Repository: UIHistories Project: Course Catalog - 1893-1894 [PAGE 15]

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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

The University of Illinois has its seat in Champaign county, in the eastern central part of the state, between the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana, within the corporate limits of the latter. It is one hundred and twenty-eight miles southward from Chicago, at the junction of the Illinois Central, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis, and the Wabash railways. The situation is a beautiful one, and the "art that doth mend nature" has added rare charms to the grounds and surroundings. The country around is one of the richest and most prosperous agricultural regions of the world, and the local municipalities, with a combined population of 11,000, are noted for public spirit and high moral tone. HISTORY. In 1862 the national government donated to each state in the Union public land scrip apportioned in quantity equal to 30,000 acres for each senator and representative in congress, "for the endowment, support and maintenance of at least one college, whose leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agri. culture and the mechanic arts, * * * * * j n order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life." Under this act Illinois received scrip for 480,000 acres of land subject to location in any surveyed but unoccupied part of the public domain, and 25,000 acres were thus located in Nebraska and Minnesota, while the remainder of the scrip was sold for what could be obtained. Of the land, about 14,000 acres have been sold at from $10.00 to $15.00 an acre. In compensation for waiting something more than a quarter of a century, the land thus secured has added and will add to the endowment fund nearly as much as was obtained for the vastly greater proportion of the scrip originally sold. The entire principal sum received from the sale of scrip and of land is held inviolate as endowment, the income only being available for current expenditures.