Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1900 [PAGE 52]

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32

UNINERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

f Dec.-13,

ordinated and carried forward to a point where it can successfully compete with that of older and stronger rivals. There can be no substantial success in all this by copying others, and yet there can be none without a full knowledge af what the world has done. Capricious action, doing things without full knowldge of all the surrounding conditions, and without full consideration for all the related interests, breeds trouble and arrests development. We have been saying much lately about the foundation work connected with the organization of this institution. We have not said more than the facts warrant. But we may properly appreciate that it has remained to recent years and for us and our associates to develop a true university. To do it well and completely requires work of a very high order, the enthusiastic cooperation of many people, with energy and moderation, with nerve and conciliation, with dignity and cordiality, well balanced. In such a great work as this an individual standing alone is helpless. Your commendation of my administration is to me the best support and the best compensation you can give me. No higher could come from any source, unless directly from the great people whom we all represent. I came here without experience in such work and needing your generosity. I have had it in very large measure. It has been a great satisfaction to me. With all of the responsibilities and anxieties incident to my position, life here has its pleasures and labor its compensations. I esteem myself fortunate that I and those nearest to me may be associated with so many young people at the college age, and that we may have a part in the upbuilding of a university with the great promise which we all believe is before this one. At a time in life and in circumstances which justify me in following my own inclinations in reasonable measure, I am, in the confidence of the approval of my work by the governing Board, as happy here as I could be anywhere, for I believe that as interesting and far-reaching educational work is to be done here as anywhere on earth. And your words of commendation shall be a new incentive to dwell in harmony with you and with all of our associates, and to put forth yet greater efforts for the highest and strongest development of the great interests in our hands.

A. S. DRAPER.

On motion of Mr. Smith, the Board declared itself to be in hearty sympathy with the views expressed by President Draper in the foregoing paper and pledged to him its hearty cooperation, and it was ordered that the paper be made a part of the minutes of the meeting. On motion of Mr. Bullard, the Board adjourned to 2:30 p. m.

AFTERNOON SESSION.

When the Board met pursuant to adjournment the same members were present as in the morning. A committee of gentlemen from the Illinois Farmers' Institute Association, Mr. Amos F. Moore, of Polo, President, and Messrs. S. Noble King, of Bloomington, A. P. Grout, of Winchester, and Chas. F. Mills, of Springfield, were heard in advocacy of the Board's asking of the Legislature an appropriation for an agricultural building and its furnishing, so as greatly to enlarge the equipment and facilities of the University for instruction in various lines of agriculture, special reference being had to dairying, horticulture, and stock raising. The gentlemen were told that the Board was heartily in favor of the proposition, and had already decided to ask the Legislature to appropriate $150,000 for said building and fittings and furnishings. I t was also urged by members of the Board, and promised by the visiting gentlemen, that the Illinois Farmers' Institute Association