Such is the official report rendered to the United States War Department by Captain Tenney Ross of the General Staff on his inspection on May 1, 1916, of the University of California Cadets.

"The military training at this institution is of a high order," reported Captain Ross. "Special attention appears to have been given to minor tactics, fire control and distribution."

To the War Department's question, "What was the general appearance of the cadets on inspection?" Captain Ross replied: "Excellent; the best I have seen." He commented on the cordial support given by the University to the Professor of Military Science and Tactics and reported that the military instruction given at the University of California is of such an extent and thoroughness as to qualify the average graduate for a commission as a lieutenant of volunteers.

It is to the admirable service of Major J. T. Nance as Professor of Military Science and Tactics that these gratifying results are due.

HEATING PLANT ENLARGED

A contract has been let to C. C. Moore & Co., at $49,589, for equipment for the additional unit of the Central Heating and Power Plant, including a 750 kw. Turbo-generator and a 600 h. p. boiler, this additional equipment being necessary to carry the lighting and heating load of the new buildings being erected from the University Building bonds-Benj. Ide Wheeler Hall, the classroom building; Hilgard Hall, the second unit of the agricultural group; the first unit of the Chemistry Building, and the completion of the University Library, work on all of which is now in progress.

DENTAL INFIRMARY ADDITION

A contract has been let for an addition to the Dental Infirmary of the College of Dentistry, on Parnassus avenue, in San Francisco, at a cost of $15,300. More than 3000 people will receive dental treatment from the students there every year, at practically the cost of materials used.

CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL ARRANGEMENT

On August 8, 1916, the Regents voted to authorize the faculty of the Medical School to make an arrangement with the Hospital for Children and Training School for Nurses as to co-operation therewith for the purposes of medical education, provided, however, that no expense is to be involved to the University of California in such co-operation. Such an arrangement was immediately thereafter effected by the medical faculty.

CALIFORNIA SCHOOL OF FINE ARTS

"The California School of Fine Arts"-such is to be the name hereafter of the school heretofore known as the California School of Design. The change in name was approved by the Regents on August 8, 1916, through approval of a recommendation presented by the Directors of the San Francisco Art Association.

SCRIPPS INSTITUTION DEVELOPMENTS

Dedicatory exercises were held at the Scripps Institution for Biological Research on Friday, August 11, for the new thousandfoot concrete pier and the new library and museum building and other improvements just completed through the generosity of Miss Ellen B. Scripps. A number of Pacific Coast scientists of distinction were present on this occasion, which constituted also a session of the annual convention of the Pacific Coast Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The speakers and addresses at the dedicatory exercises were: President Benj. Ide Wheeler, Right Rev. Joseph H. Johnson, Bishop of Los Angeles; "The Training of Scientific Men," David Starr Jordan, Chancellor Emeritus of Stanford University; "Biological Research Institutions: Organization, Men, and Methods," D. T. McDougal, of Tucson, Director of the Department of Botanical Research of the Carnegie Institution of Washington; "The Sources of the Nervous System," G. H. Parker, Professor of Zoology, Harvard; "What the Scripps Institution is Trying to Do," William E. Ritter, Scientific Director of the Scripps Institution for Biological Research.

SOME FACULTY MATTERS

The return of David P. Barrows, Professor of Political Science and Dean of the Academic Faculties, from a half-year's leave of absence, during which for six months he had charge of the work in Brussels of the American Commission for Relief in Belgium, after which he was in the military training camp at Plattsburg and then a member of the Summer Session faculty at Columbia, was the occasion for a dinner given in his honor by the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce and his associates in the faculty.

Charles E. Chapman, Assistant Professor of California History, has recently represented the University at the American Congress of Bibliography and History, held in Buenos Aires. He is one of five scholars from other countries than the Argentine Republic appointed members of the Permanent Council of the Historical Congress, which is to be organized as a permanent body, to meet

again in Montevideo on August 16, 1917, and to maintain an American Institute of Bibliography, with the Ateneo Nacional of Buenos Aires as its central and directing body.

Many foreign-born students of the University of California have been greatly handicapped by their lack of skill in English. The Department of English has now established a new course in "Oral and Written English for Foreigners," for special training in pronunciation and idiom.

The Republic of China has conferred the decoration of the Order of the Golden Sheaf upon Edmond O'Neill, Professor of Chemistry in the University of California, in recognition of aid and courtesy which he was able to extend to the Chinese nation on the occasion of the Panama Pacific International Exposition.

