Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1886 [PAGE 71]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

m

Trustee Follansbee submitted the following minority report:

To the Trustees of the ITnwersity of Illinois: In the matter of the petition of Foster North, Esq.. which has heretofore been submitted by your honorable Board to a committee with directions to make a report thereon at this meeting, the undersigned begs leave to offer the following as a minority report in said matter. In arriving at the conclusions hereinafter stated he has endeavored to keep steadily in view two objects, viz.: First, that Mr. North should be accorded by this Board all of his constitutional and legal rights, whatever they maybe; and, secondly, that the benefit of the chapel exercises as heretofore enjoyed should be preserved to this institution. Upon the first point we are of the opinion, and so recommend, that Mr. North shall be allowed to graduate from this University upon the completion of the required list of studies and upon passing a satisfactory examination therein, notwithstanding the fact that he was not in attendance upon his recitations during the last term of his course of studies. We make this recommendation inasmuch as we understand that it is conceded the reason he did not so attend was because he was not allowed to do so, having been suspended therefrom because of his non-attendance at the daily chapel exercises, at which portions of the New Testament are read and the Lord s Prayer repeated. No good purpose would be subserved in this report by submitting an argument upon the constitutional question as to whether Mr. North's position in regard to his attendance upon such exercises is or is not correct. Suffice it to say that the undersigned is of the opinion that the reading of the Bible and offering prayer at such stated intervals are, and are intended to be, acts of worship, and the chapel at such times is, and is intended for the time being, to be a "place of worship."" If so, the bill of rights of this State positively declares that no one shall be required to attend such a place without his consent, and it necessarily follows that no one should be deprived of any rights that he could otherwise enjoy or should otherwise have if he does not so attend. A law of the State which would require each person to attend a place of worship, subject to pains and penalties, would clearly contravene this provision of our bill of rights. No less subject to the objection, to my mind, is a law or rule which deprives a person of the benefits of a public institution like this because he fails to give his consent to attend upon these acts of worship. A rule or law is no less objectionable because in the one case it would deprive an individual of the right to public instruction, or to vote, or to hold office, unless he attends a place of worship, than it would be if it commanded or "required" him to do so under pains or penalties. In the one case he is deprived of his rights, and in the other of his liberty or his property, because of his failure to attend "a place of worship." With the wisdom of this right to entirely abstain from attendance upon any place of worship, which is reserved to each individual of this State, we have nothing to do. In conceding powers to the State government the people of this State have seen fit to reserve this one to themselves, so that each individual may follow out in this respect the dictates of his own conscience. Not only is each person now free to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of his own conscience—the principle for which our Puritan ancestors stood; but we have gone beyond that, and now say that each person is free to worship or not to worship God, according-to the conclusions of his own judgment. And this enunciation of our reserved individual rights marks a wide departure from the declarations contained in the earlier State constitutions in this country. Nor does it, in my opinion, obviate the constitutional objection that the faculty offered to excuse Mr. North from attendance at such exercises, if he would request it or state that he had conscientious scruples against doing so. He was not asking a favor, he was simply asserting a right; and he avers that he had no conscientious scruples on the subject,but to be compelled to go there was against his consent. It must be apparent, I think, that Mr. North has planted himself upon his constitutional rights, and however widely we may differ from him in the opinions which he holds in regard to religious matters, we should not on account thereof deny him such privileges as the constitution of our State has guaranteed him. I therefore, as above stated, recommend to the faculty of this institution that Mr. North be graduated upon the terms and conditions above set forth. Upon the second question, as to the retention of the chapel exercises, I recommend that they be continued as heretofore. I realize that this recommendation does not follow as a matter of course from the consideration of Mr. North's petition, yet inasmuch as fear is entertained that the effect of this report if adopted by yon will be to encourage other students to willfully absent themselves from such exercises, and thereby cause their gradual disintegration, I feel instigated to urge that no marked deviation be made in that respect from the rules heretofore governing attendance thereat. I understand in the past any person by representing to the Regent or Faculty that he has conscientious scruples against attending such exercises, or by furnishing other good reasons why he should not so attend, has been excused from such attendance. The students who will decline to comply with this requirement will in my opinion be so few in number that there seems to be no real occasion to depart from the practice heretofore adopted.