Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1888 [PAGE 210]

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HISTORICAL ADDRESS, TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY.

213

I shall not be pardoned if I fail to notice one other event in tha history of the University which is expected to exert a considerable influence upon its future prosperity. I refer to the law passed by the last legislature, providing that the Trustees of the University shall be elected by the people of the State. As is well known, I did not favor the passage of this law. My reason was, and is, that I believe it essential to the prosperity of this as a State University, that it should be kept absolutely free from the turmoil of political complications, and the dangers resulting therefrom. During four sessions of the legislature, I had worked faithfully to secure its recognition by all parties as a non- political institution, and I do believe that a good deal of success had attended such efforts. The next general election is bound to be hotly contested. I t will be presidential, gubernatorial, congressional and for State officers all together, and the University will be plunged into the thickest of the flame. In this opinion I am not singular. I t was fully sustained by the earnest statements of the Governor, of Senator Cullom, Congressman Cannon, the Secretary of State, and every other State officer with whom I ever conversed, as well as by those who had experienced the workings of such a law at the University of Michigan, including President Angell, Judge Cooley, the distinguished chairman of the Interstate Railway Commission, the Secretary of the Board of Regents, and several of the members of that Board. Nevertheless, as it is the law I am bound to accept it, and to hope that it will work beneficially. I n view of the facts thus briefly presented, it may be claimed, in no spirit of boast fulness, but only in honest candor, that in respect to these items which may be considered evidences of prosperity, to-wit: 1. The present condition of the University finances; 2. Its material equipment of lands, books, museums, shops, laboratories, etc.; 3. The number, character, scholarly eminence and well earned fame of its instructors; and, 4. The excellence, thoroughness and completeness of its courses of study and the instruction therein—in each and in all of these respects, the University never has stood upon a nobler or more conspicuous eminence than now. But these results are not mine that I should boast of them. Such honor as grows out of this state of affairs belongs first to the Board of Trustees of the University. Gentlemen who for years—one during the entire twentyone years in which the Board has had an existence—have given freely their time, their interest, their wisdom, their best efforts to foster the interests of the institution which has been placed under their charge. For the kind and considerate attention which they have ever given to my suggestions concerning the conduct of this enterprise, they have my sincere thanks. For their efforts to advance the interests of the people of Illinois, centered in this University, thanks are inadequate.