Repository: UIHistories Project: Booklets - Facts for Freshmen (1914) [PAGE 83]

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FA( rs FOB i KI siiMj.x

85

the time required to be put in by students in military drill was reduced, and fraternities and other secret societies were banished. A rule was passed that no student should enter the University until he had pledged himself not to join a fraternity, and that no student should be graduated until he had certified that while in the University, he had not belonged to any fraternity. The rule was strenuous, but was later repealed. T h e University had experienced a good deal of annoyance and found that considerable misunderstanding had arisen from the name "Illinois Industrial University/' many people of the State having the idea that the University was a sort of penal institution or reform school. T h e Trustees, therefore, petitioned the Legislature to change the name to "University of Illinois/' This petition was acted on favorably in 1885, and brought great rejoicing to the friends of the University. The State Laboratory of Natural History was this same year brought to the University. By an Act passed in 1887 Trustees of the University were henceforth to be elected by popular vote. This change made it possible also for women to be members of the Board. The change in the manner of election helped materially to bring the institution before the people of the State, many of whom had previously known little or nothing of its character or existence. On the resignation of Regent Peabody in June. ISOT, the Board of Trustees appointed Professor T. J. Bur rill as Acting Regent, and he served during an inter regnum of three years. Up to this time the number of students in attendance had but once reached five hundred. The University was known almost exclusively, if known at all, as an engineering and an agricultural institution, though in agriculture it had few students, and had done little work. The I egisla

ture became more generom ; appropriations for new buildings

v. n eivedj more money i«»r operating expense! was se Ured, graduate work was undertaken; and the whole instttU

tion • uied to ha\

m ;i\

ening, The attendance Increased;

the ban w.is taken otY

Student organizations were arotei