FREDERICK P. SPALDING, Treasurer.

We have examined the accounts of the Treasurer, comparing the vouchers with the items of the above report, and find the same to be correct.

HENRY S. JACOBY,

HENRY H. NORRIS,

FRED ASA BARNES.

ITHACA, N. Y.,

September 6, 1906.

REPORT OF THE SECRETARY.

The membership of the Society has increased from 379 at the beginning of the Atlantic City Meeting to a present membership of 400. With the active coöperation of the members of the Society, the membership should be materially increased.

During the past year the Committee on Technical Books for Libraries has made a report, printed copies of which have been distributed to the members. The numerous requests for the first report of this Committee from libraries and individuals makes it certain that the second report will prove to be of great value.

The work of the Secretary is increasing very rapidly and the question of providing material assistance to this officer of the Society is one that needs consideration.

The Society has lost by death Howard S. Webb, Professor of Electrical Engineering, University of Maine; Lyman Hall, President, Georgia School of Technology, and Albert H. Heller, Professor of Structural Engineering, Ohio State University.

Respectfully submitted,

MILO S. KETCHUM, Secretary.

ADDRESS OF WELCOME.

BY CHARLES L. CRANDALL,

Professor of Railroad Engineering and Geodesy, Cornell University.

It gives me pleasure to extend to you the hospitality of Cornell at this the fourteenth annual meeting of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education. The Society, organized as an outgrowth of the Educational Congress held at the World's Fair at Chicago in 1893, has grown until its list of about 400 members includes the names of nearly all the leading engineering educators in this country.

During this period it has exerted a very marked influence in the interests of technical education. The reports of its standing committees have done much towards systematizing both the requirements for entrance for the different schools, and the courses of study and the requirements for the various engineering degrees. The papers and discussions together with the printed yearly reports have brought about a clearer conception of the ideals of engineering education and the requirements of engineering practice.

It is not too much to say that this Society has been one of the prominent factors in placing American technical education on a par at least with any in the world.

Cornell is a most appropriate place for a meeting of this Society. Founded under the Morrill Land Grant Act for the Promotion of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, and opened in 1868, it early developed courses in engineering and the sciences and broke away from the old traditional methods of instruction.

For the scientific departments, the entrance requirements were low and did not include Greek and Latin. With the growth of the University came the division into colleges as follows:

College of Arts and Sciences,

College of Law,

Medical College,

New York State Veterinary College,

College of Agriculture,

College of Architecture,

College of Civil Engineering,

Sibley College of Mechanical Engineering.

The requirements for admission have been gradually raised so that now they include for engineering, mathematics to analytics, three years of high school English, one history, and two modern languages, one of which can be replaced by Latin, or in part by science. These are equivalent to the requirements in the course in arts.

The civil engineering course includes about 14 years of mathematics, science and political economy taught by the College of Arts and Sciences, 21 years of technical work taught in the college and year of technical work taught in Sibley College.

About (or 9 count hours) of the senior year is elective.

Laboratories for instruction in engineering were early introduced, the late Dean Fuertes of the College of Civil Engineering claiming to have been the first to make use of them.

During the past year there were 1,086 students in mechanical and 418 in civil engineering, or a total of 1,504 in undergraduate courses.

The instructing force in mechanical engineering in

cludes 7 professors, 8 assistant professors, 22 instructors, and 14 shop foremen and assistants. In civil engineering, 3 professors, 6 assistant professors, and 20 instructors. This gives a total for engineering of 10 professors, 14 assistant professors and 42 instructors beside the shop force of 14.

The total number of students in the university is 3,385.

In conclusion allow me to express my appreciation of the honor conferred upon the University in selecting for its president one who has been identified with the civil engineering department since its foundation, with the exception of 13 years immediately after graduation.