| Show OUR STATE S TATE UNIE university A laboratory 7 1 31 pill worth W 0 millions M ili OAS THI 3 to yo iov ME ct S be p 45 miles Mi lesan an I lour ilour and boling go inq nowhere here 4 by ELMO SCOTT WATSON VERY american knows in a general W sort of way that each state jn the jle union has an institution of higher learning supported wholly or in 40 part ny by state appropriations but how many of us know anything very definite nite about those institutions what they are trying to do what they are actually accomplishing if 1 they are contributing more to contemporary american life than the education e u aaion of the thousands 0 of our sons and daughters who he are being graduated every june and what it if any return beyond that they are making to the taxpayers of the states for the millions of dollars which are apar appropriated e belated for their use out of the public funds fund do we think of them in other terms than a as s pa places a ces where e winning football teams are produced where judging troia from newspaper reports wild youth has its fling in the tha form of extravagant social expenditures and rowdy behavior what time the students are not sitting in class where professors lecture and teach them things the purpose of this article Is to suggest to those who do bof not read beyond newspaper headlines that there Is more to a st state afe university than classes athi athletics kics and student activities and to point out oat some other functions which seem t to 0 be comparatively unknown to the majority of those who contribute to its support that function la is indicated by the words of a recent commentator common tutor who spoke of bf a state university in the middle bestas a vast laboratory of science and citizenship built by and for the people ot of the state wherein have been made discoveries the value of which probably approximates a hundred million dollars a year certainly many times the amount the state appropriates for all purposes teaching research and building recently there came from new york the news that the legislature of that state was considering an appropriation to restore the birthplace of dr stephen moulton babcock as an agricultural memorial for it was doctor habcock who carried on the investigations at anell university in the new york agricultural experiment peri pert ment station and at the university of wisconsin which resulted in the now famous babcock milk test before he devised this test there was no satisfactory means of determining the percentage of butterfat in milk and the importance of his invention lies in the fact that it furnishes data for improving dairy stock ly by indicating which animals should be weeded out and which used for breeding it Is impossible to estimate the cash value of this test to the dairy industry of the united states since it was perfected in IRA 1890 but it probably runs into millions and millions of dollars and the babcock milk test la Is only one of the many examples of valuable val discoveries made mada in the laboratories of our state universities to list them all end and evaluate them adequately would be impossible within the limits of this article but some soma idea of the value of YOUR youil state university as a vast laboratory of science and citizenship to the people of your state ns as well as to tho the whole nation may be obtained by considering the contribution of one of them the university of illinois Illino liL in some fields of course this institution at the twin cit cities leaVI of urbana champaign ill has done more than lias has other state universities and in others it bai ba not cot made the important contributions which oth er similar institutions have but without rank laak ing any aay invidious comparisons the work nf it thip institution may be taken as typical i t mt at our oui wh where ere better bette r beef is manufactured all courtesy orey university of industries that if this problem Is solved it will mean an increase of 20 per cent with no major increase in cost of production clear ar ice from rm 0 or d narU Water state universities lire are contributing to the enrichment of our national life researches carried on at the university of illinois na at other such such institutions coyer cover virtually the whole field of human endeavor and too touch e of every the contributions of this particular institution which have attracted worldwide world wide attention tire are these outstanding ones the discovery of the only chemical element ever discovered in america the production of illium a new metal which pan can be substituted for platinum in many instances the very definite contribution to the treatment for leprosy the low temperature temper atura process for coking coal which returns by prod ilet acts worth rth r more than the original cost of the iu fuel and the development of the serum for corn com bating ptomaine poisoning the value of jr its investigations have been es specially pec lally ally evident in the major fields of industry and agriculture in engineering its achievements have been incorporated in building jorj ecta of many lines in railroad operation and maintenance ta in heating our homes and in many other ways in agrI agriculture cultura hundreds of broj acts have contributed soil and crop improvements and have affected every phase of agri cultural life in the interest of more