Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1888 [PAGE 204]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

HISTORICAL ADDRESS, TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY.

207

$75,000 as the first moiety to be expended on it, it being understood that at the next session an equal amount in addition would be appropriated to finish the work. Contracts were let and the work was begun, the corner stone being laid with appropriate ceremony on the 12th of September, 1871. The work was pushed forward as rapidly as was consistent with good workmanship, until the first appropriation was expended, but the walls were not all completed and the roof was not on. A broad, white streak on the west wall, above the library windows, remains the indelible record of the time when the work could go no farther. The legislature met, but adjourned without making the promised appropriation, and in April, 1872, as the records show, the Trustees found themselves obliged to use the Champaign county bonds then remaining in their hands, to complete the work, as was necessary to prevent serious damage to what had already been done, and to prepare the building for much needed uses. Every effort was made that this money, which really belonged to the endowment fund, should be repaid by the State, but such efforts were unavailing, Money was furnished for heating apparatus and furnishing only. The building was finished, and it was dedicated December 10, 1873. While not remarkable architecturally, it is one of the most admirably arranged and convenient -educational buildings to be found in the land. Its cost was kept within the sum originally assigned for its -construction. The other of the larger buildings, the chemical laboratory, was authorized by the legislature of 1877, was finished in the summer of the next year, and was dedicated at commencement in 1878. Its cost, fitted and furnished, was $40,000. At the same commencement in 1878, degrees were first conferred upon graduates. When organized the University was thought to be unique. Its name was intended to show that. Its chief officer received a title which was never borne by anybody else who occupied a similar position. Its graduates were not to have diplomas or degrees, but were to receive certificates, which, it was argued, would be much more valuable, since they would show the exact attainments in kind and quality, which the bearer had reached. But somehow, the great world refused to accept the new dispensation. The graduates found their paper not current in the market. The name of the institution was persistently misinterpreted. The Kegent has to be at all times prepared to show that he is not a Trustee but only their servant; while it stands upon record that when the earlier professors went to the State Teachers' Association and sought admission to the college section, it was denied them because an institution that gave no degrees had no rightful d a i m to call itself a college. I n 1877 the alnmni petitioned the legislature to give the University authority to grant degrees; the legislature heard their complaint and granted their prayer. The University gives degrees, and has been admitted to grace. Every student is entitled, as before, under the law, to a certificate, after one year's membership in good standing in the University, which