Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Chicago Medical Center Reopening [PAGE 11]

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swor in somt degree at any rate to tho demands which the people of this great. Mississippi Valley were everywhere making upon their higher institutions of learning. The demand began to make itHcli' felt from many different quarters, not only that more liberal appropriations should he given to the lines of work which had been previously established, but that the state should take this college of agriculture and the mechanic wrts, founded and supported by the federal government, and convert it into a great and comprehensive university of the people, answering the needs of the state of Illinois in many different directions in the tield of higher education. It was about this time that a man became governor of the state of Illinois who was perhaps a center of fiercer storms of politics and feeling than any person whom the commonwealth ever chose for the high position of governor of the state. John P. Altgeld was inaugurated governor in January, 1898. Men were fiercely divided in his day as to the policies and actions and motives of this man, They are not agreed about them today. But all parties have come to see in the years which have elapsed since his term as governor that he was one of the most determined and valiant friends of public education who ever led the people of this commonwealth to a higher view of their opportunities. No man who had preceded him in the gubernatorial office ever showed a keener sense of importance of institutions of public education or took more pains to see that the importance of public education was driven home upon the attention of the people of the commonwealth. From his administration dated a new era in the history of education, lower as well as higher, in this great state. The time will come when the state will erect a monument to John P. Altgeld in recognition of his services as a wise leader of the people, in emphasizing in season and out of season the importance to a democracy of an adequate system of public education from the kindergarten to the University. Governor Altgeld laid it down as a fundamental proposition that the interests of the people of this state were bound up. with the policy of making the University of Illinois a great and comprehensive institution of higher learning, or, as he expressed it in one of his communications, " a complete university in the highest meaning of the term." In pursuance of this policy in his capacity as governor and in his capacity as ex officio member of the board of trustees of the University of Illinois, he urged upon the university the necessity of establishing instruction in law and medicine upon the very highest plane at the very earliest possible date. As a result of his efforts the University law school was established, which has become an important and permanent department of the University of Illinois. Upon his own motion in the board of trustees a school of pharmacy was established by taking over the old college of pharmacy which had been founded many years 'before by the pharmacists of the state in the city of Chicago, and he urged that the University should establish also a medical department in the same way by taking over the College of Physicians and Surgeons in the same city* After long consideration the trustees of the University of Illinois made a contract of affiliation with the College of Physicians and Sur10