Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1910 [PAGE 199]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

1909]

PROCEEDINGS OE THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES.

161

with the University, proceeded to establish this school. At the time there was much erticism of this action of the trustees in the Legislature. Time, however, has fully justified its wisdom and the Legislature has finally approved in a definite way the establishment of the law school, by an appropriation for its maintenance. The University has expended thus far, i. e., to July 1, 1909, upon the support of the law school, not counting heat, light, janitor service or rent of building, about $175,000.00. It has received from tuition fees and special legislative appropriations for the law school about $110,000.00, leaving a net deficit of $65,000.00, which has been met from general University funds. The first recognition was in an appropriation bill passed by the General Assembly in 1901, for eight thousand dollars for reconstructing the old chemical laboratory so as to make it available for the college of law or the school of music. The board assigned it to the school of law. In 1903 the Legislature gave a small appropriation of twenty-five hundred dollars for furnishing and equipping the law building. This was the first definite recognition of the existence of a law school. In 1905 the Legislature gave ten thousand dollars per annum for further equipment of the law school. Half of this, however, was cut out by the Governor's veto. In 1907 the Legislature gave for equipment and support of the law school fifteen thousand dollars per annum. The board asked of the present Legislature two things, an increase in our appropriation for the general maintenance and support of the law school, and a further item for the purpose of erecting a fireproof stack in the present law building, for the purpose of housing our valuable law school library. These items were cut out of the bill in the Senate, some men maintaining that the University ought not to support a law school anyhow. These were only the faint echoes of the old sentiment now more than ten. years past, in regard to the true function of the State University in the field of legal education. One item had been cut out in the House bill, but finally when the bill went to the conference committee an increase of ten per cent was granted for equipment and support of the law school, and the item of ten thousand dollars for the erection of a fireproof stack in the present law school building was also reinserted. I regard this action of the Legislature as finally settling the question beyond the peradventure of a doubt that the University of Illinois should promote and foster the subject of legal education and legal learning as thoroughly and heartily as it fosters and promotes agriculture, engineering or general literary and scientific training. Another significant act of this Legislature is to be found in the increase of the appropriation for the school of pharmacy. This is a department located in the city of Chicago. It was taken over by the University without authorization of the Legislature, after a full discussion as to the desirability of undertaking this branch of education. The school maintained itself and paid its own expenses until the rising standards required by modern conditions and the consequent decrease in attendance with the ever increasing expense of administering a better school made it necessary to apply to the Legislature for support. The Forty-fifth General Assembly granted ten thousand dollars for the biennium. The Forty-sixth General Assembly, the present one, has granted twenty thousand dollars, thus doubling the appropriation. This is a significant action from several points of view. In the first place it is a recognition of the fact that it is the business of the trustees of this University under the charter given by the State, to take careful stock off the educational needs of the State, and when it, feels that the interests of higher education or the interests of agriculture or industry in this State demand the establishment of new departments of instruction or new departments of investigation, whether here in Urbana or in the city of Chicago, or any other place in the State, it may properly undertake such work. There was a determined effort made on the part of some members of the Legislature to cut down the appropriation for the purchase of books from — 1 1 IF