profitable and better living conditions on the farm in both industry and agriculture its investigations and the resulting contributions have been made in so many diverse ways that even a brief tabulation of them all would extend far beyond the limits of this article so only a few typical examples can be cited take for example the use of concrete and reinforced concrete in building construction the revised building codes now about to be adopted in chi cago cage new york philadelphia and other cities governing the safety and proper design of structures worth many millions of dollars depend in a large number of details upon the work of tho the university research staff in this field the department of railway engineering of the university through tests completed last summer indicated that a possible saving of annually in the operation of of the langei type of loconTo locomotives tives on american and canadian railroads might be realized through the use ol of the dyphon an appliance for the cocoma five firebox fl the investigations proved that a pain gain of 8 per cent in locomotive efficiency Is possible the costly process of distilling water for lei le manufacture can be eliminated unive university ralty ex peri ments have proved and as a result an an mint final saving of several millions of dalla dollars s Is pos able in american plants work wik Is s now in pro ress on a project which involves the bilth of if utilizing uti lising lower freo freezing zing temperatures in taw product production ton of ice it Is estimated by the ice except power A large potential Is involved equally important hay have been the illinois investigations in them the field ae d of of metals which makes for greik greater fer safety in high speed mae machinery chinery especially that used in airplanes in civil engineering which makes buildings bridges and highways safer in the solution of problems of v ventilation in which the health and comfort of the public Is involved and in the improvement of the tha mining industry but nowhere has the value of a state not versify to the commonwealth been more evident thanin than thin in the contribution which the university of illinois has made to the agriculture of the predominantly farming prairie state there was a time when little or no limestone was used by illinois farmers but tests on tho the university soil experiment fields established the tha fact that it to Is essential on many soils which would not otherwise grow sweet clover or othet othe r legumes in the experiments the returns from limestone costing 2 to 3 a ton have been as much as 35 to 40 a ton and have averaged 8 a ton net efficiency of corn production in illinois has been increased an estimated bushels a year as a result of revolutionary corn cultivation experiments showing the superiority of shallow cultivation anticipating the eventual need for informs lion on european corn borer control the college has gone to the pett peat instead of waiting until it comes to illinois thereby saving what undoubtedly would have been a heavy loss in time almo and money to the agriculture of the state the institution Is cooperating with the illinois natural history survey and the united states department of agriculture in experimental work in the heavily infested areas near toledo ohio as well as in illinois which la Is still the ex experiment station of the university of illinois college of agriculture has been a leader in making the tha beet beef cattle catlie feeding business a success studies resulted in new and valuable information on methods of preparing feed tot to fattening cattle maintenance rations for beet beef breeding cows hand vs self feeding short fed cattle feedlot shelter influence of cattle rations on the gains made by hogs following cattle relative efficiency of different amounts of feeds for fattening steers and on many other phases of cattle feeding operations the same Is true in regard to the swine industry and the list of benefits to the farmer from this vast laboratory could be extended indefinitely through the dairy business through horticulture through problems of farm organization and management and farm mechanics in fact it has been estimated that less than twenty cents a year from each of the SO acres acre 0 of f improved farm land in the state of 1111 illinois not would pay ALL the appropriations for its state university and on the other side of the ledger Is this fact that returns nt at the rate of more than twenty four cents an acre are being paid buck back to the farmers by a single one the time stone atone legume lej tume project of the research and extension service projects which the university through its collage of agriculture ts Is carrying on As has been said before what the university if illinois Is doing in its state other state uni are doing in proportion in their respective spec pec tive commonwealths As research centers they are paying back dollar for dollar plus s re reat at reany more dollars dollard 3 all that the people of those states are spending for their upkeep and us its educational centers they are offering the youth of the country an opportunity foj enrich ing ng their lives and building careers of useful to themselves and to human society A vast Mb laboratory oratory or of science and citizenship hat youn bouli tate university 1 CO c by W watern t n newspaper UW |
