Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - Early History of University (1916) [PAGE 10]

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HISTORICAL SKETCH

OF T H E

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

The germ from which the University of Illinois has developed may be found in the clause of the famous ordinance of 1787, "Religion, morality and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.'' This provision, a half century before the appearance of our public school system and seventy-five years before the Land Grant Act of 1862 providing for state universities was merely the ideal from which ideas might continually arise until suddenly a complete state educational system emerged in our national life. I t was well into the fifties before public schools began to spread in Illinois and even in the eighties high schools were regarded as questionable necessities. President James relates that when he was principal of the high school at Evanstou, Illinois in 1878 that the question was presented annually to the voters of this period, not whether the principal or superintendent of schools should leave, but whether the people of a given locality desired to continue their high school. However higher education was provided for as early as 1804, when Congress made three districts in Indiana Territory and directed the Secretary of the Treasury to locate one township of land in each district for the use of a seminary of learning. At this time Illinois belonged to Indiana Territory. Later, in 1818, when Illinois became a state, a second township was given for the endowment of a seminary, and also one-sixth of 3 % of the net proceeds of government lands sold after January 1, I819. 1 This latter donation to the state was to be "exclusively bestowed upon a college or university." The people of Illinois, however, made no attempt to establish an institution of learning with these funds as a foundation until 1833. In that year a bill was introduced to incorporate an institution to be called "Illinois University." The bill met with strong opposition, as Springfield was named for the location. Through jealousy, "Vandalia stirred up the opposition of other neighboring eities. Friends of the infant colleges of McKendree, Shurtleff, and Illinois looked with alarm upon the establishment of such a state-endowed university; and, in addition, the men in control of state affairs, in order to avoid taxation, had already used all moneys received for the college fund and from the sale of the seminary lands for the current expenses of the government. And any proposition to cut off the use, in a similar way, of further receipts from the same source was decidedly unpopular. Furthermore, they would have had to resort to taxation in order to restore the trust funds already misappropriated. Fortunately perhaps for them, the bill met with defeat, and for several years after this the efforts made to establish a state institution of higher learning were wholly unorganized. The people took little interest in the matter and attempts were even 'See Papers of the Amer. Hist. Soc. V. 1, No. 3, W. L. Pillsbury, p. 36; 111. School,Report, 1887-8. p. CXV1I.