Repository: UIHistories Project: Course Catalog - 1893-1894 [PAGE 18]

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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

For these purposes direct appropriations are made by the legislature from session to session. A large amount of material has been collected and extended publications have been made in both the forms above mentioned. By an act approved March 2, 1887, the national government appropriated $15,000 per annum to each state for the purpose of establishing and maintaining, in connection with the colleges founded upon the congressional act of 1862, an agricultural experiment station, "to aid in acquiring and diffusing among the people of the United States useful and practical information on subjects connected with agriculture, and to promote scientific investigation and experiment respecting the principles and applications of agricultural science." Under this provision the station for Illinois was placed under the direction of the trustees of the University and its grounds were located on the University farm. At least one bulletin of results is published every three months, and they are for gratuitous distribution. Editions of 14,000 copies are now issued. For the more complete endowment of the state institutions founded upon the act of 1862, the congress of the United States made further appropriations by a supplementary law passed in 1890. Under this enactment each such college or university received the first year $15,000, the second $16,000, and likewise thereafter $1,000 per annum additional to the amount of the preceding year. The annual increase is to continue until the amount reaches $25,000, which sum is then to be paid yearly thereafter. Putting the congressional aids together there is made an exceedingly encouraging example for the state authorities to imitate. It cannot be said that the Illinois legislature has in the past contributed liberally to the University, but a disposition to do so has been much more manifest in recent sessions of that body. Besides $70,000 for a science building, the 37th General Assembly (1891) appropriated for the use of the University for two years the sum of 565,044.23, and the 38th (1893) passed appropriations for an engineers' building, $160,000, and for other purposes for two years $135,700. To date the total appropriations by the state to the University for all purposes whatsoever amount to $879,900. It has been mentioned that 77 students attended the first term in 1868. The total enrollments for the succeeding years to the present are as follows: 128, 180, 274, 381, 400, 405, 368, 370, 388, 387, 399, 414, 382, 352. 382, 33°. 332, 362, 343. 377. 4i7. 469, 519, 583. 714. 743It will be noted that for the last ten years each year, with a single exception, shows a gain over that preceding. The year's gain for 1892-93 was much the greatest, reaching 21 per cent over the attendance