Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1902 [PAGE 229]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

210

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

[Dec. 10,

road to withdraw from Green street. Still there need be little hesitancy in saying that the interests of the University would be still better subserved by an agreement which would permit the continuance of the road upon Green and the acquisition of such compensatory rights or privileges as would enable us to take the old railway line under our care and put it in condition to conform to the campus and contribute to the beauty rather than menace the attractiveness thereof. I am not without hope that this may be accomplished, and recommend that the whole matter be referred to the Committee on Buildings and Grounds with power to take what action it may think well in the premises, and with the injunction that it take early and decisive steps to protect and promote the University interests as best it can. 10. Touching the recommendations in the communication from the Dean of the College of Agriculture and Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station, I recommend: (a) That the decoration of Morrow Hall be authorized at an expense not to exceed $300, to be paid from the fund for furnishing the Agricultural Buildings, provided there shall remain a sufficient amount after the payment of existing obligations, and not otherwise; and that the work proceed under the direction of Professor Wells, upon plans to be approved by me. (b) That Professor Hopkins be authorized, with the approval of the Business Manager, to dispose of a two-horse direct current motor. (c) The recommendation that the bill of $839.65 for changes in rooms at the Agricultural Buildings and not duly authorized, be paid from the fund for "draining, fencing and repairs on the experimental farms" should, in my judgment be modified. This bill has occasioned some annoyance. The Business Manager has very properly refused to pay it. Yet the University will have to pay it, because the University has appropriated the labor and materials to its own uses. The builder is not chargeable with knowledge that the work was not duly authorized. Dean Davenport assumes responsibility for having the work done without authority and says all that he could be expected to say concerning that phase of the matter. It is likely that the changes are desirable. It is probable that if they had been formally presented and freely considered they would have been authorized. I had only the slightest information in reference thereto, and that I gave to the Board at the June meeting when recommending an appropriation of $800 for equipment of a bacteriological laboratory I said, verbally, that I was assured the rooms would be prepared at the expense of special agricultural funds. I have had no responsibility, and have taken no action in the premises. I know very well that there has been no intentional wrong in the matter. The difficulty has arisen out of the multiplication of operations and the confusion of procedure incident thereto in the affairs of the College of Agriculture. I recommend that the; bill be paid; but it would clearly be a diversion of the fund "for draining, fencing, and repairs on the experimental f a i m " to use it for this purpose. This fund has heretofore been, in some measure at least, used for purposes not intended by the legislative act; but it is all needed, and indeed is wholly insufficient, to do for the farms what their welfare and appearance imperatively demand. It seems to me that it would come as near the right as we are likely to succeed in doing if we charged half of this bill to the State Station fund and half to the funds of the Agricultural College, and I so recommend. (d) That the estimates for the College of Agriculture and the Experiment Station for the quarter ending March 31, 1902 be approved as follows: