Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 81, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 June 1899 — GREAT COLLEGE YEAR. [ARTICLE]

GREAT COLLEGE YEAR.

Westens Institutions of Learning Show Special Progress. When cap and gown have been laid aside and the last senior has packed his ■heepskin and disapeared from the campus educators in the universities of the West will look back over the school year now closing as one of unequaled endeavor and marvelous results. Advices from the leading institutions west of the Alleghauies concerning the work done in ’9B-’99 show that there has been in the history of Western colleges no year more successful than this, in point of numbers instructed or in the quality of the instruction given. And this mark is made at a time when wars have taken into other lands thousands of young men—hundreds of whom left studies to enter the armies of the United States. A Chicago paper has received from the heads of most of the Western universities communications telling of the year’s material and mental prosperity and containing hopeful and enthusiastic predictions for the labors to be taken up next fall. Without exception these letters tell of a wonderful work done in the last ten months. In many institutions this year’s attendance never before was equaled, and In none has it fallen below other records. New buildings have been erected, courses of study have been enlarged and improved, additions have been made to faculties, and many institutions have had their endowments increased by substantial donations. Throughout the Western educational world the same story is told. Among the colleges which have shown particular vigor this year are the University of Wisconsin, where the attendance was 156 in excess of any previous record; the University of Illinois, which set a new mark—l6s higher than the last —and which graduates the largest class in its history, Lake Forest University, whose schools have had their largest attendance; Drake University, with e»n enrollment showing a gain of 17 per cent over any other year, and the Armour Institute of Technology, which, sends out a greater number of engineers than ever before. The University of Minnesota sent more than 100 students with the volunteer regiments to the Philippines and still retained 2,900 on its rolls. Purdue University graduates 157 young men and women, eclipsing any former record.