Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1868 [PAGE 76]

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And the light of high and classic learning will be found as beautiful and becoming when it shines in an educated farmer's home, as when it gilds the residence of the graduated lawyer or physician. Rich libraries are already seen in the houses of some of our leading agriculturists, and no one has found that' they hinder the growth of harvests, or unfit the hand of the reaper. When our Industrial University shall have come fully into its work, these libraries will be increased in number, and there will gather around the firesides in our farmhouses, and in the homes of our master mechanics, groups of cultivated and intelligent people, the peers in knowledge, refinement and power of the best and bravest in the land. And what richer growths shall yet start from these magnificent prairies to repay the farmer's toil, and what more splendid achievements shall yet spring from our myriad-handed mechanic art—what more beautiful bloom in our gardens, and more delicious fruits from our orchards—what more tasteful and convenient homes from our architecture, and what grander and more abundant products from our multiplying manufactories—what nobler forms of civilization to grace our free institutions, and what better types of manhood to tell of the blessings of liberty and learning, when education shall have fully achieved this last triumph, and carried her victorious banner of light down into the fields where the toiling millions Of mankind must still, by the stern but beneficent ordination of Heaven, " eat their bread in the sweat of their brows." J. M. GREGORY, NEWTON BATEMAN, MASON BRAYMAN, S. S. HAYES, WILLARD 0. FLAGG, Committee.

NOTE—TIME OF OPENING. It was the earnest desire both of the Trustees and of the Regent to open the University for students, as early at least as next September; but a careful considera. tion of the character and extent of the preparations necessary to be made, in order to the successful inauguration of an enterprise of such magnitude and importance, convinced the Board of the necessity of some delay. It was accordingly voted that the opening be deferred till the first Monday in March, 1868, It was found that important alterations were needed to be made in the University building, requiring several months for their completion; the University grounds, which are a portion of an open and unsettled prairie, were to be graded, and this grading will leave the soil naked, to be turned into an expanse of mud by the autumnal rains ; fences were to be built, walks laid, sewers constructed, out-houses erected, blackboards and other apparatus and furniture to be made or purchased, and the institution to be equipped for service. Financial considerations of much importance also forbade haste. The sale of the scrip, which could not be made for several weeks, was uncertain. No interest would accrue on the fund still the first of May, 1868, and the expense of the repairs and equipments, together with nearly the entire amount for salaries and current expenses would have to be taken from the principal of the University fund, thus seriously diminishing the means needed for the peimanent support of the Institution.