Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871 [PAGE 23]

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HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY.

The Illinois Industrial University is both State and National, in its origin and relations. I t was created by a grant from Congress, and its great leading aims were prescribed by a law of Congress. The State, accepting th6 grant and its conditions, founded the University, and further endowed it with the large donations received from the county in which it is located. The public movement which gave rise to this University, began a quarter of a century ago. Public meetings of the friends of industrial education were held in all parts of the State, and numerous petitions, signed by thousands of the agriculturists and other industrial classes, flooded the State Legislature. At length, in 1857, the General Assembly adopted joint resolutions asking Congress to make grants of public lands to establish colleges for industrial education. After long discussions, Congress passed the necessary law in July, 1862, making the magnificent grant of public lands out of which has arisen that long list of Agricultural Colleges and Industrial Universities now scattered over the continent. Illinois, the first to ask, was among the first to accept the grant, and great public interest was immediately excited in the question of its organization and location. Princely donations, in some cases of half a million of dollars, were tendered by several counties to secure the location of the institution in their midst. In February, 1867, a law was passed fixing the location and defining the plan of the University, and in May of the same year the Board of Trustees met at the University Building donated by Champaign county, and finally determined the location. During the year much of the scrip was sold or located, necessary alterations were made in the buildings, apparatus and library were purchased, a faculty partly selected, and preparations made for active work. The 2d day of March, 1868, the University was opened for students, and on the 11th of the same month formal inauguration exercises were held. In 1869, the Legislature appropriated $25,000 to