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Kansas University Weekly.
Report of the Board of Regents.
The tenth Report of the Chancellor and of the Board of Regents has just been published. The Report covers the year 1895-96, and is full of interesting information concerning State Universities in general, and Kansas University in particular. It may not be generally known that the University of Kansas has a smaller annual income than any other institution of the same standing in the United States, that it pays smaller than the average salaries, and that it graduates its students at the smallest per capita cost. The facts presented in the Report amply sustain this statement. Nebraska, with half the assessed valuation of Kansas, and a million less population, and practically the same number of students in the regular collegiate departments of her University, expends $31,324.25 more than the University of Kansas in thirteen principal departments common to both schools.
Interesting tables are presented showing the growth of the University along different lines. The registrar's books show that an enrollment of nearly 1,000 students will be reached before the close of the year. The number of books published by different members of the faculty during the past two years amounts to ten.
The most imperative needs of the University are stated to be a Chemistry Building, a Natural History Building and Electrical Engineering Shops. These buildings are made necessary by the increase in the number of students, which has increased from 474 in 1890 to almost 1,000 at the present time.
Taken all in all, the Tenth Biennial Report is very gratifying to the friends of the University, but shows that if it is permanently to hold its present prominent place among State Universities, more generous provision must be made for its support.
A New Course.
At its last meeting the Board of Regents added to the curriculum of optional studies a teacher's course in Entomology. This is to meet the requirement for native studies now
found in many of the schools throughout the state. The subject of Entomology is one easily introduced and conducted in the public schools; The various stages of development of insects such as the butterfly are always a source of interest to the young observer and results, President Jordon said before the National Teachers' Association at Buffalo, in better mental culture than much of the rote teaching now in vogue. This course will consist of lectures, practical exercises and fixed excursions. It will be given during the second term every day at 2.
Snow Hall.
The paper recently read by Prof. Stevens before the Kansas Academy of Science attracted a good deal of attention, and favorable criticism. The paper was entitled Asclepias Cornuti, and was freely illustrated by a number of slides from photographs which Prof. Stevens had taken from his observations upon the plant. The following are a few of the points presented.
The Asclepias Cornuti is the common milkweed which is so familiar to all of us. It is a strong and vigorous plant and conspicious for the number, size and odor of its flowers. The filaments and anthers are broad and coherent and are joined at their apices with a fleshy outgrowth from the stigmas. From the filaments large bodies grow out in the form of hollow cups which preserve the nectar that has been produced at the bases of the filaments. The pollen is arrested in its development, so that the grains instead of separating remain in what might be called a pollen tissue, and there the pollen tissues or pollinia as they are called which are formed in the adjacent cells, become connected by entirely new structures.
The most interesting part of the plant is the mechanism to insure cross fertilization by insects. The evolution of the nectar producing tissues arose far back in the history of the family. The nectar together with its strong honey fragrance has had much to do with the development of the flower. The agencies at work in modifying the flower, are insects, principally butterflies, bees, and wasps. Notwith-