Repository: UIHistories Project: Course Catalog - 1895-1896 [PAGE 24]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

24

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

all sold will add to the endowment fund nearly as much as was obtained for the much greater proportion of the scrip originally sold. The entire principal sum received from the sale of scrip and of land is to be held inviolate as endowment, only the income being available for current expenditures. To secure the location of the University several counties entered into a sharp competition by proposing to donate to its use specified sums of money, or their equivalent. Champaign county offered a large brick building, erected for a seminary and nearly completed, about 1,000 acres of land for a campus and farms, and $100,000 in county bonds. To this the Illinois Central railroad added $50,000 in freight. In consideration of this offer the institution was located, May 8, 1867, in the suburbs of Urbana, adjoining Champaign. The state legislature has from time to time' appropriated various sums for permanent improvements, as well as for maintenance. The present value of the entire property and assets is estimated at $1,600,000. The institution was incorporated under the name of the Illinois Industrial University the last day of February, 1867, and placed under the control of a board of trustees constituted of the governor, the superintendent of public instruction, and the president of the state board of agriculture, as ex-officio members, and twenty-eight citizens appointed by the governor. The chief executive officer, usually called president, was styled regent, and he was made, ex officio, a member of the board and presiding officer both of the board of trustees and of the faculty. In 1873 the board of trustees was reorganized by the reduction of the number of appointed members to nine and of ex-officio members to two, the governor and the president of the state board of agriculture. In 1887 a law was passed making membership elective at a general state election and restoring the superintendent of public instruction as an ex-officio member. There are, therefore, now three ex-officio members and nine by public suffrage. Since 1873 the president of the board has been chosen by the members thereof from among their own number, for a term of one year. The University was opened to students March 2, 1868, at which time there were present, beside the regent, three professors and about fifty students. During the first terin