Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1876 [PAGE 171]

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171 I t was resolved that the deposit of $10for matriculation fee by such students as are admitted on conditions is not to be returned except in case a student leaving for sickness during the first term. The Regent, Dr. J. M. Gregory, then read his report.

R E P O R T OF R E G E N T . To the Board of Trustees of the Illinois Industrial University: With this meeting opens the tenth year since the first Board of Trustees of the University-met and organized at Springfield. Eight years of actual work as a university have been completed, and the measure of success attained affords the most gratifying evidence of the soundness of the ideas on which the university was founded, and,gives the most certain assurance of the large success which awaits it. The records show the following attendance in the several years: For term closing J u n e 1868 77 For year " " 3869 112 " 1870 180 " 1871 278 " 1872 '. 381 " • " " 1873 400 "4 " '• 1874 406 to March 1876 385 It will be observed that the increase was regular and rapid up to the year 1873-4, when the great financial panic which struck the country began to make its influence felt on all the higher institutions of learning, our own as well as others. But the present year, though the hard times still continue, begins again to.show increase, and the outlook promises a much more rapid enlargement in the years immediately to come, prqvided the institution shall continue to deserve and retain the public confidence. It is gratifying to know that the University has at last surmounted the hostile and injurious criticism which so hotly assailed it in its earlier years, and did so much to jxi jure its proper growth. Not a single paper in the State, so far as I know, now holds a hostile attitude, nor a single writer, unless it may be some one or two disappointed men, who can find little good in those who failed to find the required good in them. Nor is this triumph of the University merely negative—the simple cessation of complaints. The University has been visited by large numbers of intelligent observers, men of all classes, and large public bodies, Legislative committees, Educational and Medical conventions, and the State Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry. And from all parties, without exception, there have come nothing but expressions of surprise at the extenx and power of the University, and approbation of its plans and methods. I shall have the pleasure to lay before you the resolutions of the Wayne County Grange based upon the reports carried home to them by their delegates to the State Grange, at their late meeting in this city. Our last catalogue contains a letter signed by the members of the Legislative committees sent to inspect the institution, and commending it in strong terms to the confidence and patronage of the citizens of the State. From newspaper articles in my possession, written by regular c©rrespondents who have visited us, I might quote to you additional testimony to the high position the University has come to hold in the public esteem. I recall now their favorable judgments, not because of the personal satisfaction they may afford the Trustees or myself, but as indications of the progress made, and as sure promises and precursors of the rapid growth to come. But our success has not been simply that of large numbers and public approval. Our plans and methods of instruction have worked out valuable results. Obliged, like all other young institutions, to receive a large part of its students with a low grade of preparation, the University has succeeded in imparting to these students a degree of scholarship and culture which, while differing in kind, falls but little if any short of that given to their more thoroughly prepared matriculants by the oldest and best institutions of the country. Our commencements and frequent pubiic exercises in which the students have borne part, have, in the judgment of good critics, and I must add in my own, exhibited a scope of information, a power of thought and expression, and a justness of taste rarely surpassed in the American Colleges. And our students coming into contact with the students of other colleges, in their inter-collegiate conventions, have shown a mastery of business and a readiness and power in debate which commanded the respect of their associates. Nor ought I to forget to mention that it was one of our students who took the first prize for oratory in the last inter-eollegiate contest. It is too soon, our graduates are all too recently at work, to tell how their education will stand the sterner tests of practical life ; but if the zeal with which they pursued their studies here, and the rate of progress which they showed do not fail them, we may look confidently for the riper results. As to the special aims of their study, as Agriculture, Engineering, &c, we must probably wait still longer to test the final success of our methods. Our several schools of Agriculture, Horticulture, Mechanical and Civil Engineering, Architecture and Chemistry will exhibit at Philadelphia students' work of which they need n o t b e ashamed. Many of our students of Agriculture have gone back to their farms. Several of our young Civil Engineers hold responsible places on the Lake Survey and on Western railroads; one, at least, of our Architects has won a separate place among the Architects of Chicago, while a good number of Mechanical Engineers and Chemists are pursuing their proper work in their own or other people's establishments. But, doubtlesss, as always with the graduates who have their own capital to collect, many have gone temporarily to other employments than those for which they were educated, and which offered them a readier pathway to their goal; while some, using the freedom which our country allows its children, have sought in the Teacher's calling or other professional careers the needful daily bread and the possible emoluments and honors which we all covet and catch when we can. As was to be expected, our graduates have not yet become numerous in proportion to our attendance. In all higher institutions, and in young ones more than in the old, many students drop out of their classes by the way and fail to complete their course. In these eight years we have matriculated 1,098 students, and graduated (including present graduating class) only 116; but our

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1875

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