Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Chicago Medical Center Reopening [PAGE 3]

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ADDRESS GIVEN BY W. L. ABBOTT, PRESIDENT OP THE BOARD OP TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OP |ILLINOIS, ACCEPTING THE GIPT OP THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS. How inscrutable are the ways of Providence! For years the University of Illinois endeavored to acquire a medical college where, under state patronage, instruction in the healing art might be given in a way which at least would not compare unfavorably with the standards established by other great universities of the state. With varying prospects successive Boards of Trustees pursued that object zealously, but when the elusive prize was almost within the grasp it was snatched away and the relation which for thirteen years had existed between the University and the College of Physicians and Surgeons was ended and all effort to effect a combination was abandoned—for a time. But, as il now develops, those who brought about this disappointment were the unconscious instruments of Providence in securing for the University a medical college in a way that would be in keeping with present day ideals of medical education, which decree that no part of a student's tuition fee shall be diverted from instructional purposes to the profit of the institution. Subscribing to this principle in conducting the college, its owners found that they could not consistently follow a different one in disposing of it,, and that if the college was to come to the University free of mercenary taint, it should come as an unqualified gift of the corporation, the property, the school, its good name and its good friends. In this spirit the college is now brought to the University and dedicated to the service of suffering humanity; its friends saying, 'This is our child; to its birth and development we have contributed of our means and of our lives. It is now yours, save that it shall never cease to be our child, and its success shall always be our pride and glory." The Board of Trustees, in accepting the gift, is sensible of the obligation which that gift imposes. If the University is to satisfy the expectations of those who contributed to the purchase of the college, it will raise the grade of work done, improve the instruction and the instructional facilities, and contribute liberally to research, using for these purposes the moneys received from tuition fees liberally supplemented with funds received from the state treasury, just as it supports its other great departments. It is the hope of the Board th&t in this respect it will not disappoint its friends, but let it be clearly understood that whatever the Board may be enabled to do will depend in a large measure upon the amount of assistance its friends render while the University's budget is under consideration by the legislature and the chief state executive. Dr. Steele, from you, representing students, alumni, faculty, stockholders, and other friends of the College of Physicians and Surgeons and of medical education, I accept for the Board of Trustees your gift

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