Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1914 [PAGE 735]

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1914]

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES.

733

Here again, following the general principle, the cafeteria was organized on the smallest possible economic basis of 150 to 200 guests, serving one meal a day. Anything smaller than this would result in a financial loss and would at once swamp the enterprise. It is a very small unit when compared with commercial cafeterias, which serve from one to three meals a day to from five hundred to fifteen hundred people. This, again, as in similar cases, has given rise to severe criticism and the threatened attempt to put the University out of business a t this point. It will, of course, give rise to the question whether the University is to be enabled to give instruction in lines that are demanded by the public who pay the bills for the operation of the University, and if it is to give the instruction, whether the department or the boarding-house keepers shall be the judge as to the methods of instruction to be pursued. Such a report as this might go on indefinitely, but I have stated enough to show the reason for the commercial activities which institutions like ours engage in and also the reasons for their being held a t the minimum. I will attempt to state the general principles covering the issue in the briefest possible form as follows: GENERAL PRINCIPLES GOVERNING COMMERCIAL ACTIVITIES OF AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENTS. 1. If an experiment or a course of instruction results in a product of commercial value, the department will realize upon that product or not according to the course which is cheapest. 2. If an experiment or a course of instruction involves a method of selling or of serving as well as the method of production, then the department is forced to engage in selling, in which case it will be guided by two principles. (a) The unit of activity must be large enough to serve the purpose and to be financially possible. (b) It will be no larger than this minimum unit, because all commercial business is distracting to the department and is of itself undesirable except for important reasons growing directly out of instruction and research. 3. Upon all these points the department must be the judge, just as the Department of Chemistry is judge of its laboratory work or the Department of Economics of what it teaches in the classroom ; and within the reasonable limits herein specified, it can be dictated to by no outside body. FINANCIAL REPORTS.

At this point Mr. Moore presented for the Finance Committee the reports of the United States Audit Company for the quarter ending December 31, 1913, and of Treasurer M. W. Busey for the quarters ending September 30 and December 31, 1913, which were received to be filed, certain parts to be printed in the minutes.

AUDIT REPORT.

February 9, 1914. Honorable Allen F. Moore, Chairman, Finance Committee, University of Illinois, Monticello, III. DEAR S I R : In accordance with your instruction, we have made an audit of the books and accounts of the University of Illinois for the second quarter of the fiscal year, ended December 31, 1913. We yerified the cash receipts in detail, as shown on Schedule "2." The cash disbursements, as shown on Schedules "4a" and "4b," were verified by us in total by comparing all vouchers issued during the quarter with entries in the warrant register, proving the footings of the warrant register and disbursement ledgers, and by reconciling the balances of the University treasurer and State Auditor as of December 31, 1913. We tested the postings to the disbursement ledgers, as summarized on the above named statements, and found all items so tested to be correct. We obtained a letter from Busey's Bank, certifying to balances as follows: General fund : $207,928 30 United States Agricultural Experiment Station fund 32,188 48 College of Medicine fund 18,143 78 School of Pharmacy fund 1,530 36 $259,790 92 We counted the cash fund of the bursar on the morning of January 6, 1914, and found same to be in accordance with the books. The interest on endowment fund due July 1, 1913, had not been received by the University of Illinois at the close of the quarter under review. We submit various schedules, as enumerated on the index prefixed hereto, and certify that the cash receipts and disbursements as shown therein are correct in total and in accordance with the books and records of the University of Illinois. Yours very truly,

UNITED STATES AUDIT CO. W H I T N E Y B. FLERSHEM.,

Certified Public

Accountant.