Ernest Linwood Walker, Associate Professor of Tropical Medicine in the George Williams Hooper Foundation for Medical Research, has been sent by the Foundation to carry on medical explorations on the upper reaches of the Amazon. He has gone 1500 miles up the river to the region of Porto Zelho, Rio Madeira, Amazon, Brazil, a region as yet scientifically unexplored. His researches as to parasitic and other infections of man will be aided by the hospitality of the hospital maintained there by the MadeiraMamora Railroad. The medical director of that company is Dr. Allen M. Walker, a graduate of 1907 of the University of California Medical School.

"Leave your automobiles at home-be one of us!" was one of the texts on which President Wheeler spoke to the students at the opening University Meeting of the year. To forward the good cause of preventing the noise and disturbance which results from the presence of automobiles in the campus, not only has the roadway between the Sather Gate and the University Library been closed to automobiles during the hours when classes are in session but also removable posts have been placed in the roadway southeast of North Hall, so as to present disturbance of academic peace.

CARNEGIE RETIRING ALLOWANCES

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has found that its resources are inadequate to carry permanently the burden of providing pensions for the members of the faculty of even the universities already admitted to the list of approved institutions, of which the University of California is one. The Foundation has been engaged for some time, therefore, in actuarial and other investigations as to a contributory pension plan by which the cost of a pension system shall be borne by contributions

from the individual professor, his university, and the Foundation. The new plan would have the advantage that the individual would have a definite contract and definite right to the “deferred wages'' which he is eventually to receive as a retiring allowance, and that he could not be deprived of rights already earned either by migration from one university to another or by leaving the teaching profession. The new plan is not as yet ready for definite inaug

uration.

ALUMNI ACTIVITIES

Departing from the old-time custom of having the annual meeting of the alumni at Commencement, the Alumni Association this year held a luncheon under the oaks in Strawberry Cañon on Commencement Day, but deferred the annual meeting until June 3, holding it then at Kearney Park, the great 5400-acre estate near Fresno bequeathed to the University by the late M. Theo. Kearney. A special train carried 142 alumni from the San Francisco Bay region to Fresno, and six hundred others gathered at Kearney Park, coming from all over central California. At the out-of-door barbecue dinner which preceded the annual meeting 632 sat down together, and many others came for the open-air meeting and the out-door dancing.

The alumni re-elected as President and Secretary, respectively, Oscar Sutro, '94, the San Francisco attorney, and Harvey Roney, '15, of Berkeley, under whose administration the number of members of the association and the number of subscribers to the Alumni Fortnightly have more than trebled in the past year, the members by May, 1916, numbering 2905 and the subscribers 2624. The income of the Alumni Association for the year ending June 30, 1916, was $4632.18, as compared with $1099.50 for 1912-13.

R. G. Sproul, '13, was re-elected treasurer. The other officers for 1916-17 are: First vice-president, Wigginton E. Creed, '98; second vice-president, Samuel M. Haskins, '93; Councillors: Matthew C. Lynch, '06, Douglas Brookman, '10, Chaffee E. Hall, '10, Frank Otis, '73, Stuart L. Rawlings, '99, Samuel C. Irving, '79, Charles W. Merrill, '91, William H. Waste, '91, Margaret Hayne, '08, and Rose Gardner Marx, '11.

CANDIDATES FOR HONORS

The new plan of "Candidacy for Honors' has been launched by the announcement of the names of 396 Juniors and Seniors in the College of Letters and Science, of twenty in the College of Chemistry, and of eleven in the College of Commerce who are eligible to register as "Candidates for Honors."

FRATERNITIES EXCEL IN SCHOLARSHIP

Fraternity and non-fraternity men, alumni, and parents have welcomed with great interest the first public announcement, made at the request of the fraternities themselves, of the comparative standing in scholarship of all the men's fraternities and house clubs. The figures, as compiled by Professor Thomas M. Putnam, Associate Professor of Mathematics and Dean of the Lower Division, and Recorder James Sutton show that for the half-year ending May, 1916, the undergraduate men who are members of fraternities or house clubs were better in scholarship than the other male undergraduates, their average scholarship being 2.362 as compared with 2.3906, the mean average grade for all male undergraduates counted together. For the house clubs the average grade was 2.416. Twentytwo fraternities and house clubs, or just half of the list, won a place on the "Honor Roll" by scoring an average scholarship above the mean average of male undergraduates as a whole.

In the following figures the lower the index number the higher the standard. The comparative standing in scholarship for the past half-year and for the past four years was as follows: