Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1914 [PAGE 734]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

732

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

[March 10,

In connection with the disposition of butter there generally arises the question of the retail business. It has almost invariably resulted in the institution conducting a small retail business at the usual retail prices. However, this has been mainly in response to the demand of the public outside and in general without the desire o fthe department. It arises in this way: Professor Jones or Mayor Smith very much desire University butter. It is not handled by his grocer, and thereupon his family prefers to send or to go direct to the institution for the sake of getting the product, in which case it has commonly been the practice to let them have it, all of which affords a good example of the fact that within the community the dealers and the consuming public are often at opposites. MILK. Manifestly the handling of cheese and ice cream would follow the same lines as those developed in the butter business, but when the institution is conducting investigations in a city milk trade or giving courses of Instruction in city milk supply, an additional element enters the field, namely, the method of sale as well as the manufacture of the product. Butter is commonly sold like any other standard commodity, passing from the manufacturers to the retailers through the wholesale trade and sold in wrappers. Milk, on the other hand, is extremely perishable, and its successful handling depends as much upon the methods of transportation and distribution as upon the way in which the intial product is manufactured. It therefore becomes necessary in conducting instruction and experiments of this kind, to actually handle the product through serving the community by a milk route. This invariably gives rise to opposition among local milk men. For example, in our own institution many years ago, we began, as a matter of experimentation, the delivery of milk in bottles, ours being the first bottled milk in Illinois. This was long before such a thing as • certified milk was known. The local milk men were at that time peddling from market wagons or old buggies. The milk was kept in cans and dipped or poured into the customer's pitcher or crock. The dealers objected strenously to our bottles and our painted wagons and undertook by every device which they could invent to prevent the University from going on with its experiment. The final result was of course, new standards of commercial milk and the imitation of our methods with more or less success on the part of the dealers. From time to time, however, there has arisen the objection that we were interfering with local business, though- we have always limited the amount to the capacity of a single wagon, which is really an unprofitable minimum. The present flurry among milk men is due to the fact that Dr. Harding has undertaken to reduce our losses by making two trips with one wagon, in this way taking on a few additional names from our long waiting list, which sometimes contains fifty or more names of people who have been waiting possibly as long as five years. The whole distribution at the present time is about 450 quarts of milk a day, an amount which is certainly insignificant in a population of twenty-five thousand people. Whether it would be insignificant or not, the department clearly must reserve the right to conduct a minimum business with the least loss possible when that business is of necessity involved in its regular work of instruction, and for this purpose it is entitled to enjoy the same local privileges as any other dealer. DISPOSAL OF FLOWERS. With the development of the floricultural interests of the University there inevitably arose the question of the disposal of the flowers. In this case the opposition to the University procedure took the form of an attempt on the part of the local dealers to induce the State Florists' Association to pass resolutions condemning the University for selling stock locally. As usual, the argument was based upon the assertion that our stock was inferior, thus tending to destroy local standards. Upon this point, as in other similar instances, the opinion of the public will be found a t variance with that of the dealers; indeed, the real fact was that the quality of the flowers produced by the University had tended, as in the case of milk, to set new standards in the public mind. The Department of Horticulture has never put its flowers upon the open market, not because of this objection, but because it has never felt that it was justified in the expense of selling its stock other than wholesale. Again, speaking for the general interest, I should certainly reserve the right to dispose of the flowers of the University greenhouses, necessarily produced in the course of instruction and experimentation, in such a way as seems best to promote the floricultural interests of the University, financially as well as otherwise. It is perfectly easy to see that conditions may one day arise when the growth of numbers in the floricultural classes will make it in every way desirable, if not necessary, that the University flowers should be put on the retail market. CAFETERIA. With the expansion of the Department of Household Science, covering many lines of food and its preparation, the demand arose for instruction in lunchroom management. This was a perfectly natural demand in view of the rapid increase of cafeterias in connection, with Christian Associations, high schools, et cetera. It is impossible to give valuable instruction in lunchroom management which would enable the students successfully to conduct such enterprises unless the department should actually have in operation a living cafeteria. Here again, as in the case of milk, the point of instruction was not simply the preparation of the product, but its final disposition; that is to say, there is as much in the outfitting and operation of the eating-room as in the installation and operation of the kitchen.