Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1916 [PAGE 874]

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874

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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

[Jan

11,

to vacate that site. They have tried to secure a portion of it for the Clinical Building, but did not succeed. In answer to your fifth question, I think the only action which would be necessary on the part of the Board of Trustees of Rush Medical College in reference to the property of the school, would be to deed the entire property with all privileges, franchises, contracts, etc., to the Trustees of the University of Illinois. With this, of course, should go to the working contracts with the Presbyterian and other hospitals. I presume that after the Board of Trustees of Rush Medical College had deeded the property to the University they could practically close the corporation of Rush Medical College by resigning their positions as Trustees and giving up the charter. In insisting on a complete passing of the property and privileges, I am only concerned to do what may be necessary in order to get adequate state support for the Medical Department. The University of Illinois could not, of course, spend any money on property or an enterprise which did not belong completely to the State. In answer to your sixth question, in case the Trustees of the University of Illinois should take over Rush Medical 'College property, it would be necessary, I take it, for the resignations of the members of the present staff to accompany such action. This is the practical situation with the members of the present clinical staff of the University of Illinois. I have indicated above the plan which will be pursued in forming a new clinical faculty; namely, I should nominate to the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois a Dean of the Medical College, and on his appointment he would proceed to make nominations to me for the positions on the staff. In answer to your seventh question, the Counsel of the University informs me that it is entirely within the power of the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois to make contracts with the Presbyterian Hospital, the Home for Destitute Crippled Children, and other hospitals now affiliated with Rush Medical College, and carry them out in the same way in which Rush Medical College has been carrying them out in past years. The powers of the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, as conferred by the law creating the institution, are very comprehensive, with full power to make contracts in furtherance of the purposes for which the University exists. The question as to the method by which a corporation, organized not for profit, may pass out of existence has not, I presume, been decided by the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois; but in a somewhat similar case the Supreme Court of California held that it was perfectly proper and in harmony with the principles of public policy for a private institution to pass over to the State University its property for the uses for which the property was given to the corporation. I should think that in deeding the property of Rush Medical College to the. Trustees of Illinois, the statement should be made that inasmuch as the Trustees of the Rush Medical College desire to make more effective the purpose for which property has been given it and the corporation organized, namely, the promotion of medical research and education, they have decided to deed to the Trustees of the University of Illinois in trust, to use for the promotion of medical research and education, the property now Owned by the corporation. I may say further that in case the Trustees of Rush Medical College should pass oyer the property, franchises, contracts, etc., of Rush Medical College to the Trustees of the University of Illinois for the advance of medical education, I should be willing to recommend to the Trustees of the University of Illinois,- that, in addition to the appropriations made for the support of the school at the present time, the sum of fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) per annum be appropriated for the support of the work of the clinical years, and that this sum of fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) per annum should be in addition to the sum received from fees of students in the junior and senior years of the Medical School. I take it that the fees of students belonging to the junior and senior classes, would, in case of consolidation, amount to some thirty-five thousand dollars ($35,000) per annum. To this would be added the sum of fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) per annum, i. e., the income at five per cent on a million dollars. I am also sure that this sum would be only a beginning. The University will surely develop its Medical School as it has its Schools of Agriculture and Engineering. In ten years the University of Illinois will be spending, in my opinion, a million dollars per annum on medical education and research. I don't know that there is anything further that I could say which would be of interest or value, except that I should like to call attention to the fact that there is no doubt that the State, in the Mississippi Valley at any rate, will be the controlling feature in medical education and research. The State medical schools are destined to be, speaking generally, the great medical schools. There is a peculiar propriety in asking the State to support medical education and research, inasmuch as the chief benefit accrues to the members of society as a whole through the improving conditions of public health. I believe that a union of Rush Medical College with the University of Illinois at the present time would promote* in the most efficient way the advance of medical research and medical education in the city of Chicago, the State of Illinois, and the whole Mississippi Valley. By such a union, we could accomplish in the next five years in this important department of social effort more than can be accomplished in twenty-five years without such union. Faithfully yours,

EDMUND J. JAMES.