hygiene in the scientific school, the treasurer of the university the director of the gymnasium and the chairman of the athletic association.

A new building for the school of music is being erected upon the site of the former home of the school at the corner of College and Wall streets. This building, to be completed next year, will provide a suitable administrative headquarters for the school, rooms for teaching and practice and for the important library of manuscripts and, books and also a much-needed auditorium of moderate size. The building is the gift of the wife and daughter of the late Albert A. Sprague, Yale '59. The headquarters of the music school for the present year will be in the building formerly occupied by the Anderson Gymnasium on York street, between Elm and Wall streets.

The rebuilding of the Newberry organ, made possible by a gift of $25,000 by Truman Newberry, Yale 1885 S., John S. Newberry, Yale '06, and their sister, will be concluded during the present fall.

Columbia Public Lectures increasing.

Columbia University has announced the titles of--courses totalling over 250 lectures to be given under the auspices of the Institute of Arts and Sciences. In speaking of these lectures, which have been growing in popularity since their inception three years ago, the New York Evening Post says:

"These popular lectures, which are conducted upon a subscription basis, aim, in the leisure of collegiate, as well as non-collegiate, people to give them further education and keep them in touch with the latest developments of art, literature, music, science, and, through lectures in current events, with the changing scene of politics and international relations.

"The entire cost per lecture for the subscriber amounts to three cents, the initiation fee, which must be paid only for the first year, being five dollars, and annual membership costing ten dollars. Membership last year numbered 1,721, and the total attendance for the year reached 79,102. It is estimated that for this year the membership will exceed 2,000."

Distinguished Foreigners to Lecture.

Foreigners who will lecture at the Institute this year include Jules Bois, whose subject is "French Culture"; Professor Ernesto Quesada, of the University of Buenos Aires, who is to give two courses at the University in the second half-year, and will lecture on the "Social Organization of the Argentine Republic"; S. K. Ratcliffe, editorial writer on the Manchester Guardian, who will deliver four lectures on "Makers of English Life and Thought," and Louis U. Wilkinson of Oxford, whose subject is "The Evolution of Modern Reform in England."

Commenting on its work, the latest report of the Institute says:

"Three years ago the Institute of Arts and Sciences as a division of a university was an untried experiment. There was grave doubt on the hand as to whether such a system of popular lectures on a subscription basis would receive adequate support in New York city, which already offered so many free lectures, and also the best in the filed, of drama and music. There was doubt on the other hand as to how far the university could undertake the popularization of knowledge without detracting from or interfering with the regular academic work and standards.

"But the gratifying fact has stood out that the Institute has discovered for the university a constituency of earnest, thoughful people who are ready to receive eagerly and sympathetically and in surprisingly large numbers, not as dillettantes, but as serious students, the best that the university has to offer them."