Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1888 [PAGE 201]

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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

Agricultural College bill, which was vetoed by President Buchanan. Then followed the civil war, in the midst of which, even in the darkest hours of that sad conflict, a similar act was passed and received the signature of President Lincoln. This act provided, in phraseology that must be familiar to every one who hears me, "for instruction in the branches of learning relating to agriculture and the mechanic arts, without excluding other scientific and classical studies." As to this last and much discussed clause, I have to remark that I have been assured by persons thoroughly familiar with the facts that the bill never could have passed the Senate of the United States without this clause, and that if such exclusion had been insisted upon, the bill would have been worthless to several of the States, both east and west. I am fully aware of the adverse criticism which has been made against many of the institutions founded upon this grant, charging perversion of funds, abandonment of principle, and other faults, which, if committed, were equally deserving of censure. I have no disposition to make counter charges against the authors of such charges, any more than I would punish by imprisonment the inability to see color by such as are color blind. I hope always to be able to assert as confidently as I have done hitherto, and do now most emphatically insist, in the words of the Hon. John Eaton, late Commissioner of Education, that no institution has, in proportion to the means committed to it, more perfectly fulfilled, both in the spirit and in the letter, the law of 1862, than has the University of Illinois. The legislature that convened after the close of the war passed an act for incorporating the Illinois Industrial University, and located it at Urbana, in the county of Champaign, The State put up the University as a prize to be won by the highest bidder, and the prize was awarded as has been stated. The amount of the bid was estimated at $400,000. The items, so far as I can learn, were 930 acres of land, $100,000 in money, and a brick building whose site is still visible. About one-third of the money was expended in making the building temporarily habitable, and in necessary improvements on the land. The other two-thirds was, to put it mildly, borrowed by the legislature, but was never repaid. The building served a good purpose, until one more suitable and commodious could be erected. I n 1880 it became a ruin under the stress of destroying elements, and the Trustees took it down to prevent the boys from burning it up. The land mostly remains. The first Board of Trustees met and organized on Tuesday, March 12, 1867, so that this day which we now celebrate may * properly be counted as the twenty-first birthday of the University, the day on which it comes to its majority. The meeting was held in the representatives' hall at Springfield. At that meeting Dr. John M. Gregory was elected Regent. Dr. Gregory had been Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State of Michigan, and was thoroughly versed in educational affairs. He entered immediately upon the work of organization; the arrangement of col-