Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1918 [PAGE 270]

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266

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

[March 13,

March 12, 1917 Building

President

Edmund

/ . James, 355 Administration

M Y DEAR PROFESSOR J A M E S :

In reply to your inquiry I submit a brief report of progress on the History of the University. The first volume of this history is nearing completion. I plan to have the copy ready for the printer by May 1. It may be necessary to hold it back for a month or more, however, so that I may have opportunity to examine-several boxes of letters of the late Judge Lyman Trumbull. T h e owners of these letters have promised to let me see them in the early spring. There is also a chance that permission will be given to examine in the early summer the papers of the late Justin Morrill. The purpose in both cases, as you know, is to find still more direct evidence of the connection of Professor Turner and other Illinois men with the introduction into Congress of the Land Grant Bill. The first volume of the History of the University will contain an account of the origin and development of the Illinois Plan for a System of Industrial Universities, one in each of the States of the Union. It will show that an Illinois man was the originator of the idea, that he added another idea that these Universities should be supported by a Federal Grant; that Illinois men carried on a thorough campaign for years both in Illinois and outside of the State, to educate the public to the necessity of such a system. T h e Illinois influence will be traced until the Federal Land Grant Bill becomes a law in 1862. Then will follow an account of the struggle in Illinois upon the question of the disposition of the Federal funds, whether to existing Colleges or to one College to be created—and upon the question of the location of the University. The final chapters will be on the actual establishment of the Illinois Industrial University and the. serious problems it had to meet during the first two or three years. The sources of information on this period are various. First in importance is the correspondence of Professor Turner with the men of his time. These letters have come from Springfield, from Washington, D. C , from individuals, from newspapers, from public archives, and other places. Then the newspapers of the times, correspondence of other men, various society reports, and many legislative and other public documents have furnished large amounts of material bearing directly upon the subject discussed. The volume will contain in an appendix many of the original documents as The Plan for An Industrial University by Professor Turner, Memorials, Design of the Illinois League, Original Contract for Champaign-Urbana Institute, certain letters never before published showing influence of Illinois men upon other states, and many others equally interesting. Respectfully submitted,

B. E. POWELL

This report was received for record.