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SERVING THE CAUSE administrators their estimate of the weaknesses as well as of the strengths of the academic program which they had experienced as undergraduates. This awareness on the part of both teachers and learners that there is always need for improvement, coupled with an understanding that effecting improvement is sometimes an extremely intricate undertaking, was surely a sign of strength and vitality. Material Equipment The College began the 1945-1946 year with a library of some 55,650 volumes. The chemistry and physics laboratories were located in Breidenbaugh Hall. The biology laboratories were on the third floor and in the basement of Glatfelter Hall. All of these facilities were in relatively new quarters. The library building and Breidenbaugh were less than twenty years old. Biology had moved into renovated sections of Glatfelter Hall only after the engineering program was terminated in 1940. The statement of educational purposes which first appeared in the 1949 catalogue made no specific mention of the role which libraries and laboratories were expected to play in the life of the College, although it did state that "a student should be introduced to the great characters and the great books which have contributed to the worthwhile things of life" and did stress as essential to an education "the habit of accurate observation." Clearly, however, since becoming librarian in 1929 John Knickerbocker had worked tirelessly to prepare the collection under his control for much greater use than at any previous time in the history of the College. Also, all three science heads tried, with varying degrees of persistence, to secure as much up-to-date equipment as they could persuade the president to purchase for them. By later standards, the amounts being spent for what the catalogue then described as the material equipment of the College were still pitifully small. In the annual report for 1945-1946, the treasurer stated that $3,027 had been disbursed for the library and $2,876 for supplies and equipment for the three science departments.179 Increased enrollments required greater expenditures in subsequent years, but during the remainder of the Hanson administration library expenditures, exclusive of salaries, averaged only $6,967, while those for the three science departments averaged only $9,849. A brief report which the librarian prepared at the end of 1944 indicated that the library was then open eighty-eight hours each week, including four on Sunday afternoons.180 In addition to the 179Including salaries, library expenses were $8,865. The librarian reported purchasing 875 volumes during the preceding year at an average cost of $2.60 each. Exclusive of salaries, the biology department cost $1,800, chemistry $954, and physics $122. 180After the war, library hours were reduced, to 72 per week during 1952-1953, but by 1984-1985 they had been increased to 98Va. 89