Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1892 [PAGE 240]

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PROCEEDINGS OF BOARD OF TRUSTEES.

243

building, to the said Board or Education. At the regular meeting held June 28 and 29, 1871, the Board of Education accepted the conveyance, and took possession of the property of the Illinois State Natural HistorySociety "for the use and benefit of the State of Illinois." The Boa?d of Education at its meeting of December 15, 1875, having under consideration its relations to the property thus acquired and held for the use of the state, resolved: " T h a t we regard the museum as a state institution, devoted to t h e prosecution of a natural history survey of the state, to the encouragement and aid of original research, and to the diffusion of scientific knowledge and habits of thought among the people." By act of the legislature of May 25, 1877, (Sess. Laws of 111., 1877, p. 14), the museum was styled the "State Laboratory of Natural History," the name which it has since borne. The foregoing items are obtained from a report upon the relations of the State Laboratory of Natural History to the State Board of Education, made by a committee of t h a t Board, of which the Hon. Henry Baab was chairman, published in the proceedings of t h a t Board for May 20, 1883, which report concludes in the following terms: "From the above it will be seen t h a t this Board holds the Laboratory in trust for the state, and t h a t the appropriations of the state are expended under the direction of this Board." The removal of the institution to the University was accomplished in pursuance of an act of the legislature, approved June 27, 1885, which auth irizes and directs the Trustees of the University to receive from the State Board of Education the property of the Laboratory and to hold the same for the benefit of the State of Illinois. I t also gives them the power to appoint a director and assistants, the latter upon nomination of the director. The functions of the Laboratory are defined in the following section of the law directing the transfer: "The State Laboratory of Natural History is hereby especially charged with the supply of natural history specimens to the State Museum, to the state educational institutions and to the public schools. I t shall be a further duty of the Director of said Laboratory to conduct a natural history survey of the state, giving preference to subjects of educational and economic importance; and he shall present for publication, from time to time, a series of systematic reports covering the entire field of the zoology and the cryptogamic botany of Illinois." I t is also provided by this law t h a t the Director of the Laboratory may be State Entomologist. From the foregoing history and record, we are of the opinion t h a t the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History is the property of the state; t h a t its appropriations are to be expended under the supervision of t h e Trustees; and t h a t its Director is immediately responsible to the Board. We re commend t h a t the Director of the Laboratory be required to present in writing a regular biennial report of the operations of the Laboratory to the Board at the September meeting next preceding each session of the legislature, together with such quarterly reports as the progress of the work may make desirable.

S. A. BULLARD, Committee.

Also the following report from the Director of the State Laboratory of Natural History:

To the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. GENTLEMEN: The somewhat unusual character of the operations of the State Laboratory of Natural History for the present summer makes it seem proper t h a t a brief special report should be made for your information concerning the character and progress of the work now in hand.