Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1869 [PAGE 378]

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CONDITIONS O F T H E G R A N T .

The State, in accepting from Congress the immense gift of 480,000 acres of land scrip, deliberately assented to all the conditions of t h e grant, and assumed all the responsibilities it imposed. These conditions included the inviolability of the fund and its interest, its perpetual security against loss, the payment by the State of all expenses for its management and disbursement, and, by unavoidable implication, the support and maintenance forever, with its aid, of such an institution as the act describes. Thus far the State has exhibited much wisdom in the management of this great trust. By wisely appealing to the public emulation of its several counties, it secured for the institution buildings, farms, and other property of great value, without expense to the State, and without diminution of the funds.

A N E W OBLIGATION.

But this generosity of its citizens has only added a fresh obligation to those which the acceptance of the. grant imposed upon the State. The pledges made to Congress the State has now repeated to its own citizens. I t was for no private or local institution that the several counties bid such princely sums. I t was for a University belonging inalienably to the State, and for whose perpetuity and success the faith of the State was irrevocably pledged, t h a t the tax-payers of t h e several counties were encouraged to vote upon themselves the burden of so gigantic a donation. The State cannot, in justice, and will not, if wise, attempt to thrust upon other hands a duty it voluntarily took upon itself.

ACTS OP T H E T R U S T E E S .

The Board of Trustees appointed by the State, obeying the mandate of t h e Legislature, located the University at Urbana, the county of Champaign having, in good faith, paid over its offered donation. A full statement of the further doings of the Board will be laid before you in the annual report of the Corresponding Secretary. The Trustees have aimed steadily to carry into effect the laws of Congress and of the State Legislature. Acting, as they ought, for the whole State, they have sought to organize the University on a basis worthy t h e State itself, and of t h e great p u b lic interests involved. Large expenditures were found necessary to alter and fit up the University building for use, to grade and fence the grounds, and to purchase the additional lands, and the teams and tools needful for the present purposes of the institution. These expenditures have been carefully confined to the supply of immediate wants. I t has been the policy to diminish as little as possible the permanent funds, in the hope that the University may ultimately be supported mainly, if not entirely, by the income of these funds.