Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1910 [PAGE 200]

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162

UNIVERSITY OF I L L I N O I S .

[June

M

fifty thousand dollars for the biennium to ten thousand dollars. There was some plausible excuse for this in the mind of some members arising from the fact that our library building so far as stack room had been provided for, was full, and there seemed to be little or no opportunity for increasing our capacity for taking care of books. After stating to the members that by completion of the stack in the present library building and by the addition of cases in the other rooms; in the building we could take care of all the books which we could purchase with the sum asked, opposition to this item disappeared, and the University received the same sum as two years ago. It is a matter of great regret that the University failed to get.the buildings which "it asked for. It was compelled to be content with one. A handsome appropriation was made for this. The sum of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, for a building which perhaps by common agreement is the most necessary building for the University, namely, a new University hall. The item asked for by the trustees for the maintenance and support of the veterinary college and research laboratory was lost. This is greatly to be regretted, as it represented an undertaking extremely important to the industry and health of this great commonwealth. The University asked for seventy-five thousand dollars per annum for the support and maintenance of a veterinary college and research laboratory. As to the research laboratory, we have hajd one at the University for more than ten years and desire very much the increased support this appropriation could have given. As to the request for the veterinary college, it was exactly such an appropriation as has been made by this Legislature in the law providing for the maintenance and support of mining engineering. We have aio veterinary college. We have no department of mining engineering. In the latter case the grant made will enable the University to make a start. In the former, if the grant had been made, we should have been in a position to do for the people of Illinois and the United States one of the greatest possible services. The Legislature appropriated in the general appropriation bill for the biennium, one million six hundred and forty-two thousand, five hundred dollars. In the building bill the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars ($250,000.00). In the agricultural bill the sum of three hundred and eighth-one thousand dollars ($381,000.00). In the mining engineering bill, the sum of fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000,00) for the biennium. In the general omnibus bill, providing for the support of the State departments, twenty-five thousand dollars was appropriated for the biennium for the department of ceramics. In addition the usual appropriation was made for the support of the State Laboratory of Natural History, and I understand that the appropriation made to the State entomologist for the purpose of curing and preventing insect attacks upon the trees of the State was also made. The usual appropriation of interest on the endowment fund of the University was made and the usual law providing for the assignment of the federal funds granted in aid of colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts, was also passed. On the whole, considering the fact that the State had a smaller revenue than usual, and that it was unwilling to raise more revenue by increased taxation, considering the great pressure for money for new purposes and' for the improvement and advance of old interests, the fact that the Legislature gave to the University about seventy thousand dollars including $7,500.00 for mining engineering more .than it ever gave before, is certainly a cause for congratulation, and I believe that there has never been a time in the history of the State when the interest of the citizens in the University and its work was as keen as it is now, and never a time in which their intelligent confidence was so great as at present. Printed below is an abstract of the appropriations made, followed by the texts of the important bills.