Repository: UIHistories Project: Course Catalog - 1868 [PAGE 17]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

16

Illinois Industrial University.

The students go out in squads, under their military officers, and under the general supervision of members of the Faculty. The labor is designed to be educational, and to exhibit the practical applications of the theories taught by the text books and in the lecture room. Thus far it has been popular among the students, several attributing to it the preservation of their health through a long term of severe study. They accomplished, altogether, a large amount of valuable work, and were proud to point to the grounds, fenced, planted with trees, and ornamented by their own labor. It was found to facilitate, rather than hinder study, and afforded a much more valuable means of physical culture than any system of gymnastics. The labor is compensated in proportion to the ability and fidelity of each laborer, the maximum compensation being eight cents an hour. Many students voluntarily worked over hours, and received for such overwork twelve -and a half cents an hour. The experience of the term tended to confirm the belief that this union and alternation of mental and muscular effort will not only give the " sound mind in a sound body," but will help to produce educated men who will be strong, practical, and self-reliant, full of resource, and practical in judgment, the physical equals of the strongest, and the mental peers of the wisest; redeeming higher education from the odium of puny forms and pallid faces, and restoring the long lost and much needed sympathy between educated men and the great industrial and business classes. It is not expected that all prejudice against work will disappear at once, or that labor will at once assume for all, its position of native dignity and honor; but we may confidently hope, if our increasing numbers do not render it impracticable to furnish profitable employment, finally to overcome the strongest prejudices, and render the labor system one of the most popular features of the University with the public as well as with the students themselves.

THE UNIVERSITY UNIFORM.

Under the authority of the act of incorporation the Trustees have prescribed that all the students shall wear the University uniform. This uniform consists of a suit of cadet, gray mixed cloth, of the same color and quality as that worn at West Poiut and manufactured bv the same establishment.