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Presidents Report June Session 1887

Gentlemen of the Board,
I intend to make the written portion
of my report as brief as possible, but will fill out with oral
remarks such portions as need fuller consideration. You will
also recall that the Report to the General Assembly contains
a good deal of information of interest to You, but it need not be
repeated here, in order to gain time, and on the whole the
year just closing has been a successful one. One hundred
+ forty five (145) students were in attendance, the
average being one hundred per term. The attendance has
nearly come up to my expectations, tho not quite. i am
satisfied however that every thing possible has been done to
attract new students, and keep our old ones. My own work
and my reponsibility are almost doubled now compared
with two years ago, in part owing to the increased number of
students and teachers, in part to the arrangement of new courses of
study, and in part owing to a number of minor matters,
that devolved upon me. These facts and the smallness of the salary
have often led me seriously to consider whether I ought
not to step aside, and pass the reins of government to some
abler hands. I have felt, however, that I am about as
well paid as my colleagues, and somebody must make the
sacrifice. Besides the Institution has all the time been growing
in general favor, perhaps as rapidly as would be possible
under any circumstances, and my relation to the work
just inaugurated here as well as my obligations to my
colleagues makes me fell that I ought to hold on a
while longer. I desire to say now however that as soon as
there shall be money enough to pay for the Services of a
higher priced President, I expect to be asked to be allowed to
step aside to resume the duties of my Professorship. The condition
of the Treasury is I think fairly good. The income aside from
appropriations has been some hundred dollars beyond what has
been usual, and the expenditures have been below the estiamtes.
I think there has been a steady annual improvement. I
think a good deal of this is probably assets matter than actual
cash, notwithstanding the fact that $500 on salaries came from
the State Treasury, the collection of rents did not go forward fast enough
to meet the orders promptly. By {dint?} of much effort in which I
was vigorously supported by Your Secretary in getting the Treasurer to
comply with the repeated orders of the Baord, in so far as to hand
me a list of the delinquents, and the amount due from each.
This sum was about $1,000 on the first of last December not-
withstanding his repeated promises to collect these arrears, it
does not seem likely that the present Treasurer will ever
succeed in getting that done. I hope it will be possible soon to find